Kate Middleton's Old College Friend Posts Never-Before-Seen Photo of the Princess

"I have the loveliest college memories with Kate."

Catherine, Princess of visits Nottingham Trent University to learn about their mental health support system on October 11, 2023 in Nottingham, England.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Kate Middleton's former college buddy is sharing a throwback, never-before-seen picture of the Princess of Wales and singing her praises.

Back in July, Middleton's former classmate Laura Warshauer shared a candid photo of the pair back when they were students at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

"Sending love to Kate Middleton, the future Queen of England and my university dormmate!" Warshauer captioned the post at the time. "This was us at a Hope Street flat party. I have the loveliest college memories with Kate. She is the kindest, most caring, down-to-earth, genuine person, and it’s incredible to see her shining so brightly and inspiring the world with her compassion and courage."

In July, Middleton was undergoing chemotherapy treatments for an unspecified type of cancer, assumedly prompting the post from Warshauer.

Recently, Warshauer re-shared the post via her Instagram Stories, along with a never-before-seen photo of the pair posing, again, back when they were college roommates.

Kate Middleton and Laura Warshauer

Kate Middleton and Laura Warshauer

(Image credit: Instagram: @laurawarshauer)

In the photo, the Princess of Wales poses with her arm around Warshauer, wearing a dark blue polo and a Nike baseball cap.

The original and re-shared posts are far from the first time Warshauer has opened up about her time in college with Princess Kate and her now-husband, Prince William.

In 2022, Warshauer revealed that while in college and before going public with their relationship, Middleton would post as William's "fake girlfriend" and at times would stand in as his so-called "wing-woman."

"Will was getting really hit on by this girl at a party and it was getting quite uncomfortable because he couldn't shake her off. He was being really polite, but this girl just didn't get the hint,” Warshauer said at the time, adding that in that moment Princess Kate stepped in.

“All of a sudden Kate came up behind him and put her arms around him," she continued. "He said, 'Oh, sorry, but I've got a girlfriend', and he and Kate went off giggling.”

Laura Warshauer and Princess Kate in college.

Laura Warshauer and Princess Kate in college.

(Image credit: Instagram: @laurawarshauer)

Warshauer went on to add that "Kate was the only girl in the room who could have done that," adding that the incident occurred just "a month after we started university."

For the uninitiated, Middleton and Prince William met while attending university. In 2019, Marcia Moody, author of Kate: A Biography, described the moment the pair met for the very first time.

"The campus was small, and since Kate and William were on the same course and living in the same building, it wasn't long before they met for the first time. Later, Kate recalled, ‘I went bright red and sort of scuttled off feeling very shy,'" Moody reported at the time, adding that Kate "knew there was something" romantic that she wanted to explore but that the pair "ended up becoming friends for a while."

"The pair kept bumping into one another and it was obvious they took a shine to each other from very early on," Moody wrote. "They joked and bantered, and bonded over things they had in common."

Danielle Campoamor
Weekend Editor

Danielle Campoamor is Marie Claire's weekend editor covering all things news, celebrity, politics, culture, live events, and more. In addition, she is an award-winning freelance writer and former NBC journalist with over a decade of digital media experience covering mental health, reproductive justice, abortion access, maternal mortality, gun violence, climate change, politics, celebrity news, culture, online trends, wellness, gender-based violence and other feminist issues. You can find her work in The New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, New York Magazine, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, TODAY, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, InStyle, Playboy, Teen Vogue, Glamour, The Daily Beast, Mother Jones, Prism, Newsweek, Slate, HuffPost and more. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and their two feral sons. When she is not writing, editing or doom scrolling she enjoys reading, cooking, debating current events and politics, traveling to Seattle to see her dear friends and losing Pokémon battles against her ruthless offspring. You can find her on X, Instagram, Threads, Facebook and all the places.