Kate Reportedly ‘Left Absolutely Devastated’ by William’s ‘Brutal’ Decision—She Was ‘Distraught’

Prince William and Kate Middleton‘s marriage is the strongest it’s ever been, but the couple once almost didn’t make it after their temporary breakup in 2007.

William and Kate met as freshmen at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in 2001 and started dating around late 2002. They were together for almost five years before reports William broke up with Kate in 2007. While news of their split didn’t break until April 2007, royal author Robert Jobson claimed in her book, Catherine, The Princess of Wales: The Biography, that the couple broke up just before New Year’s Eve 2006, which they planned to spend with Kate’s family in Dundee. However, according to the book, William called Kate just before New Year’s to break up with her, claiming that they needed “breathing room” to “find our own path.”

According to Jobson, the call — during which William also told Kate that he couldn’t promise her marriage — left Kate “distraught,” with her mother, Carole Middleton, taking her to Dublin to recover. “Kate believed the relationship was heading toward marriage, so the phone call felt brutal and final. It knocked her confidence and left her questioning whether she had been strung along,” a source told Jobson.

Another source added, “It was one of the most painful moments of her life, and for a while it seemed impossible they would ever find their way back to each other. It left her absolutely devastated.”

Royal author Katie Nicholl also wrote in her book, The Making of a Royal Romance, about the breakup, and how William was both advised by his father, King Charles, and grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, to not make any rash decisions about his relationship. “William had been having second thoughts and sat down with his father and his grandmother to have a frank discussion about his future with Kate. Both advised him not to hurry into anything,” Nicholl wrote. A source told the author, “William’s brutal call shook Kate to the core.”

According to Jobson, it took less than two months before William started to miss Kate, though he feared she wouldn’t take him back. They reunited by chance at a mutual friend’s costume party, and the “chemistry between William and Catherine did the rest,” according to Jobson. They got together soon after, and three years later, the couple announced their engagement, with Kate receiving the sapphire ring once worn by William’s late mother, Princess Diana.

The information on William and Kate’s breakup also comes amid the strongest stage in their relationship after Kate’s cancer battle, which “rekindled” her marriage to William. “There were ongoing rumors at one time that the marriage between William and Kate may not have been as blissful as publicly portrayed,” former royal photographer Ian Pelham Turner told Fox News in January. “William has been known for his outbursts and Kate has found ways of calming the situation down but personally, I feel after the cancer diagnosis and the threat of losing her, the closeness was rekindled.”