First it was that the Prince and Princess of Wales had split, now there’s a TikTok rumor that Rose Hanbury is pregnant with Prince William’s baby amid all the Kate Middleton conspiracy theories.
Hanbury, whose full name is Sarah Rose Cholmondeley, is the Marchioness of Cholmondeley and wife of David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley. Hanbury and Cholmondeley married at Chelsea Town Hall in London on June 24, 2009—just two days after announcing their engagement. The couple went on to have three children: twin sons Alexander Hugh George Cholmondeley and Oliver Timothy George Cholmondeley, and daughter Lady Iris Marina Aline Cholmondeley.
Hanbury, for her part, is the daughter of website designer Timothy Hanbury and fashion designer Emma Hanbury. Her sister, Marina, is also of noble association. She’s the third wife of Edward Lambton, the 7th Earl of Durham. The Marquess and Marchioness were also close friends with the Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince William and Kate Middleton, and even attended attended Prince Philip’s 2022 memorial service as well as numerous other royal events.
In March 2019, rumors swirled that William, a close friend of the Marquess and Marchioness, had cheated on Kate with Hanbury, who had an alleged fallout with the Princess of Wales.
While neither William nor Hanbury have ever addressed the rumors, royal expert Omid Scobie told Entertainment Tonight in 2023 that he considered writing more about the drama in his royal biography, Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival
, however, as the affair allegations were never confirmed. “I was very careful in the book to really focus on this, as the allegations against William, Kate’s and their fallout with Rose Hanbury,” Scobie said. “For legal reasons, there are so many things that one can’t go into.”
He continued: “But, I thought it was really important [to mention], even if a rumor is a rumor. And I really don’t see proof that there is more to this than just a tittle-tattle, you know.” He added that, because William and Kate “never addressed” the affair rumor with Hanbury, it will likely “never go away,” however, that doesn’t mean that the story is true. “Unfortunately, if a rumor’s left to kind of do its own thing, it can run 20 laps around the world before you even think about what, how you want to kind of address it,” he said. “They never addressed it, so those rumors will never go away even though there’s no truth to suggest that they are true.”
Rumors of William and Hanbury’s affair resurface in March 2024 after Kate posted an Instagram photo without her wedding ring. Now, there’s another rumor that Hanbury is pregnant with a royal baby. Read on for an explanation of where the rumors came from and what Kensington Palace have said.
Is Rose Hanbury pregnant with Prince William’s baby?
A rumor that Prince William and Rose Hanbury are allegedly expecting a child together went viral on TikTok after user @kylemarisaroth shared a “blind item” that Kate Middleton learned that Hanbury was allegedly pregnant with William’s child around Christmas of 2023, which Hanbury planned to keep. The rumor also claimed that the pregnancy was the alleged reason Kate hasn’t been seen in the public since Christmas 2023. “I’m standing 10 toes down from the Princess of Wales because it’s giving Diana 2.0.,” the TikTok user said.
So is Rose Hanbury pregnant with Prince William’s baby? The answer is no. There is nothing to confirm that Rose Hanbury is pregnant, and sources close to William and Kate deny that rumors of William and Hanbury’s alleged affair, which date back to 2019, are even true. A former royal staffer told The Daily Beast in March 2024 that William and Kate’s office at Kensington Palace find the rumors “deeply annoying, especially after comedian Stephen Colbert also discussed them in an episode of his talk show, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, on March 13. “It’s deeply annoying and unhelpful for the palace, but it’s not surprising that the affair rumors are being reheated. What else are people supposed to think when she sends out a photo not wearing her wedding ring?” the staffer told The Daily Beast, referencing a recent Instagram photo of Kate, which showed her without her wedding ring.
Another source, who is a friend of William and Kate’s, however, told The Daily Beast that the couple’s friend group was “completely baffled” as to why the Princess of Wales would post a photo of her without her wedding ring when it seemed “guaranteed to get people asking questions about the state of the marriage.”
The source continued, “They are often seen together at school events, and really it is remarkable how one and often both of them will always be at every match, every music concert and every prize giving. The relationship has always seemed incredibly strong despite the immense pressure they are under, so it’s fair to say we were all completely baffled when the picture came out with the wedding ring missing, especially as it was photoshopped. It just seemed guaranteed to get people asking questions about the state of the marriage.”
As for rumors of an affair between William and Hanbury, sources told The Daily Beast in 2019, when the story first surfaced, that the allegations were “totallywrong and false.” Royal legal firm Harbottle and Lewis also letters to the British media stating that the stories were “false and highly damaging.”
For more about the British royal family, check out Sally Bedell Smith’s 2012 biography, Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch
. The New York Times bestseller, which includes the “real story” behind several storylines featured in Netflix’s The Crown, follows Queen Elizabeth II’s life from her childhood as the “heiress presumptive” to her father, King George VI; to the moment he et her husband, Prince Philip, when she was 13 years old; to her ascension to the throne at 25 years old in 1952. Elizabeth the Queen, which also includes interviews with Buckingham Palace sources and never-before-revealed documents, provides a deep dive into the Queen’s legacy as one of the most famous monarchs in recent history.
