Did Kate and William meet before they went to St Andrew's and did she really buy a Big Issue from him?

Did Kate Middleton and Prince William meet before St Andrew's? Here's what we know about the validity of that scene in The Crown.

Following the release of season 6 part 2, some viewers are wondering where The Crown was filmed, and how much truth is in these episodes. In particular, many are curious about episode 7, Alma Mater, which raised many questions about who Kate and William dated before each other and how the Prince and Princess of Wales first met.

In one interesting part of the episode, the creators suggested that the royal couple actually met several years before they went to university together, when Catherine bought a magazine from the young Prince and his mother, Princess Diana in 1996.

In the episode, Kate and Carole Middleton were shopping in London when they suddenly spotted Prince William and Princess Diana collecting money for homelessness by selling Big Issue magazines. Kate gave Diana a £5 note and was thanked for the 'generous' donation by the Princess who then asked for her name. Carole replied, 'Catherine' and Kate quickly added, 'Kate's fine' and had a lingering look with Prince William who handed her the magazine and said 'Thank You' and 'Merry Christmas'.

This then prompted Kate to go back home and cut out photos from a magazine of the Prince, saying 'He seems kind, and has a nice face.' Carole then gave her a speech about how she should never think that anyone is out of her league and that she could most certainly get anyone she wants. But did this incident really happen? Did Kate and William meet before they went to St Andrew's together?

Although The Crown suggests that Kate and William met briefly in December 1996 , there is nothing to corroborate this. Princess Diana did support many homeless charities and recently Prince William has been snapped selling the Big Issue in London, so this storyline does have a grounding of truth, but Kate and William did not meet until many years after Diana's death. Both the Prince and Princess have claimed many times that they met in 2001, at St Andrew's. 

In 2011 Kate revealed they ran in similar circles at the small University and she was actually very shy about meeting the Prince at first. In their engagement interview, Kate said, "I actually think I went bright red when I met you and sort of scuttled off, feeling very shy about meeting you," said Kate. "It did take a bit of time for us to get to know each other but we did become very close friends from quite early."

In their engagement interview in 2010, Prince William added that they also didn't start dating until they lived together. "We moved in together as friends because we were living together, we lived with a couple of others as well, and it just sort of blossomed from there really," he said.

The Netflix series likely invented this scene to suggest that Kate and Carole Middleton had somewhat of a plan to get Kate with Prince William, because Kate had a crush on him when she was 15. There were rumours that Kate had photographs of Prince William on her wall, but she herself claimed that it was the Levi's jeans model instead of the Prince on her childhood wall.

For years there have been rumours that Kate planned to get with Prince William before they met and even changed universities just to meet him. “Kate was very strategic," Royal Historian, Robert Lacey wrote in his 2020 book Battle of Brothers. "She gave up her place at one of Britain’s premier universities, Edinburgh, and opted for another one [St. Andrews] that probably didn’t have the same academic standard. She had already been to Edinburgh to get her flat accommodations sorted out but switched universities and switched her courses to History of Art because that was William’s. She delayed her own education by a year and even takes the chance she won’t get into St. Andrews."

Despite these comments and The Crown's portrayal of Carole Middleton as a kind of 'Mrs Bennet', the show has been upfront about the fact that this is not a 100% historically accurate show. For example, the finale suggested that the Queen considered stepping down and abdicating in 2005 - which appears to be an invented story that only served the plot and was not a reflection of real events.