How Prince William's friendship with Anna Sloan nearly ended his relationship with Kate Middleton.

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While the 18-year relationship between Duchess Catherine and Prince William can be considered idyllic in many ways, just like all couples, the pair have gone through their ups and downs.

Their most public ‘break up’ was of course their three-month separation in 2007, when their long-distance relationship proved too much to handle. Although Clarence House (Prince William’s official residence at the time) never officially commented on their break, the Duchess shared details of their split in a later interview.

“I think I at the time wasn’t very happy about it, but actually it made me a stronger person,” she said.

“You find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn’t realised, or I think you can get quite consumed by a relationship when you are younger and I really valued that time for me as well although I didn’t think it at the time. Looking back on it.”

However, the couple also went on a quiet break in 2004 during their university summer holidays and according to royal biographer Katie Nicholl in her book William and Harry, it was partially due to Prince William’s friendship with Tennessee heiress Anna Sloan.

Observe, Kate Middleton’s style before and after becoming a royal:

Anna and Will met through mutual friends at Edinburgh University – where she was studying – but they had another thing in common: they had both lost a parent at a young age. Princess Diana passed away when the royal was 15, and Anna had lost her father in a shooting accident on the family’s Nashville estate when she was 19.

“Kate was beginning to question William’s commitment to their relationship, and she also had her own creeping doubts about their future after St Andrew’s,” wrote Nicholl.

“A number of things had caused her to question William’s commitment, although she had not raised them with him yet.

“One was William’s friendship with an American heiress called Anna Sloan.”

At the time Will organised a boys-only trip to Greece but had also accepted an invitation to go to Texas with Anna and her friends before the holiday. As Nicholl writes, this was a move that “hurt Kate deeply”.

“When Anna invited William and a group of friends to Texas for a holiday before he went to Greece, it hurt Kate deeply,” she wrote.

“She suspected William might have feelings for the 22-year-old heiress.”

Despite this, Kate’s suspicions were never actualised.

The future Duchess did her own bit of soul searching while on a girls trip to The Berkshires (where she drank all the wine,) and the couple soon reconciled their relationship.

Anna Sloan and her husband, Eddie Smith, were even seen attending Will and Kate’s 2011 wedding.

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