Various outlets keep publishing stories with quotes from Prince William’s radio interview last Friday, and that’s fine with me. I’ve yet to listen to the damn thing, but it seems like every day since the interview aired, there’s a new story about some piece of interesting or sketchy gossip. Like, it was news to everybody that Prince George sometimes (or often?) boards at Lambrook, which William boneheadedly revealed after spending years yammering about the fakakta school run. Well, speaking of boneheaded reveals, William confessed something hilarious: he had no idea that his wife of 15 years, the woman he’s been with on-and-off for about 24 years, speaks some conversational Italian. The “William couldn’t care less about his wife” brand is strong.

Kate Middleton’s foreign language skills even caught Prince William off guard. The Prince of Wales, 43, made the revelation during a rare, live media appearance on the British radio show Heart Breakfast on May 22, filmed during his two-day trip to the Duchy of Cornwall land holdings.

Prince William shared there that his wife “came back buzzing” from her trip to Italy the previous week for her early childhood work, a visit significant as her first overseas work trip since her cancer diagnosis in 2024.

“I had no idea she spoke Italian, either,” said show cohost Amanda Holden, commenting on how the Princess of Wales spoke some Italian in Reggio Emilia.

“I didn’t actually,” Prince William replied, which made Holden and cohost Jamie Theakston laugh. “She must have dusted that off from a while ago.”

The Princess of Wales, 44, flexed her language skills and introduced herself to children as Catarina, the Italian form of her first name, Catherine, during her two-day stay in Reggio Emilia this month.

“I speak a bit of Italian. What is your name? I am Catarina,” she told the youngsters who came out to see her at the city’s town hall, chatting with them in Italian and learning new vocabulary.

[From People]

To be fair, her brief time in Italy came during her gap year, when she was trying in vain to follow William around before they both entered St. Andrews. We’ve heard that William and Kate already knew each other – or had already met somewhere – before St. Andrews, but they didn’t spend any time together during their gap year. Still, you would think that Kate would have mentioned that she picked up some Italian? Especially since neither of them are fully conversant in a second language? William even struggles to speak Welsh, and he’s known his entire life that he would be the Prince of Wales.

Incidentally, we should talk about the Bob the Builder thing, since we’re back to talking about Kate’s Italian trip. I haven’t written about it before now, although I’ve seen that it’s all over social media. While she was in Italy, Kate was being shown some environmental project in Reggio Emilia, and she said: “There’s a popular character called Bob the Builder and he has a philosophy of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ and you embrace that here. It’s something as a mother, and I feel as a family we do a lot, is try to have at the back of our minds.” Surely Caterina was not referencing Roberto Il Costruttore??? Mamma mia. Honestly though, she sounds like a simpleton, but at least she’s trying to give the correct credit! She didn’t claim that “reduce, reuse, recycle” was an old Middleton saying.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.