It was the royal romance that remained out of the public eye for more than two years.
Prince William’s relationship with Kate Middleton at the University of St Andrews began as a friendship and then grew into something more in 2002.
Though not announced officially to the world until 2005, ‘it was an open secret’ among the student community, Robert Jobson writes in his new biography of the Princess of Wales.
But it was not until the they played a drinking game at a dinner party that the pair acknowledged it to others.
Carly Massy-Birch, who William briefly dated during his first term, asked a question during a round of ‘Never Have I Ever’ that would uncover his relationship with Kate.
Katie Nicholl, as mentioned by Mr Jobson, outlined the incident in her 2013 book, Kate: The Future Queen.
A party guest had told Nicholl how Carly ‘announced “I’ve never dated two people in this room,” knowing full well that William was the only one who had because Kate was sitting next to him’.
The prince allegedly responded with a ‘thunderous look’ and whispered to his ex, ‘I can’t believe you just said that’.
Jobson told how William and Kate ‘could often be spotted walking or cycling to lectures, browsing the aisles of the local Safeway supermarket or spending quiet evenings at home, listening to William’s R&B tracks or Fergus’s jazz on their music systems’.
They lived together, with Fergus Boyd and Olivia Bleasdale, in a maisonette on Hope Street in the centre of town and paid £100 a week in rent.
‘We moved in together as friends because we were living together, we lived with a couple of others as well, and it just sort of blossomed from there really,’ the Prince later said in the couple’s official engagement interview.
Kate told TV chef Mary Berry on her 2019 TV show A Berry Royal Christmas that William loved to ‘impress’ her with his cooking skills while they were at university.
‘In university days he used to cook all sorts of meals,’ she said.
‘I think that’s when he was trying to impress me, Mary! Things like Bolognese sauce, and things like that.’
The direction of what was initially a friendship may have changed in 2002, when William discreetly paid for a ticket to a charity gala, where he Kate walk down the catwalk in a racy see-through outfit.
He is said to have declared to a friend when he saw her: ‘Wow. Kate’s hot!’
The pair were identified as a couple when they were photographed together on the slopes at Klosters in Switzerland in 2005.
Jobson wrote how Kate’s father, Michael Middleton, had tried to squash rumours two years before.
He told reporters outside of the family home: ‘I spoke to her just a few days ago and can categorically confirm they are no more than just good friends.’
Any hard feelings William may have had towards Massy-Birch did not last. She was invited to William and Kate’s wedding in 2011.
