Royal biographer Robert Jobson recently revealed that Princess Kate Middleton once sent a ‘humorous’ email to her friends asking them for an unexpected nickname change, something that was completely unanticipated as they had long referred to her by that name.
In his latest book, Jobson cites a 2008 article by Sunday Express columnist Adam Helliker, who at the time claimed that the Princess of Gales wrote “A humorous email to her close friends” with the intention that they would no longer call her by the nickname they had always used to refer to her.
“The former accessories buyer has quietly informed friends that she would like to drop the informal ‘Kate’ and in future wishes to be known by her full name: Catherine“, wrote Helliker. For Jobson, this request from Kate Middleton “was part of a bigger preparation for her formal public role as Prince William’s future wife“.
Although it is not really clear if that was the real intention, since the biographer also assured that the now Princess of Wales “had a genuine desire to go by her full name“, the request to remove her informal nickname was made in 2008, two years before William proposed to her.