All of us have those college friends we shared priceless memories with—yet eventually drifted away from—but in Laura Warshauer's case, those university pals are the future King and Queen. The former University of St. Andrews student shared some early 2000's nostalgia in a recent interview with the Daily Mail, including a surprising story about Prince William and Kate Middleton's first date.
New Jersey native Warshauer arrived in St. Andrews, Scotland in 2001, the same year as the Prince and Princess of Wales, and lived in the same dorm as the couple their freshman year. "Will lived down the hall with two of his friends from Eton," she explained. "Kate lived on the floor below."
"I met them the same week they met each other," she continued, adding she "was struck by how normal Will was. You could talk about anything—the most mundane things."
Warshauer shared that Prince William "would grab my bag and take it inside the dorm" after she came home from trips to New Jersey and that he bought her a stuffed seal from grocery store Tesco for her birthday. But when it came to the future King's first date with his future wife, she revealed that it happened before the famous sheer runway show moment that's depicted in The Crown.
"We went to a party at a castle. It was a Harry Potter theme and they did an auction for charity where people were bidding to win a date," the St. Andrews alum shared. "Will bid £200 to win a date with Kate."
She didn't know the details of their first date but told the Daily Mail that "Kate’s reaction was effortlessly cool—showing she was unfazed by titles and comfortable around him."
Of course, they went on to date throughout their time at St. Andrews, and per Robert Jobson's book Catherine, the Princess of Wales: A Biography of the Future Queen, their romance was outed during a round of a drinking game.
Middleton and Prince William graduated from the university in 2005, and we all know the rest of the story. For Warshauer—who shared a throwback photo of herself with Princess Kate on Instagram to show support for her cancer journey last year—her time in Scotland brings fond memories.
"I wound up getting a front row seat to the very beginning of what would become one of the greatest and most iconic love stories of our time," she told the Daily Mail. "It’s great to see Will and Kate, the same people they were then, on the world stage."
