The unfounded rumors of Lady Rose Hanbury’s alleged “affair” with Prince William have circulated for over five years, and Hanbury has never spoken about them publicly in all of that time. It seems that Hanbury heretofore has adopted the royal family’s policy of “Never complain, never explain”—a motto that was blown wide open last week when the Princess of Wales apologized for editing a photo of herself and her three kids that her office released on Mother’s Day in the U.K.
With this new precedent set—and with telling the truth and defending oneself coming into the fore—it seems Hanbury is finally ready to speak out and stand up for herself, and (hopefully) put this cheating speculation to rest once and for all.
Through her lawyers, Hanbury told Business Insider that rumors she had an affair with the Prince of Wales “are completely false.” The public seemed to have moved on from the alleged affair between William and Hanbury, who herself has been married to David Rocksavage, the 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley (pronounced “Chumley”), since 2009, and as such is the Marchioness of Cholmondeley. The couple share three children, and Hanbury is a friend of William and Kate’s; Hanbury and her family live at Houghton Hall, an estate in Norfolk in close proximity to Anmer Hall, the Wales family’s country home.
Then, last week, Stephen Colbert re-energized the affair rumors in the opening monologue of The Late Show, even name-dropping Hanbury and insinuating that Kate’s absence from the spotlight was because of her husband’s alleged affair. For non-royal followers who were suddenly interested in Kate because of, well, everything the past two months, Hanbury was a new name and a new salacious angle to glom onto.
“It’s deeply annoying and unhelpful for the Palace, but it’s not surprising that the affair rumors are being reheated,” a source said, per OK. “What else are people supposed to think when she [Kate] sends out a photo not wearing her wedding ring?” (In addition to the myriad of other issues with the now-infamous Mother’s Day photo, Kate’s iconic sapphire and diamond engagement ring is not present on her hand.) The source added, “The relationship [between William and Kate] 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.”
But even Omid Scobie—whose latest book Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival, takes a critical look at the institution of the Crown—couldn’t find any evidence of a William and Rose Hanbury romance. “Unfortunately, if a rumor’s kind of left to 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,” Scobie said. “They never addressed it, so those rumors will never go away even though there’s no truth to suggest that they are true.”
Scobie noted the Palace was worried the headlines would “impact negatively on William’s reputation” and added “For legal reasons, there are so many things that one can’t go into, but I thought it was really important, even if a rumor is a rumor. And I really don’t see proof that there is more to this than just tittle-tattle, you know.”
With her brief statement, maybe Hanbury is finally ready to address the issue and hopefully move on. As for the Princess of Wales, “Kate finds the rumors hurtful, obviously, and hates the thought that one day her children will be able to read about them online,” a source told Us Weekly as far back as 2019, when all of this began. “It forced her and William to sit back and examine their relationship, which they realized they should have been doing more often.”
Even after royal sources quashed the rumors back in the day, the tongues kept wagging. Finally, the Palace threatened legal action, and the British tabloids moved on from the story. In 2023, both Marquess Cholmondeley and his son, Lord Oliver, had roles in King Charles’ Coronation last May, David as the King’s lord-in-waiting and Oliver as a Page of Honor alongside Prince George, William and Kate’s eldest. Seems a funny action to take if the rumors had any validity to them.
Now maybe, at last, Hanbury’s statement will allow this narrative to end once and for all, and we can all blessedly move on—especially the Prince and Princess of Wales and Lady Hanbury. It’s old news. Let’s retire it.
