Princess Kate and her late mother-in-law Princess Diana shared many similarities, from their fashion choices and approach to royal life to their hands-on parenting styles. However, there is one thing that Kate now has that Diana always desperately wanted, according to former royal butler Paul Burrell.
Despite never having the chance to meet, Kate and Diana had much in common. Diana’s love for her sons William and Harry was evident, but Burrell revealed in Amazon’s 2017 documentary “The Diana Story” that she longed for a daughter. He stated, “To have another baby girl in the family would have made everything for Diana. She was robbed of the opportunity of loving her grandchildren – especially Charlotte. She would have loved Kate, too.”
Kate and William welcomed their daughter Princess Charlotte in May 2015, after the birth of Prince George in July 2013 and before the arrival of Prince Louis in 2018. Burrell’s comments suggest that while Diana cherished her sons, she harbored a deep desire for a daughter, a wish that Kate has fulfilled with the birth of Princess Charlotte.
Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana’s name pays tribute to her late paternal grandmother, Diana, Princess of Wales, whom she tragically never had the opportunity to meet. It is said that the young royal bears resemblance to her grandmother in various ways, including her affinity for dance.
From an early age, Diana excelled in sports and dance, and during her school years, she would surreptitiously practice ballet for extended periods in the hall at night. At the conclusion of the spring term in 1976, she emerged victorious in a dancing competition, though her height of 5 feet 10 inches precluded her from pursuing her passion further. Dance was also purported to have aided Diana during her divorce.
More recently, in the preceding year, Catherine, Princess of Wales, informed a young dancer, “My daughter Charlotte enjoys dancing; she loves ballet and tap. Keep up the dancing.” Earlier in 2023, the Princess of Wales accompanied Princess Charlotte and her friends to a performance of Cinderella at the Royal Opera House in London, celebrating the Princess’s eighth birthday.
While Catherine and her children never had the chance to meet Diana, who tragically perished in a car accident in August 1997, Prince William has revealed how he keeps his mother’s memory alive for the young royals. In the 2017 documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy, Prince William stated, “I am constantly talking about Granny Diana with the children. We have more photos of her around the house now, and we talk about her a bit and stuff.”
“It’s hard because obviously Catherine didn’t know her, so she cannot really provide that — that level of detail,” he said. “So, I do [when] regularly putting George or Charlotte to bed, talk about her and just try and remind them that there are two grandmothers, there were two grandmothers in their lives, and so it’s important that they know who she was and that she existed.”
