Kate Middleton’s Confident Response When Told She Was Lucky to Have Prince William

When Prince William arrived at the University of St. Andrews in 2001, to put it mildly, the future king and then bachelor was seen as the catch—the ultimate get. Women enrolled at or transferred to St. Andrews just to have a tiny chance to win the heart of the young prince, to live out their own real-life fairytale. (Which, as we’ve seen—especially this past week—isn’t always easy.) He had no shortage of female attention.

But it was one fellow fresher at St. Andrews, Kate Middleton (you might have heard of her?) that ultimately caught William’s eye and won him over. After the two settled down as a couple a year or two after meeting, Kate was told over and over and over again how lucky she was to be dating the future king.

Kate’s response?

“He’s lucky to have me,” she said, smiling, according to Claudia Joseph, author of Kate Middleton: Princess in Waiting, per the Mirror.

Now this is the confidence we like to see from our future queen (and all women, for that matter).

After graduating together from St. Andrews in 2005, William ultimately proposed in 2010 and the pair were married nearly 11 years ago, becoming the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge upon their marriage in 2011. Since then, they’ve become parents to Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, and Kate has ably taken on her role as Duchess of Cambridge, finding work that speaks to her passions—think early childhood development, mental health, and physical activity, among others—and proving that yes, one woman kind of can do it all (photography, playing piano, and basically every kind of athletic competition under the sun immediately come to mind).

So yeah, William might be the future king, but Kate’s not wrong—he’s lucky, too.

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.