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For some royals, rumours of affairs simply refuse to die. They reside at the edges of public imagination, resurfacing whenever a smile falters or a couple looks tense.
The fascination with what goes on behind palace walls is nothing new, but centuries old.
Yet in today’s world of Instagram, online statements, tell‑all interviews and global scrutiny, what has changed is how rumours spread and each couple responds.
Harry & Meghan: The modern rebuttal
Living outside the fold of The Firm, Meghan Markle no longer needs to abide by the Windsor family motto of “never complain, never explain”.
And while Prince Harry’s instinct has often been to sue in times of distress, the Duchess of Sussex has developed a more elegant — and distinctly modern — way of handling gossip.
Now in control of her own social media accounts, Meghan can clap back without saying a word.
On the morning of her 45th birthday on August 4, she shared a video from her Montecito kitchen wearing a simple white tee that did all the talking.
“It’s giving Mrs,” the slogan declared — a crisp, cheeky message aimed squarely at fresh speculation about her marriage.
The timing was deliberate. Days earlier, royal biographer Lady Colin Campbell claimed on The Nerve podcast that Harry had “fallen in love with someone else” and that Meghan had discovered texts between him and the other woman.
There is no proof any of it is true. Instead, the couple presented a united front at the David Foster Foundation’s 40th Anniversary Celebration in Canada on August 7, following a European summer break at their home in Portugal with Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5.
In April, I watched as the couple instinctively reached for each other and exchanged secret glances as they carried out a busy day of engagements in Sydney. It was clear to me that they remain devoted to one another.
So, rather than issue a formal denial — which would only feed the beast — Meghan issued her rebuttal in the form of a T‑shirt. It was a modern and playful response to an age‑old problem, done in a way only Meghan could have got away with.
William & Catherine: The rumour that outlived the joke
Affair rumours began swirling around the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in March 2019 thanks to a lunch where one too many drinks were consumed, and the Prince and Princess of Wales have been dealing with them ever since.
At the time, The Sun reported that Princess Catherine had a “terrible falling out” with her friend Rose Hanbury, the Marchioness of Cholmondeley.
“Yes. It is an affair,” British columnist Giles Coren tweeted about the story (and later deleted). “I haven’t read the piece but I know it is an affair. Everyone knows about the affair.”
In 2022, Coren admitted he was drunk and joking when he posted it.
Still, the rumour persisted. It resurfaced in 2024 when Stephen Colbert referenced it on TV during her extended sick leave. Soon after, the world learned that Prince William and Catherine had been dealing with the most challenging chapter of their lives: Kate’s cancer diagnosis.
In the years since, Rose has attended a high‑profile State Banquet at Buckingham Palace, Prince Philip’s memorial service, and her son served as a page at the coronation of King Charles.
These events have thrown her and Kate together on the world stage without the slightest hint of tension between them.
The simplest explanation may be the truest: Rose and Kate were never best friends, and were seen together little ahead of the supposed “falling out”, so why do we expect them to look chummy now?
Kate has also been one who keeps her friends close, but also well out of public eye.
Mary & Frederik: The fairytale people want to rewrite
For every person who sees King Frederik and Queen Mary of Denmark’s chance meeting in a Sydney pub as a real‑life fairytale, just as many seem determined to tear it down.
Rumours of adultery have followed them for decades. The most recent wave came after Frederik enjoyed a night out in Madrid with socialite Genoveva Casanova in October 2023.
Photos of the pair walking through El Retiro Park and eating dinner at El Corral de la Moreria restaurant after visiting a Picasso exhibition were splashed across Lecturas magazine.
Casanova quickly denied any affair and launched legal action. She was well within her rights to do so, but it triggered many more months of scrutiny than the story may otherwise have attracted, likely proving she had never been part of the royal inner circle.
Casanova later lost her lawsuit against Lecturas in late 2025, with the court ruling the coverage carried “social and political significance”. She was awarded damages only for the magazine’s use of her Instagram photos.
Stony‑faced images of Mary at engagements in the weeks that followed the initial report were seized upon by online conspiracy theorists, some even claiming Queen Margrethe abdicated in early 2024 to keep her daughter-in-law in Denmark.
The more likely truth is far less dramatic: Mary was under intense public pressure, and Margrethe — who knows better than anyone the pressures of being Queen — understood that placing the crown on a couple already under strain was not going to help.
Margrethe would not have stepped down unless she was sure the marriage was rock solid.
And it is, which I saw firsthand while covering the couple in March during their State Visit to Australia. Frederik was only too happy to stand back and let his wife shine in the country of her birth as he watched proudly on.
Why royal affair rumours stick
Affair rumours cling to royals because they’ve been around for hundreds of years — and historically, they were often true. In eras when marriages were arranged for alliances rather than love, affairs were often the only way to find affection.
Long before Princess Diana uttered the words “there were three of us in this marriage” about her relationship with King Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, she was echoing a repeated pattern.
Camilla’s own great‑grandmother, Alice Keppel, had been the mistress of King Edward VII. Catherine of Aragon likely felt the same way about her love triangle with Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, for which the women paid the ultimate price.
Affairs were once so common they were practically administrative. In France, being maîtresse en titre, the royal mistress, was an official role that received lucrative allowances, pensions and gifts that functioned as a salary.
Marie Antoinette became such a controversial figure partly because her husband, Louis XVI, refused to take a mistress.
With no convenient target for gossip, the public turned its attention entirely toward her.
“Marie Antoinette really was bearing the brunt of a level of public indignation that had traditionally been channelled toward these mistresses,” biographer Caroline Weber explained.
The myth vs the modern reality
Royal marriages are no longer political contracts. They are, instead, love matches.
William or Harry could be with someone else if they chose. Having grown up in a fractured household, they both learned early that two happy homes can be better than a single miserable one when it comes to their own children.
The era when King Edward VIII needed to abdicate in 1936 to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson feels like ancient history.
Three of the late Queen Elizabeth’s children have divorced, and two have remarried. In 2023, King Charles was crowned in Westminster with Camilla — his former mistress — beside him as Queen, and few batted an eyelid.
Yet the mythology persists, with the public still viewing the perceived rules of royalty through an outdated lens.
So when a royal looks tired, or a couple stands a little too far apart, or a stranger appears in a photograph, the old stories rush back. People assume history is repeating itself.
Sometimes it might be, but often it isn’t. The rumour, however, spreads faster than any palace can contain in the digital age despite there being zero proof.
The real question we should ask ourselves is not whether the rumours are true, but why people still want them to be?
Read more expert opinion and analysis in WHO’s The Royal Verdict with Kylie Walters here.
