Kate Middleton's warm embrace of her former school teacher has become the subject of a new viral video as footage of the moment captured earlier this year has resurfaced on social media.
Kate's tactile engagements with members of the public and the royal family were pulled into focus in recent months as sister-in-law Meghan Markle revealed, in her December 2022 Netflix show, her surprise that the act of hugging can be "really jarring" for Brits, after meeting the royal.
Uploaded to TikTok by user, the.royal.watcher, on July 10, the footage of Kate's interaction with former school teacher Jim Embury, during a visit to the National Maritime Museum Cornwall with Prince William in February 2023, has been viewed over 700,000 times.
The royal couple made their visit to the area in their new capacities as Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, titles they inherited after the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, though they are predominantly known by their senior titles of Prince and Princess of Wales.
William inherited the Duchy of Cornwall estate, which among other things is estimated to represent more than $1 billion in property holdings, a proportion of the rent of which goes to funding the prince's official family expenses.
William and Kate have made several visits to Cornwall in the months since the queen's death and during their stop at the maritime museum, the princess was surprised to see Embury, who had taught her history at elementary school level.
The former teacher, who is now a volunteer at the museum, was picked out of the crowd by Kate and given a warm hug. "Hello! I do recognize you," the royal was heard saying in footage captured by the press, not seen in the TikTok clip.
"My gosh that's a long time back...I remember exactly the classroom and everything..."
Photographs of the encounter were widely shared after the event and the resurfaced TikTok clip has received in excess of 59,000 likes and over 3,000 comments, many of which have compared the footage to Meghan's Netflix comments about meeting Kate for the first time.
"Wait, I thought Kate wasn't a hugger," wrote one user.
"That was more than a hug.. it was cheek to cheek solid embrace. Genuine emotion of happiness & respect for her old teacher," wrote another, with a further comment reading: "But I thought she wasn't a hugger? I guess she's just British in that reserved way."
In the Netflix series Harry & Meghan, Meghan recounted her first introduction to her future sister-in-law, Kate, when she was first dating Prince Harry, and though she didn't claim that the royal was not a "hugger," she did note surprise that the formality that exists when the royals are in public carries on behind closed doors.
"It's so funny if I look back at it now because now I know so much, and I'm so glad I didn't then," Meghan told Netflix viewers of the experience of first being introduced to Harry's family.
"Because I could just authentically be myself without so much preparedness. Even when Will and Kate came over and I had met her for the first time...They came for dinner. I remember I was in ripped jeans and I was barefoot.
"I was a hugger, always being a hugger," she continued. "I didn't realize that that is
really jarring for a lot of Brits. I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside.
"That there is a forward-facing way of being. And then you close the door and you are like 'Oh, great, OK, we can relax now.' But that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me."
Kate and William did not make public comment on the docuseries or Harry and Meghan's claims within it, in line with a similar position taken by King Charles and Queen Camilla at Buckingham Palace.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more
