Let's talk about the husband....
[quote] The Truth About Rose Hanbury Daughter’s Father
The royal rumor mill never stops, and this time, the internet’s latest obsession is the identity of Rose Hanbury’s daughter’s father and what happened between her and Prince William all those years ago.
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.
In March 2019, rumors swirled that Prince William, a close friend of the Marquess and Marchioness, had cheated on his wife, Kate Middleton, with Hanbury, who had an alleged fallout with Middleton. There were also rumors that Hanbury’s daughter, Iris, is actually William’s child.
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.”
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.
Scobie also claimed that Kensington Palace feared the rumors would “impact negatively on William’s reputation” and alleged that the Firm used Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s exit from the British royal family that year as a way to divert attention from the gossip. “The rumors trend on Twitter on a regular basis,” Scobie said. “That’s something that’s incredibly damaging, I think, for William.” He continued, “It probably looks even worse, actually, that there was a kind of willingness to throw Harry under the bus simply to make these things disappear.”
While William and Kate have never responded to the rumors, a source told Us Weekly in 2019 that the speculation motivated them to work on their marriage.
Rumors of William and Hanbury’s affair resurface in March 2024 after Kate posted an Instagram photo without her wedding ring. The post was also the first photo of Kate since her mysterious abdominal surgery in January 2024.
After the post, many fans commented on Kate’s missing wedding ring. “Where’s her wedding ring? William hasn’t been wearing his either 🤔👀” a user commented. One more user commented on how the photo looked AI-generated (more on that later). “But where’s the wedding ring in that fake AI hand? 🧐,” the user wrote.
Along with speculation around her missing wedding ring, Kate was also accused of editing the photo, which featured several errors, such as Louis’ missing fingers. Kate admitted to altering the photo in a tweet at the time.
