Out of all the thousands of pictures taken of the Prince and Princess of Wales, certain snaps that stand out. The most memorable photos often mark milestones like their wedding day or the births of their children. However, others are candid shots and photographer Chris Jackson believes one from 2021 is hugely “symbolic”.
He took it after the first ever Earthshot Prize Awards ceremony and it shows Kate and William looking at each other, with her arm resting lightly on his back. They were in a room filled with people and yet this image is undeniably all about the royal couple.
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(Image credit: Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images for Earthshot)
“It’s an intimate moment that is symbolic of the support the Princess has given her husband throughout,” the author of Modern Monarchy: The British Royal Family In A New Era added.
With the Royal Family, small gestures and details speak a thousand words and the inaugural Earthshot Prize ceremony was a huge deal for Prince William, who launched the environmental awards in 2020. It would be understandable if the future King had been nervous and having Kate there, offering support and a “comforting hand on his back”, would have meant so much.
According to some, it was Kate who helped persuade her husband not to abandon his dream of setting up the Earthshot Prize. In his book, William & Catherine, author Robert Jobson described the project as being “unprecedented for a member of the Royal Family” and claims the Prince was “anxious on several levels” about it.
(Image credit: Photo by Samir Hussein/WireImage via Getty)
“He did not believe he would achieve the funding needed to stage the awards over a decade, let alone the vast sums for the prizes,” he adds, before quoting a former senior aide, who alleges, “Catherine was the one who convinced him to pursue it.”
“Catherine persuaded him not to give up, to keep on going, because when the world did open up [after the pandemic] and look very different then the whole project and the awards were exactly what was going to be needed, because at its core it was all about optimism and hope,” they state.
The staunchly supportive approach goes both ways, too. The Princess of Wales was nervous about her deeply personal interview on Giovanna Fletcher’s Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast. It was Prince William whose advice guided her through it.
(Image credit: Photo by Eddie Mulholland – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Giovanna recalled, “She was nervous because she knew that she was about to speak in a way that she’d never spoken before. Prince William came into the room and he said, ‘Just talk’,” reasoning that they could always cut bits out later on because it wasn’t live.
The Prince of Wales has also been incredibly supportive of his wife’s Early Childhood work and he was pictured with his hand on her back as they arrived to attend a launch event hosted by her Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood in 2023. We don’t tend to see public displays of affection from the future King and Queen, though they definitely make an exception for supportive gestures like this.
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Catherine, Princess of Wales
Prince William