Did Kate Middleton’s mother, Carole Middleton, play matchmaker between her eldest daughter and now-husband Prince William?
Well, “The Crown” seems to think so.
The final six episodes of the royal drama dropped on Thursday, and the episode titled “Alma Mater” focuses on the Princess of Wales and her mom, 68.
The future Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, now 41, met while they were both studying at Scotland’s University of St Andrews in 2001.
Kate caught the eye of her longtime love during a charity fashion show at the time while wearing a skimpy dress.
Carole (played by actress Eve Best) is portrayed in the Netflix series as seemingly orchestrating her daughter’s relationship with the future king.
Before getting on the runway, Carole told Kate (Meg Bellamy): “Heels not flats, you still want to show off those legs. It’s our duty to make use of the assets God has given us.”
“Does he know you’re back on the market? Maybe find a way of letting him know,” she advised Kate of making an impression on William.
During another scene, Kate yelled at her mother for being pushy with her attempts to get together with the Prince of Wales.
“You don’t know him. What if William isn’t right for me? What about what I want?” a young adult Kate sobbed to Carole.
“Once you had the idea fixed in your head you never stopped,” she continued, blasting her mother’s aims to prop her daughter up as an object of desire for the royal.
Royal expert Tessa Dunlop claimed that Carole is being featured as a “meddlesome” matchmaker in the show.
“Speculation has long persisted that Kate swapped her first choice of Edinburgh University for St Andrews when she heard that William was heading there,” she told the Mirror Thursday.
She added: “In ‘The Crown,’ the real driver behind the romance is Carole Middleton, a self-made businesswoman who was once an air hostess. Again [creator] Peter Morgan picks on an outsider to deliver the tension.”
Carole was the owner of a party-supply company called Party Pieces from 1987 until 2023. When she was 21, she joined British Airways as a member of the cabin crew.
Dunlop then referred to the plot point that was prevalent earlier in Season 6, with Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla)’s father Mohamed Al-Fayed (Salim Dau) apparently attempting to fix his son up with Princess Diana — an act that painted the Egyptian billionaire as a “villain.”
The historian then noted that the series deemed Carole — not Kate — “who delivers the social-climbing match-making narrative.”
“We will never know exactly what role Carole Middleton played, but we can confirm that she successfully pulled the Middleton family up by the financial boots straps,” Dunlop added.
“When it comes to bagging a royal, money talks. Whether deliberately or accidentally, perhaps Carole Middleton played Cupid after all.”