Ever wonder why scandals involving the Royal Family are so juicy? It’s simple, really: the men and women of this family are rich and famous from the moment they are born. This, plus our cultural fascination with handsome princes and kindly kings (both staples of fairy tales), makes many people subconsciously look at royals as different or even better than the rest of humanity. Good, old-fashioned scandals are a nice, sobering reminder that the average person isn’t all that different from the average royal (minus, you know, all the money!).
Case in point: many royals have stayed on shockingly good terms with their ex-girlfriends and ex-boyfriends. In some instances, these friendships resulted in scandals so wild that it nearly tore a royal relationship apart. Just which royals remained on great terms with their exes? How do we know, and what was the fallout? Keep reading to find out!
Prince William went to his first serious girlfriend’s wedding
While all members of the Royal Family face a certain amount of pressure, none of them feel the pressure quite as much as Prince William. After all, he’s the future King of England, and the eyes of the world are on him at all times. The world was certainly watching when Prince William developed his first serious relationship with a woman named Rose Farquhar. In order to retain their mutual privacy (and avoid accidentally spilling any royal tea), however, the two refrained from ever publicly commenting on their relationship.
From the outside looking in, though, it certainly seems like they ended things on good terms. After all, William invited Farquhar to his wedding to Kate Middleton back in 2011. And in 2022, she got to return William’s favor by inviting him to her own wedding. Both accepted the other’s invitation, though William did his best to keep a low profile at her own wedding. Still, the general consensus is that his very attendance was a symbolic way of demonstrating how much her friendship still meant to him.
RELATED: The Unknown Truth Of Prince William And Rose Hanbury’s Relationship
Prince Harry invited an ex to his wedding
These days, Prince Harry is considered a very rebellious royal, someone who is completely different from his brother (the man who would be king). Before Harry went rogue on the Royal Family, though, he was often more like than William than you might think. And he followed in his brother’s footsteps by inviting an old flame to his wedding!
For a time, Harry was romantically involved with a woman named Chelsy Davy. Presumably, part of what made her so attractive to the prince was that she never seriously wanted to be part of the Royal Family. Instead, she was content for them to share an on-again, off-again relationship that let them get together whenever Harry’s schedule allowed it.
They eventually broke up, but this coule was once close enough that William asked Harry if it would be okay to invite Davy to the upcoming wedding with Kate Middleton. Harry said yes, giving him a chance to reconnect with his ex. Things apparently went quite well, and Harry went on to invite Davy to his 2018 wedding to Meghan Markle!
Kate Middleton invited an ex to her wedding
In case you were wondering, the practice of royals staying on good terms with their exes is not limited to the male members of the family. For example, after Sarah Ferguson and the now-disgraced Prince Andrew broke up, they remained on such good terms that they continued living together. Still, that wasn’t nearly as surprising to most royal outsiders as the fact that Kate Middleton invited the first real love of her life to her wedding!
When Kate was attending Marlborough College, she began a relationship with a man named Willem Marx. Things apparently got quite serious: a source close to Kate told The Telegraph in 2011 that he was Kate’s first real love and, even after she began dating her future husband, “Willem [meant] a lot to Kate.” And she ended up proving just how much she still cared by inviting her first love to her wedding to Prince William!
RELATED: Kate Middleton’s Exes: What Are They Now?
Prince William was a little too friendly to an ex-girlfriend
By now, you’ve probably noticed that most royals draw an invisible line when it comes to maintaining relationships with their exes. Basically, it’s fine to stay in touch, and it’s even okay to invite an old flame to your wedding. But if you go much further than that, you’re inviting some serious scandal.
That’s something that Prince William discovered the hard way when he kept up a very active friendship with his ex-girlfriend, Jessica Craig. According to royal biographer Christopher Andersen, William continued visiting Kenya so he could spend time with Craig, even after he began dating Kate. Things allegedly got so bad that both Prince Harry and then-Prince Charles (himself no stranger to awkward love triangles) had to tell William to knock it off. He eventually listened, but this didn’t keep him from attending Craig’s wedding in 2016; unsurprisingly, Kate did not join him!