Prince William Cheating Rumors

Submission 6,840

Overview

Prince William Cheating Rumors refers to a tabloid rumor that Prince William is cheating on Kate Middleton with her best friend, the Marchioness of Cholmondeley, Rose Hanbury. While the rumors have been denied by the couple, they nevertheless trended on Twitter in April of 2019.

Background

On March 22nd, 2019, The Sun reported that friends Kate Middleton and good friend Rose Hanbury had had a falling out.^[1] In Touch magazine reported in their April issue that the reason for this may have been because Prince William cheated on Middleton with Hanbury. The rumor had been circulating for a year, but In Touch was the first publication to publish a story on it.^[2] This led the royal family's lawyers to get involved, saying the story "was totally wrong and false,” and threatened legal action on publications running the story.^[3]

Developments

Online Reaction

The introduction of legal action drew social media users' attention, as users began to point out what they felt was unfair scrutiny of Meghan Markle, wife of Prince Harry, compared to Prince William. Twitter user MoiraMoturi^[4] made a joke to that point on April 25th, 2019, gaining over 39,000 retweets and 161,000 likes (shown below, left). User @shammahthellama tweeted a GIF from Drake and Josh making the point (shown below, right), gaining over 20,000 retweets.

Others were more critical of Prince Williams looks. User @addisonclarkk^[5] joked that William shouldn't cheat considering his looks, gaining over 3,300 retweets and 18,000 likes (shown below, left). User @sabrina_arsenal joked that William had one of the worst "glow downs" in history (shown below, right). Jokes were covered by StayHipp.^[6]