After Kate and William split in 2007, they threw themselves into partying like normal young singletons.
But as Kate was snapped more and more enjoying herself on nights out in London with her sister Pippa, William started to have second thoughts about his decision to end things.
So when they were both invited to a fancy dress party by a mutual friend – and Kate turned up as a nurse in fishnet tights and a short dress – a reconciliation seemed almost inevitable.
For his part though, the friend – amateur jockey Sam Waley-Cohen – has previously denied deliberately playing Cupid.
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Prince William pictured leaving a nightclub in London in April 2007 after splitting up with Kate
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Kate pictured out in Kensington, London in May 2007
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Sam Waley-Cohen and his future wife Annabel Ballin attending William and Kate’s wedding in 2011. They married the following year
Waley-Cohen hosted the bash at his family’s 17th-century manor house in Oxfordshire with a theme of ‘Freakin Naught’ and guests dressed accordingly – with Prince William showing up in hotpants and a policeman’s helmet.
Robert Jobson writes in his biography Catherine, The Princess of Wales, that William was perhaps regretting their break-up.
He and his future wife reportedly spent most of the evening talking – and ended it with a dance and a kiss.
Despite his party having brought the two back together, Waley-Cohen told the Mail in 2011: ‘There’s an idea that I was like Cupid with a bow and arrow.
‘People love the idea that somebody put them back together, but they put themselves together far more.’
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Sam riding winning horse Noble Yeats during the Aintree Grand National in 2022
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William and Kate at Cheltenham Festival in March 2007, just one month before they split
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The now Princess of Wales was snapped regularly going out in London with her sister Pippa during the break-up
Within weeks of the party the future Prince and Princess of Wales were on holiday together in the Seychelles.
William and Kate got engaged three years later in October 2010 and their wedding at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011, was watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Waley-Cohen – who went to prep school with the prince and is a longtime friend of Kate’s – said of being a guest at the nuptials: ‘It was absolutely fantastic. It was great to see two people who are so in love. I think everyone could see that, whether they know them or not.’
Looking back, both Kate and William have said their brief time apart was for the best.
During an interview to mark their engagement in 2010, Kate said: ‘I think at the time I wasn’t very happy about it, but actually it made me a stronger person, you find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn’t realised.
‘I think you can get quite consumed by a relationship when you’re younger. I really valued that time for me as well, although I didn’t think it at the time!’
William added: ‘We were both very young… We were both finding ourselves and being different characters.
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Sam chats with Kate at Cheltenham Horse Racing Festival in 2008
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Kate and William on the day of their graduation from St Andrews in 2005
‘It was very much trying to find our own way, and we were growing up, so it was just a bit of space and it worked out for the better.’
Waley-Cohen had a successful amateur horse racing career, retiring in 2022 after winning the Grand National at Aintree.
The jockey won with 50/1 outsider Noble Yeats and Camilla – then Duchess of Cornwall – presented him and his father Robert Waley-Cohen, who owned the horse, with the trophy.
The Waleses praised him on X/Twitter with a post that read: ‘Huge congratulations to @swaleycohen for winning the Grand National. What a way to retire!’
When asked if his win had been the result of the same magic touch that brought William and Kate back together in 2007, Waley-Cohen responded: I don’t think it has any connection to them, but as a general philosophy I think hoping for the best and living full of hope is a good way to live.’
The former jockey also founded Portman Dental Care in 2009 and has three children with his wife Annabel Ballin – Max, Scarlett and Alexander.
