Sometimes, it seems like Prince William and Kate Middleton have been together forever. They did, after all, meet when they were still at university - back when Princess Beatrice had yet to wear many memorable pieces from her iconic hat collection. But Prince William reportedly had an active social life pre-Kate.
"He is only 24 and simply wasn't ready to settle down. He has always had a roving eye, far more so than Harry, who is meant to be the family playboy. That's something Kate has always known and accepted - it was part of the deal, if you like," a source told the Evening Standard in 2007.
So which ladies allegedly caught his eye? Here's some of Prince William’s reported romances, from his first university love interest to the ex he ventured to Kenya for.
Davina Duckworth-Chad
Davina was spotted with Will briefly before he left for university all the way back in the late 1990s. According to the Daily Mail, she once accompanied Prince William on a cruise in 1999 in the Aegean Sea. But it wasn’t a summer fling - Prince Charles and Camilla were also on board as chaperones.
The two are still family friends and Davina was invited to the royal wedding in 2011. They are also technically related, as Davina’s mother was a second cousin of Princess Diana.
Prince William and Prince Harry both went to her wedding to Tom Barker, the son of a baronet, in 2004.
Olivia Hunt
Pre-Kate, there was Olivia Hunt, an aspiring writer who he briefly dated his first year at St Andrews.
In 2007, friends told royal reporter Katie Nicholl that “William was seeing Olivia when he met Kate and when Kate came on the scene, Olivia moved off pretty quickly.”
She’s still pals with the royals and has even gone skiing with Will and Kate. Hunt has since married Nicholas Wilkinson, once voted the country’s “hottest barrister” on a legal blog.
Rose Farquhar
Rose is another woman of regal lineage.
Prince William and Rose were childhood friends and are still close, although it’s rumored that they dated for a short time in college.
Her father is Captain Ian Farquhar, who was previously Master of the Beaufort Hunt. After she and Prince William briefly dated they broke up and she moved to New York to attend acting school at the famous Lee Strasberg Institute.
She’s now a singer and auditioned for The Voice UK in 2016 with “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” although none of the celebrity judges chose her for their teams. She wouldn’t be the only prince’s ex who appeared on reality TV - Camilla Thurlow reportedly briefly dallied with Prince Harry before appearing on Love Island
Carly Massy-Birch
Prince William reportedly romanced Carly during his first semester at university. While it was a short-lived fling, their relationship reportedly came up during a heated game of Never Have I Ever, when Carly said, “I’ve never dated two people in this room.” According to royal reporter Katie Nicholls in her book The making of a Royal Romance, Prince William responded with a “thunderous look.”
Her parents confirmed the romance to The Daily Mail, saying, “She went out with William for six or seven weeks when they first arrived at St Andrews.”
Vanity Fair reported that Prince William often went to dinner at her home and liked that she was a self-proclaimed “country bumpkin.”
“We got on well, but I think we would have got on well even if nothing had been going on romantically. It was very much a university thing, just a regular university romance,” she said about the relationship. “There wasn’t really a club at St. Andrews, so we tended to go to pubs and bars, and there was always a good dinner party going on.”
Jecca Craig
According to Vanity Fair, Wills first met Jecca in 1998 in Kenya during a school holiday. While they never truly dated, he was reported to have a bit of a crush on her.
Prince William made waves when he attended the socialite’s wedding back in 2016. He flew to Kenya for the festivities when his former teen dream married conservationist Jonathan Bailie. Perhaps he just wanted a vacation - the wedding took place on a wildlife reserve run by her father, Ian Craig. The families have known each other for years.
Jecca grew up in Kenya, where she attended boarding school, but she and her family regularly ventured to London. Rumor has it that Kate Middleton has at times been a bit jealous of Jecca - especially during their brief break-up.
Isabella Calthorpe
Prince William met the beautiful blonde, blue-blooded actress Isabella Calthorpe through his cousin, Princess Eugenie, in 2001 when he was still a wide-eyed teen and hadn’t met Kate. Her half-sister is Cressida Bonas, who famously dated Prince Harry for years.
Her parents are businessman John Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe and banking heiress Lady Mary-Gaye Georgiana Lorna Curzon (her father was the 6th Earl Howe), making her ideal for the throne. Unfortunately, they never started seriously dating despite Prince William's reported infatuation.
Now, Isabella is off the market. In 2013 she married Richard Branson’s son, Sam, who is heir to a casual multi-billion fortune. Prince William didn’t head to this wedding, which was at Richard Branson’s safari lodge near Kruger National Park, but Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie both attended the festivities. The star-studded wedding reportedly involved "days of partying" on a private reserve.
