Transcripts For CNN CNN Presents 20110425 : vimarsana.com

reporter: all haunted by memories of a fairytale gone bad. i m looking forward to seeing what the future holds. reporter: will this time be different? april 29th, 2011, westminster abbey, the location of the much anticipated wedding of prince william and catherine middleton. it was this abbey where his mother was laid to rest in 1997. in the years between that memorial and this celebration, the legacy of diana and the tragedy of her life were critical in prince william s journey to the alter. i think she s probably never far from his mind. i think he thinks about her every day. jules knight says he s been friends with prince william for more than a decade. did he give an inkling? they were incredibly close. he mentioned she was never far from his mind. william gave the passage way of grog up and you don t have that incredible figure in your life. you think, oh, i wish my mom was here for that. writes of passage that were not easy, given the difficulty of growing up in a broken home. he went through the pain of the divorce. he then went through the agony of his mother s death and it must have had an incredibly profound effect on the way he wanted to conduct his own relationships. reporter: despite diana s efforts her sons grew up in the same type of homes she did. diana was just 7. half william s age when her family had a bitter divorce and custody battle. this is the room where diana was born. yes, this is where she was born. reporter: mary clark was diana s nanny. she said i will never, ever marry unless i m really in love. if you are not in love, you are going to get divorced and i never intend to be divorced. she never had a happy centered home life. i think she spent her adult life searching for that. reporter: christopher anderson who wrote several books about the royal family said in diana s search for a home life, she had a confidant, william. he was the fixer. here is the boy when his mother locks herself in the bathroom after an argument with charles. here is 7-year-old william slipping tissues under the door saying i hate to see you sad. he was sensitive to other s feelings. he meets kate and kate exposes him to happy family for the first time. reporter: stability? stability. reporter: a happiness and normalcy that diana was desperate to find. her close friend remembers. she wanted to have them experience a normal life as possible. she also wanted to make sure they shared enormous love. reporter: finding love would not be easy for a prince, william lived with a camera lens on his every move. a spotlight that followed him from a very early age. i remember william s first day of pre-prep school in north london. the prince s body guard for more than eight years. when we get to school, there will be lots of photographers. he said i don t like photographers. we arrive at the school and there outside the school, about 120 or 130 photographers waiting for william s first day of school. what she was trying to say to william on his first day of school, you have to live with this. you are going to get this the rest of your life. he now knows that. reporter: it would be something william would learn to live with. princess diana has died. reporter: that is, until his mother s death. an accident that many, including willi william, blamed on the aggressive paparazzi. i think he drew a picture of i didn t like them and wasn t prepared to debate the subject. reporter: not long after the crash, the palace and the press forged a gentleman s agreement giving william and harry the privacy to grow up. the world got quick glimpses, all carefully choreographed by the palace. aside from that, william seemed to shun the media. with that distance, he was able to grow up and sew his wild oats. he dated the more beautiful titled ladies. he tried an online romance with britney spears that never got off the ground. it was between going to university and scottland he worked in kenya and met the woman many say was his first love. they became romantically involved. he staged a mock engagement. a tongue and cheek kind of thing. he asked her to marry him at the foot of mt. kenya. reporter: a place that will play a key role in his engagement to kate middleton. later. first, he would have to meet her. that would happen at st. andrews university. why would he go there? i think an attempt to get away from the public eye. i met him as soon as we arrived. incredibly quickly, this group of friends formed. reporter: among his small intimate group of friends, a young woman whose background was anything but royal. ahead, when william met kate. the awkward meeting that almost never happened. fall, 2001, st. andrews, scotland. kate middleton met her prince. scuttled off feeling shy about meeting you. not long after william invited a number of friends to his dormitory room, she did this automatically did this awkward curtesy and he reacted by spilling his drink on himself. he would do things like this to put people at ease. from then on, they became friendly. reporter: they were aristocratic with royal connections. connections his mother knew throughout her life. princess diana grew up in the shadows of a royal family. her grandmother a confidant of the queen. diana was an aristocrat. kate was a commoner. she grew up away from estates and buckingham palace. it s in an area of outstanding natural beauty. reporter: john hailey is an innkeeper. a small sleepy village 55 miles west of london. he met middleton s 14 years ago when they first came into his pub, the old boot inn. a very nice family, down to earth. a lovely family. they are not wealthy. reporter: solidly middle class? hard working folks. reporter: carol and michael met while working for a british airline. they married in 1980. kate was born in 1982. her early years were as ordinary as you can imagine. baptized at a picturesque chapel. she was a brownie. a simple life in the quiet english countryside. the closest the middleton s got to the royals was watching stories of them on tv. a marriage that captivated. when charles married diana, they were glued to the set and watching every minute of it. of course carol dreamed of her daughter entering that life. it seemed impossible, i m sure. a stay-at-home mother stumbled on a lucrative career. she spun it into an internet empire. the family moved up the ladder. within a couple years, they were making millions of dollars a year. kate was sent to the most expensive schools. reporter: kate was 13 years old when she arrived at down house. a school that catered to know billty. when she stepped foot on campus, she was outgoing, loved sports and learning. soon that all changed. she became the victim of the mean girls in the school. there was malicious gossip of her background. she was from a working class background. many said kate was miserable, shy and withdrawn, much like diana when she first went to boarding school. she was very shy. i didn t really notice her. reporter: penny walker, diana s music teacher remembers. there was unrest in her home life. that often affects children. reporter: were her bad grades troubling to her? immensely and i think she tried hard. i think her concentration was elsewhere. reporter: on what? family. reporter: with absentee parents, diana was forced to struggle through on her own. the insecurity would stay with her the rest of her life. it was very different for kate middleton. her parents switched their daughter to another nearby boarding school, marlboro college. the lessons she learned would make her stronger. it was a good school. i was there from 13 to 18. reporter: he was a student with kate at marlboro. boarding schools, if they are not happy are miserable. there s very, very few in between. reporter: kate s first day wouldn t be easy. the boys are on the other side of the dining hall and hold up pieces of paper. they are numbers. she says what is that all about? reporter: what were the numbers? nobody rated her higher than a 2. her mother combed out her hair. wore make up. when she reappeared at school, it was different. reporter: she was popular. a tremendous athlete and good student. she had a wild side. one friend said she liked to moon the boys from her dorm room window. she earned the nickname kate middlebum. she was a very pretty girl, yeah. kate didn t date much. despite her denials, many insist she set her sights higher man prep school classmates. they said yes, she always had this picture over her bed. it was a picture of william. rely reminiscent of another girl, decades earlier. she was always known to adore prince charles. her little bedroom cubicle had pictures of him all over it. reporter: she knew charles from the circles they were in, kate didn t know william at all. after her graduation from marlboro they traveled to chile with the same group. malcolm was their leader. the fact they didn t even know each other. reporter: they just missed each other. on two separate trips, weeks apart, they helped build buildings, clean toilets in the same small town. she s a sporty, fit lady. she knew what she was ability. she knew how to look after herself. reporter: kate missed william that winter and started preparing for university. this time, she wouldn t miss her prince. originally she wanted to go to another university. when it was announced he would go to st. andrews university, enrollment jumped overnight by 40%. reporter: clearly carol was a hands on, present, watchful mother. did she nudge her toward the relationship toward the future king of england? yes and why not? reporter: a close friendship takes a passionate turn, when we come back. [ male announcer ] in 2011, at&t is at work, building up our wireless network all across america. we re adding new cell sites. increasing network capacity. and making a substantial investment to improve your wireless network experience. from a single phone call to the most advanced data download, we re covering more people in more places than ever before in an effort to give you the best network possible. at&t. rethink possible. your finances can t manage themselves. but that doesn t mean they won t try. bring all your finances together with the help of the one person who can. a certified financial planner professional. cfp. let s make a plan. and all we need to do is change the way we re thinking about them. a couple decades ago, we didn t even realize just how much natural gas was trapped in rocks thousands of feet below us. technology has made it possible to safely unlock this cleanly burning natural gas. this deposits can provide us with fuel for a hundred years, providing energy security and economic growth all across this country. it just takes somebody having the idea, and that s where the discovery comes from. reporter: it s a night that rocked st. andrew s university every year. a night that eight years ago shook up prince william and kate middleton s friendship forever. march, 2002. the annual charity fashion show called don t walk. a show where the models were nearly naked. kate was no exception. jules knight was in the audience with prince william. she looked great. reporter: were people stunned? she wasn t a risque girl. a safe bet in the way she dressed and acted. here she was not wearing that much looking amazing. all the guys, all of a sudden were like wow. reporter: kate s hot. kate s hot. he wanted to start something. that was the point he pursued her romantically and quickly. reporter: up to that night, their friendship was purely platonic. prince william remembers fondly. we were friends for over a year first. it sort of blossomed from then on. reporter: they bonded over their shared major of art history, early morning swims in the pool and their sense of humor. she s got an odd sense of humor. it was good fun. we had a good laugh and then things happened. you would see them sitting on a radiator at a house party with a bottle of jd by him and drinking away and able to conduct their relationship as friends. reporter: life with prince william was quite the party. i remember, we walked out of a pub, we were quite drunk, walking down the street, about ten of us. i saw a pellet gun on the floor, i picked it up and started waving it around. he grabbed it, holding it in the air, suddenly, i was like this is probably not a good idea. what does this look like from behind. i remember looking behind and there were body guards looking agitated like what the hell is going on. reporter: kate always managed to stay in control. richard was another friend at st. andrews. i wouldn t say that she was particularly flighty, overexcitable type person. very measured. very controlled. that is perfect. you don t want someone who is going to be falling out face down wasted after a session. william came to rely on kate in good times and in bad. he had all the same stresses and pressures as every student does. for some people reporter: charles warren was a lecturer at st. andrews. he was panicking about deadlines and struggling like most students do. the first year was tough for william. he felt isolated from friends and family. he was so unhappy, he was determined to leave after the first year. it really was kate who talked him into staying. she said look, we will stick it out together. if at the end of sophomore year we feel the same, we will both leave. reporter: they stuck it out and moved into this flat together with a couple other friends. it blossomed from there. we saw more of each other. it got better. reporter: it was in the spring of that year living together, 2002 that kate hit the runway and william saw his close friend in a very different light. they quickly became more than just roommates. being friends with one is a massive advantage. reporter: the idea of a prince living with his girlfriend was unheard of for the house of windsor. diana was 19 when she dated charles. she lived here in a flat in london. he lived miles away. the entire courtship was five months. once they were engaged, diana was whisked away to the mother s palace. dr. james, a close friend of diana s remembers how abandoned she felt. despite her aristocratic roots, she never seemed at home in the palace. was she lonely? did she tell you that? absolutely. she went to the prince. she was expecting a romantic call, something like that. i think there was very little communication. i think she found it very difficult. if that s how it was, she will bite her lip and hope it gets better after the wedding. reporter: it didn t. no one knows it better than prince william. he would get to know kate and her family early. william traveled to kate s home in the countryside often. he started visiting the middleton s home. he saw it was possible to have a happy family and marriage in the middleton s. i think it s a big reason kate is the one. she s not somebody who has grown up near the palace. she s normal. i think he loves going to dinner around the house and being a part of something which is actually standard. reporter: local pub owner and friend john hailey remembers when william would come to town. he came in and booked a table or walk in and people would notice him. they would be left alone. reporter: soon, that would all change. when the world discovered these roommates were more than just friends. what s this option? that s new. personal pricing now on brakes. tell us what you want to pay. we do our best to make that work. deal! my money. my choice. my meineke. i m don lemon, here are the headlines. scary moments on a flight from paris to rome. a passenger attacked a flight attendant and demanded the flight be diverted to libya. they mobilized the attacker and the plane and landed safely in rome. the attacker was taken safely o to the clean up began for people living in the pathway of tornadoes. 750 homes were damaged. some of them totally blown apart. no reports of deaths. those are your headlines this hour. the women who would be queen returns right now. the swiss alps. a holiday hot spot for the royal family. march, 2004, prince william was about to let the world in on a secret. the thing is, they were sharing a house in st. andrews. we suspected, but you never know. reporter: for several years journalists were left to wonder if william and kate middleton were a couple. despite denials from the palace and prince williams. but that all changed on that spring day. with paparazzi in tow, william took the the slopes with his new love. we discovered they were, in fact, an item. reporter: it was ironically on the ski slopes ten years earlier that princess diana begged the paparazzi for privacy for her boys. as a parent, please respect my children s space. reporter: now, a decade later, her grown-up son took charge. friends jules knight. reporter: was that intentional, we are going to let people know? of course. you take somebody skiing at the place your family has been going for the last how many years, there s a clear sign that he s saying to everybody, this is the girl in my life. reporter: newspapers ran with the story. headlines like this, finally, wills gets a girl. for the first time, the palace didn t deny the romance. the couple would retreat behind the protective walls of st. andrews. for the next year, they continued to live together, now without other roommates. they spent more time with the royal family and became clear to many, despite her commoner upbringing, kate fit in, perhaps even better than princess diana. she showed no hesitation to accompany them on hunting trips and go fishing. diana could hardly tolerate that. reporter: june, 2005. the private life william and kate enjoying for nearly four years came to an end. william wales. they graduated from st. andrews and left their world behind and plunged into a world of paparazzi. there were more photographers than i had seen in my life, like 100. the noise of the cameras going off and the flashes was intense. you know, unbelievable. i think everyone realized the game was over because the protection they had enjoyed had finished. reporter: in the months after graduation, the press followed them everywhere, weddings, polo matches. there were rumors of a break up. in january, 2006, it got worse. william began his royal military training in the english countryside, leaving kate alone in london. he was beginning his military career in essence around a lot of other young men who were going to make their lives in the military. there was a lot of heavy drinking going on and partying going on. reporter: was he faithful to her? yes, he was. there were indiscreet moments girls came up to him and there was kissing. she handled it well but she didn t end the relationship. it was probably difficult on their relationship. she was having scrutiny from the press. she walked out of her flat and be besieged by photographers. it couldn t go on. they would follow her to work and stop her in traffic with flashing through the window while trying to drive her car. waiting for her to leave her office. that s when it s really stressful. excuse me. hey! hey! hey! reporter: all reminiscent of what happened to his mother. look at the images. for diana, the pressure was too much to bear. diana ran into a doorway and was crying. for kate, it was different. she seemed smart and guarded by the press. a nightclub that everyone goes to in south kensington. she was famous for nipping into the bar, checking her hair and make up before she left because she knew there were photographers waiting outside. reporter: while kate publicly held their own, privately, there were serious concerns. she was not his fiance, so she was not entitled to body guards. william is surrounded by body guards at all times. he realized she was on her own. he was afraid for her. reporter: on several occasions, kate s lawyers, the same used by the royal family asked newspaper editors to leave kate alone. they threatened lawsuits. it helped a little. kate was still a target just like princess diana. prince william who always had nightmares about the night his mother died now had nightmares about kate. the accident happening isn t happening in the streets of paris, but in the streets of london and happening to kate. reporter: he worries about kate? he said i was born into this, she wasn t. should i be subjecting her to this. this was a constant question in their relationship. reporter: a question that would drive the couple apart. k , you may not want to face the fact that you re at greater risk of a heart attack or stroke. plavix helps protect people with acs against heart attack or stroke: people like you. it s one of the most researched prescription medicines. goes beyond what they do alone by helping to keep blood platelets from sticking and forming dangerous clots. plavix. protection against heart attack or stroke in people with acs. [ female announcer ] plavix is not for everyone. certain genetic factors and some medicines such as prilosec reduce the effect of plavix leaving you at greater risk for heart attack and stroke. your doctor may use genetic tests to determine treatment. don t stop taking plavix without talking to your doctor as your risk of heart attack or stroke may increase. people with stomach ulcers or conditions that cause bleeding should not use plavix. taking plavix alone or with some other medicines, including aspirin, may increase bleeding risk, which can potentially be life threatening, so tell your doctor when planning surgery. tell your doctor all medicines you take, including aspirin, especially if you ve had a stroke. if fever, unexplained weakness or confusion develops, tell your doctor promptly. these may be signs of ttp, a rare but potentially life-threatening condition, reported sometimes less than two weeks after starting plavix. times were tough for prince william and kate middleton. the paparazzi in hot pursuit, six years dating, no engagement. the pressure was intense. january, 2007, kate s 25th birthday. raging headlines every day about the circumstances leading to diana s death. there s a party for kate at their favorite nightclub. they come out and they are descended on by hundreds of paparazzi. huge body guards are slammed into land rovers and they speed away. it was history repeating itself. reporter: lawyers for william, the palace and the middleton s lashed out. they stopped publishing paparazzi photos. the pressure on william and kate was mounting. everything came to a head on valentine s day, 2007. she thought she would get a proposal. instead, he gave her an enamel compact. they started to quarrel bitterly. she demanded that he commit, as they say. william wasn t ready for it. he went to his father, prince charles. prince charles said you can t keep stringing her along. break it off if you are not ready. he listened to his father s advice. reporter: a father trying to prevent history from repeating itself. charles would have been happy staying a bachelor indefinitely. reporter: she was a friend in 1980. i think there was a great deal of pressure to get married and produce heirs for the throne. i think diana was the right girl at the right time and the right place. reporter: insiders say charles did care deeply for diana but was pressured to marry before he was ready. no surprise their son william would not be pressured to propose. one day kate was at work when her cell phone rang. it was william. she gets a call, goes into the back room. the other employees can hear what s going on. it s not pretty. he s breaking it off. she doesn t want it to happen. there s an emotional thing going on. it s the break-up call. reporter: the sun newspaper broke the news, april 4, 2007. people were stunned. kate looked grim. she packed up and headed home to her parents. she s devastated. her mother, carol, says well fight to get him back. don t be defeated. reporter: friends say it didn t take long to rebound. singer of a boy band blake, jules knight. i remember having lunch with her. it was evident she was being very forthright. she said i m getting on with my life. cool. it hasn t worked out. that s behind me. let s move on. reporter: how did prince william react to the break-up? unglued. he drank too much. he went out with buddies to various clubs. he was very obviously adrift emotionally. it didn t help to have him see kate have a time of her life. reporter: training for a cross channel race or out on the town enjoying life as a single woman. she s a smart girl. she made sure she wasn t going to run back to him. she was calm and level headed and strong about it. i think he thought oh my god, what have i done. reporter: she s going to go out and hang out with other people. i think he thought actually, i want to be with this girl. reporter: nearly three months later, there were hints they were getting back together. you find out things about yourself that you haven t realized or i value that time for me as well all though i didn t think it at the time. reporter: july 1, 2007. princess diana s memorial concert. i went to the afterconcert party and they were like normal. i imagine that s when they made the decision they were going to get married. reporter: for the next three years they would settle into life. william in the military, kate by his side for graduations, ceremonies and other people s weddings. then, october, 2010, the wait was finally over. it was a remote spot on the slopes of mt. kenya, africa s highest peak. a romantic lodge with a fireplace and lots of candles. ironically, not far from where a decade earlier, william supposedly proposed to his first love. this time, it was kate. i took her up somewhere nice in kenya and proposed. it was truly romantic. you said yes? of course, yes. reporter: in that secluded lodge, he gave kate a ring. they were not alone. it was my mother s engagement ring. she s not around to share in it. this is my way of sharing. reporter: a ring on her finger, smile on her face. is kate really ready for what lies ahead? [ male announcer ] in 2011, at&t is at work, building up our wireless network all across america. we re adding new cell sites. increasing network capacity. and making a substantial investment to improve your wireless network experience. from a single phone call to the most advanced data download, we re covering more people in more places than ever before in an effort to give you the best network possible. at&t. rethink possible. everything you need to stretch out on long trips. residence inn. everything you need to stay balanced on long trips. residence inn. and all we need to do is change the way we re thinking about them. a couple decades ago, we didn t even realize just how much natural gas was trapped in rocks thousands of feet below us. technology has made it possible to safely unlock this cleanly burning natural gas. this deposits can provide us with fuel for a hundred years, providing energy security and economic growth all across this country. it just takes somebody having the idea, and that s where the discovery comes from. it just takes somebody having the idea, i don t have to leave my desk and get up and go to the post office anymore. we have a few questions. reporter: the first time most of the world would hear kate middleton speak. would you tell us how prince william proposed. it was very romantic. reporter: st. james palace, november 16, 2010. william and kate s engagement announcement. take it in my stride. william is a great teacher. he ll be able to teach me along the way. reporter: the confidence of a couple who seemingly worked it all out. pick ourselves up and carry on. it s easy being with each other. i m extremely funny and she loves that. it s been good. reporter: a bit of humor in the face of media tension. hang on a second. masses of people in there for that. the questions were fired. she coped with it very well. he was so proud. it wasn t like his father and mother with six photographers and two reporters. reporter: a shy, soft spoken diana seemed unprepared for what lie ahead. has it been a strain carrying out a courtship without anyone knowing? yes, it has. reporter: the world caught a glimpse with charles awkward admission. of course. reporter: diana and charles seemed miles apart emotionally and physically. in the months leading up to the wedding, diana was behind the gates and guards of this house, the clarence house. charles was on the move splitting his time and traveling to places as far away as australia. diana was always left behind. she was in the queen mother s house without a brief of what to do. she could have had coaching. this is about to become a large job, you have to learn stuff that would have been valid in the modern age, maybe political stuff. there was nothing. it was assumed she knew what she was walking into because she was of their class. she was an aristocrat. yes. reporter: kate would get the coaching diana lacked. premarital counseling. i can t think of any royal couple less in need of that. they worked it out. they are ready to go through the motions of this thing. she s willing to go through the emotions of being taught how to behave in front of the press. in terms of specific ceremonial duties, royal etiquette, there are things she needs to be taught. reporter: diana got none of that? no. reporter: february 24th will be kate s first test. her first appearance in north wales, william by her side. she shook hands with the old and the young. when they were launching the lifeboat, william bowed to her with his hands like that in acknowledgement this is her first engagement and she did it brilliantly. reporter: their lives are not dick kated by palace and pro protoc protocol. they settled in remote north wales. he plucks hikers off mountain tops. kate is keeping the home fires burning at their little house in north wales. no one cooking dinner and cleaning. it s going to be different than charles and diana. no big stately home. he s going to go to work, do his shift, come home, chill, watch tv, get a video, get pizza. that s the way they are going to live their life. reporter: it s the way kate grew up. rural, quiet. once criticized too common, it may be the thing that keeps this royal couple together. a lot of aristocrats are the least able to deal with that kind of thing. they have a firm grasp of what it s like to live in the real world. she was much better equipped to deal with the pressures of royal life than the average aristocrat. reporter: ironically. ironically. she s been with prince william for nearly eight years. she s had plenty of time to reflect on is this what i want? with that said, she was ahead of diana in understanding and knowing exactly what was coming her way. reporter: for william, history would not repeat itself. it s kind of almost why i had waited this long. i wanted to give her a chance to see and back out if she needed to, before it got too much. i m not trying to learn from lessons done in the past. i wanted to give her the best chance to settle in and see what happens. reporter: do you think everyone s got it right this time? finally, they have it right. it s all because of diana. if diana hadn t shaken things up the way she did, made the monarchy look at itself in the mirror and see what they were doing wrong and what they could do right, none of these changes would have happened. the true catalyst for this now is kate. because in essence, she s going to be the first true people s princess. reporter: the people s princess like diana before her but unlike diana, prepared for what lies ahead. a royal couple living life on their own terms.