Last month, we got a lot of set photos from Netflix’s The Crown. The production moved to Scotland, where they filmed in or around St. Andrews and focused on Prince William and Kate Middleton’s “college romance.” In Season 6, Meg Bellamy was cast as the college-aged Kate, and Ed McVey takes over as college-aged William. This week, Netflix released some official photos of Season 6’s “Will & Kate.” One of the shots is supposed to be Will & Kate walking arm-in-arm at St. Andrew’s, probably in what would have been their second or third year of university.
Can I just say? I’m enjoying the casting a lot. Sometimes The Crown can be really hit-or-miss with their casting and how they employ certain actors, but they got it right with these two. McVey looks remarkably like William at that age. But Meg Bellamy is actually perfect for this – she has such a similar look to Kate before Kate became all glossy and overly “done.” The messy, too-heavy eyeliner, her natural hair before she had a wiglet room, the energy of a “middle-class girl” who caught the prince.
Now, will the realistic casting choices reflect a realistic story about how Kate and William eventually began dating? Probably not. Kate and her mother stalked William for years and Kate repeatedly threw herself in William’s path before he ever noticed her. She also put up with a lot of sh-t from William when they were at St. Andrew’s. Even Tina Brown couldn’t put a bow on it – once Kate got her claws in William, she wouldn’t let go, and Carole advised her to do whatever it took to get the ring. They won’t show any of that.
Photos courtesy of The Crown/Netflix and Cover Images.
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- Actors Ed McVey, as Prince William and actress Meg Bellamy, who plays Kate Middleton, film scenes for the next season of The Crown in St Andrews, Scotland. Featuring: Ed McVey and Meg Bellamy (Playing Prince William and Kate Middleton) Where: St Andrew’s, United Kingdom When: 16 Mar 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Actors Ed McVey, as Prince William and actress Meg Bellamy, who plays Kate Middleton, film scenes for the next season of The Crown in St Andrews, Scotland. Featuring: Ed McVey and Meg Bellamy (Playing Prince William and Kate Middleton) Where: St Andrew’s, United Kingdom When: 16 Mar 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Actress Meg Bellamy, who plays Kate Middleton, and actor Ed McVey, who plays the part of Prince William, film scenes for the next season of The Crown in St Andrews in Scotland. Featuring: Ed McVey and Meg Bellamy Where: St Andrew’s, United Kingdom When: 17 Mar 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Actress Meg Bellamy, who plays Kate Middleton, and actor Ed McVey, who plays the part of Prince William, film scenes for the next season of The Crown in St Andrews in Scotland. Featuring: Meg Bellamy Where: St Andrew’s, United Kingdom When: 17 Mar 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Actress Meg Bellamy, who plays Kate Middleton, and actor Ed McVey, who plays the part of Prince William, film scenes for the next season of The Crown in St Andrews in Scotland. Featuring: Ed McVey and Meg Bellamy Where: St Andrew’s, United Kingdom When: 17 Mar 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
It’s a known thing that she changed schools to attend St Andrews, and that she did a gap year in Chile be Will did a gap year in Chile. What’s the over/under on the scheming to get into William’s dorm as well? I have a hard time believing that was a coincidence–did they release his dorm info early? Or maybe it was a known thing in the aristo set that he would be staying at his dorm, and she finangled her way in.
I was not following these two then – are you saying that they both did a full gap year in Chile yet still can’t speak Spanish???
No, they each volunteered for this program in Chile at some point during their gap year. I think it’s a couple of weeks or so, possibly a bit more. Kate also did some sort of art history course in Italy, not sure what else William did.
I could be wrong here and too lazy to look it up but I believe she went to Italy because he was there but she missed him?
She followed him in Italy and Chile but in both cases she missed when he was there. There was some serious stalking going on but the media whitewashed that.
She signed up for the same chile trip as him, same company, same place, but got put in with a different group, so she arrived after he left.
It was announced he was going to Florence to study art, so she went, but he changed his mind and didn’t go. Whilst there she told people she was going to St. Andrews and they said oh you’ll probably end up with prince William and she said “actually I do fancy wills”. Another time william appeared in tv making a statement and she said “my God, that voice. He’s mine you know.”
Whilst at Marlborough she made friends with a friend of William, Emilia d’Erlanger, who seems to be the only school friend she stayed in touch with. It’s not a coincidence her one serious friendship at school was with a friend of William. That’s how she knew William was going on the Raleigh chile trip, and which house at St. Andrews he would be in. Emilia also took her with her to highgrove a few times.
I just want to know if the Crown is going to white wash William and Kate like they did Charles and Camilla.
Of course they will. Peter Morgan already announced that the final season would be like a love letter to the royals.
It’s going to be full propaganda to cap off the coronation and do PR for the royals especially as there’s more eyes on the royal now.
Which probably explains why season 5 was far less interesting than the previous ones. The catering to Charles was extremely annoying and made for a very weak season. If season 6 goes in the same direction, we’ll skip. We recently re-watched seasons 1-3 and they were so much more interesting!
Peter Morgan, and some of the people in the cast, are absolute royalists. They’re not going to be delving deep at all.
100% they are going to whitewash their story and gloss over it. It’s going to be presented as the love story that will save the Crown. Ick.
Agree with others that they’ll absolutely whitewash it. And it will be absolutely hilarious if they are publicy separated by the time it comes out.
The obvious under eye liner is spot on for Kate, but I have to admit Meg Bellamy reminds me a lot of Princess Sofia from Sweden.
Ed pulls off William pretty well, kudos for that.
The only casting I really couldn’t stand was Dominic west for charles. Terrible choice
Completely agree re: West! It was so 0ff it killed the impact the previous actors had made. West didn’t fit at all and the awkwardness, insecurity, dependence which were so important for building up Charles’ image previously, all were gone. At the same time, there was serious overdose of over mimicking and some weird head position which was distracting and poorly done.
This was a political casting, just trading favors. Dominic’s wife is Irish aristocracy and friends w/ Charles. The Royal Family is begrudgingly putting up w/ The Crown, but not without some favors.
I cannot for the life of me recall a pic of W&K holding hands. But I wasn’t really keeping up with them at this stage of the story.
this makes me mad! This show is just spreading lies!
This actress looks prettier than Kate did back then. She was literally a wallflower. Nothing special. This is not meant to be a criticism but is simply fact. What is also fact: Kate has always been the “mean girl” and Will has never really been interested in her. If you believe the stories. He just had no other options…
William may have been turned down by a few aristos, but he had plenty of other options if he didn’t want to marry Kate.
That’s because they didn’t. The Crown is going to make this a ‘great love story’ no doubt. From the pics I have seen, they have Will looking at Kate like he is pinning for her and that was never the case. He barely looks at her ( even back then)
It’s as meh as the real thing. 100% accurate. Well done!
Haha yes! I was yawning which is perfect!
Yep. Meh adaptation of a meh couple.
I wonder if they’ll dramatize the notorious fashion show.
How could they not?!
Robert Lacey who advises for the crown knows the true history but I’d imagine that the production will decide what to show and yeah many details will likely not be included. The fashion show is cannon though and it’ll def be included.
He looks pretty similar, especially his mannerisms when he is sitting.
She looks nothing like Kate to me. And I feel like she is dressed in these pics more similar to how she dressed after they got married and not when they were dating/students.
I agree, they are both meh but he looks a lot more like William than she does Kate. She has a very unique smile/mouth that doesn’t look like Kate at all but, whatever, after the last season I’m not even sure I will watch this one because I don’t want to hurt myself from rolling my eyes so hard.
“Even Tina Brown couldn’t put a bow on it..” Speaking of TB, she’s been surprisingly quiet lately despite uptick in RF news. Surely she can’t be tiring of talking about these people.
She will surely be front and center on one of the networks for the con-a-nation. Maybe she’s getting her hair and nails done for the big day. 💅🎉
OMG, she’s also probably seething over the WME/Meghan news. That adds even more to my happiness.
I’m not feeling the Kate casting but the styling is spot on.
She looks a bit like Katie Holmes, no?
I think the William looks accurate but the Kate not so much, physically at least. But it’ll all depend on the acting. That being said, I’m not super familiar with their the uni years anyways
The next.season of the crown will be the glorification of c and c and the keen s. Hallmark channel had movie about the keen s years ago.
I’ve been watching the Crown but it’s really boring. It’s basically a synopsis of news and tabloid articles. Personalities based on snippets of 10 second conversations recorded or overheard. I find Celebitchy to be much more insightful into the trash family.
Due to illness and crummy weather, I started watching The Crown.
Binged and stopped before it got to the Diana years.
Diana entire life was sidetracked at 19.
You know the PtB have been white washing everything and it will continue until the last episode.
They certainly scrubbed tons of Princess Margaret/Lord Snowdons history.
Btw, the actor Jack Farthing, who was very good as the baddie in Poldark, did some show in which he plays Prince Charles during the Diana years. I thought about watching that just to see JF. But NO.
Wasn’t he prince charles in the Diana movie with K stew?
Yes
The smarm he uses in Poldark showed up when he played Charles and it actually works. The KStew movie isn’t accurate in any kind of way, but Farthing gets the vibe right for Charles.
Looks boring. I didn’t finish Season 5, it was lame and way too soft on Charles. Doubt I will watch this season either; what’s the point when the real, current royal family drama is so juicy?
Same with me. I couldn’t even finish the season. It went from being appointment TV to disappointment TV.
@QuiteContrary
Perfect way to put this! Appointment TV to disappointment TV (love this, am stealing it!). I went from binging each season in a few days to not even being able to finish this last season. I doubt I’ll even watch the final season, especially since we all know they’re not going to get it remotely right. As someone upthread said, I think they’re going to take it a step further and act like it’s the love story that saves the monarchy. Blech
I recall clearly that W&K were weekly items in The National Enquirer during the early years.
One week “It’s love” Next week “Is William still searching for love” and the best one, after they broke up for a bit
“Kate shows William what he’s missing!” as she was dressed up and sitting in a limo, showing lots of leg.
When they were first married TNE ran full pages of pictures of Kate, dressed to the 9’s, and pushing a shopping cart down a local grocery store aisle. “Princess Kate does her OWN shopping!” What utter BS.
Does her own shopping in full makeup and hair, in clothes that would pay a mortgage for months, along with a full camera crew and lights.
Kate stalked him for years, put up with his bad behavior, she ALWAYS had her eye on marrying him and her Mom was right in there 110%. She got him, Big Blue, 3 kids and the privileged lifestyle she chased.
W&K are both lazy, not very intelligent or well spoken, and I think both of them realize that they are stuck where they are. Stuck but incredibly wealthy. I honestly do not think William is cheating either, he is so busy being Angry at everything.
No sympathy for either Kate or William.
I think will is cheating.
This looks like pretty good casting from the crown. For me, I am never bothered by Kate and her mother “scheming” to get a prince, that’s not the aspect of their story that strikes me as most important. Because after all, however much you throw yourself at someone, they don’t have to date you.
Instead, it is the sense that he saw Kate as a last resort, to be kept waiting while he tried to get anybody, anybody at all from the aristo set to agree to marry him. And having no takers. I think that’s worth considering. Maybe it was his temperament, or maybe the aristos saw what happened to Diana and thought, all things considered, it would be better to be the mistress and not the wife, or maybe nobody but Kate fancied having to attend boring state dinners or whatever. But I always got the sense that had literally anybody else agreed to marry him, Kate would have been long gone. And under pressure to finally marry and produce an hier, William was probably like “Well, this is…fine.”
Will the Crown pretend that it was some love story? I’m sure they will try. What I’m curious about is if they will try to repurpose the “William secretly proposed in Africa but just just didn’t tell anyone for days” story, or if they’ll find it a bit thin. What about William giving Kate Diana’s sapphire ring, now that we know it wasn’t given by Harry with his blessing? And are they going to paper over the breaks in W and K’s relationship, or pretend it was simply them being absolutely sure before making a commitment? My guess is they’ll pretend that Kate was reluctant because she’s so very shy and doesn’t know how to deal with all of the media attention. But it’ll be a pretty boring story.
Kate lasted the rest because for several years kate was simply the girl was was always available for William. He was not shy in telling his buddies that when he was out without her he has “sex waiting” or that his RPOs called her the mattress. The Crown will of course not touch any of that because it ruins the false fairy tale.
The sad thing about the stalking is that Carole and Kate didn’t throw Kate at William they threw a fake image at him to lure him and seduce him. They weren’t honest with him.
Kate played hard to get. She told him whatever she thought he wanted to hear, whatever would get her the ring. They played him like a violin. They presented themselves as a perfect happy family when actually Carole has narcissistic personality disorder which means she was the mother from hell in private and there is no way the Middletons had a happy childhood. Kate bent-over backwards looking after him, not out of kindness, but to get him to propose. She copied Diana’s clothes and mannerisms to appeal to him that way.
It wasn’t just following him around, and throwing herself at him. It was tricking him into thinking she was someone she wasn’t.
You can’t possibly believe that in class and title obsessed country like England, the first-in-line, Crown Prince, had no other options. None.??? That’s simply not true. And they did hold hands and make out quite a bit back then, too, the point that the RF asked the media to please give them privacy. There were lots of invasive photos of them doing what college kids do, including partying and drinking and stumbling around in the streets. I especially loved all the yacht photos of topless Pippa and Kate with William and his crew, swimming in Ibiza. She wasn’t a duchess, so i guess being topless didn’t matter then. I actually really loved following them back then. They seemed so carefree and fun. Totally different than their image now. And for those who’ve been following for a really really (embarrassingly) long time, probably remember Kate being rumored to have had a couple “flings” as well while dating William in college. As soon as they graduated, though, both their images were scrubbed clean.
It showed how lazy she was no career and no work except part time at jigsaw for a few.months and had very flexible hours.
Are you suggesting Kate cheated on William? That would never have happened. She was too laser focused on getting the ring to do anything to jeopardise it and William would have broken up with her and never taken her back. She did however flirt with other men to make William jealous.
I could buy that she totally fell for him, he was good looking back then. What I can not buy is that she literally had her naked ass on the front page of the newspaper more than one time. I mean we have all been there with the wardrobe malfunction ONCE is believable, not multiple times.
No matter all the comments here she will always be the bottomless princess of shiny hair to me.
He is a future king
I doubt kate would have left the university of her choice to meet a commoner. Kate had ambitions. Will also does not have the best disposition
Sure but he would not have given her the time of day if she wasn’t thin and white and an easy lay.
IMO these types of shallow people deserve each other.