By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-04 23:34:52 | Updated at 2025-01-06 21:45:14
1 day ago
The public has been swept up by news of the romance between the late Queen’s youngest grand-daughter Lady Louise Windsor and her beau Felix da Silva-Clamp.
Little wonder given the relationship – formed during their current studies at St Andrews University – mirrors the fairytale romance of the Prince and Princess of Wales during their own time there.
Ever since those first tentative signs of Kate and William’s relationship emerged, a global audience has devoured stories about their love and family life.
However, while fans have had to make do with reading about the relationship second-hand, Laura Warshauer had a front row seat as a result of her close friendship with the pair.
Whether it was William helping to carry her luggage, Kate comforting her on a night out, or just having a quiet drink in a cosy corner of a pub together, those memories live on.
Her interactions with them are something few can share – teaching Kate how to play the guitar, William buying her first ever Jack Daniel’s and Coke, eating takeaway food together or laughing and joking during road trips.
It was, after all, a pivotal moment in the lives of the young royals – and for Ms Warshauer, who arrived in St Andrews in 2001 as a fresh-faced 17-year-old, 5,000 miles from her home in New Jersey.
She said: ‘I graduated from school a year early and then spent what would have been my senior year at high school in St Andrews. It was a beautiful moment in time.
The former student friend of Kate and Wills, Laura Warshauer, has told of their love story.
Ms Warshauer lived with the couple at St Andrews University and even wrote a song for them.
‘I wound up getting a front row seat to the very beginning of what would become one of the greatest and most iconic love stories of our time. It’s great to see Will and Kate, the same people they were then, on the world stage.’
And while the world marvels at the fact yet another royal relationship has taken root in St Andrews, Ms Warshauer finds it fits with the magic of the town.
Giving her own take on Lady Louise’s love story, she said: ‘It is such a sweet story. My roommate from St Andrews also met her husband there. It is a special place.’
Amid a slew of photos from her time at the university is one that shows William and Ms Warshauer sat next to each other in a group photo, smiling and at ease.
The Prince, or Will as Ms Warshauer still calls him, was on the same floor at the student accommodation St Salvator’s while Kate was on the floor below.
She remembers making dinner – her mother’s lasagne recipe and her aunt’s toffee – for William and some of his friends as well as chatting with him during meal times in the ‘Harry Potter-style’ dining hall.
She said: ‘Will lived down the hall with two of his friends from Eton. Kate lived on the floor below.
‘I met them the same week they met each other. I was struck by how normal Will was. You could talk about anything – the most mundane things.
'Coming back from a trip home to New Jersey with my big luggage, Will would grab my bag and take it inside the dorm.
‘We were all just trying to find our way. Even if you’d been at a boarding school like Eton, people were still in a new environment.’
She added: ‘I remember I made dinner for everyone on my birthday in December and Will brought me a gift – a stuffed animal from Tesco.
‘It’s a seal with a blue backpack with stars on it. It’s in a place where I can see it every day and I’m like, “How cool”. It’s adorable.’
Ms Warshauer, 41, said Kate and William had instant chemistry and fell for each other months before the now well-documented fashion show in March 2002 when William saw Kate modelling a see-through slip and described her as ‘hot’.
She said: ‘We went to a party at a castle. It was a Harry Potter theme and they did an auction for charity where people were bidding to win a date. Will bid £200 to win a date with Kate.’
While Ms Warshauer doesn’t know what they eventually did for their date, she remembered Kate’s reaction was effortlessly cool – showing she was unfazed by titles and comfortable around him.
This easy nature between them was clear at another party where Kate extricated William from an uncomfortable encounter.
The Prince and Princess of Wales shared many fond memories at the university in Fife.
Ms Lady Louise Windsor and Felix Da Silva-Clamp mirror their fairytale romance.
Ms Warshauer said: ‘It was early on when Will and Kate were getting to know each other. This girl was talking to Will and he was being polite but it was obvious he needed a way out.
‘All of a sudden Kate walks up from across the room, puts her arms around him and enables him to turn to this other girl and be like “I’m sorry, I have a girlfriend”.
‘And then he turned to Kate and silently mouthed the words “Thank you”. I remember thinking at that moment that no one but Kate could have done that.
‘They had just met each other but it was clear they had a connection.’
And her memories of Kate are as fond now as they were when they were youngsters.
She said: ‘Kate saw that I was upset one night while we were out. I was walking ahead so people couldn’t see that I was upset and she came up and put her arm around me. You remember these moments.’
A photograph of Kate and Ms Warshauer taken in the town’s camera shop in 2001 shows their friendship.
They had gone there to find the equipment they needed to film an audition Ms Warshauer was looking to submit for a show on US broadcaster CBS.
She said: ‘As you know, Kate loves photography, she loved it then. Even in her dorm room I remember the beautiful photos.
‘She and I went to the camera shop together to get everything we needed and then she filmed the audition for me.’
Around a decade later Kate found herself on the other end of the lens when she and William married at Westminster Abbey in April 2011, with the eyes of 162 million viewers worldwide on them. That popularity prevails.
In November, Ms Warshauer, a singer-songwriter who was once signed to major label Island Def Jam, shared a photo on social media of herself and Kate – taken at a 19th birthday party during their time in St Andrews – in a show of support for the Princess following her treatment for cancer.
The childhood sweethearts kissed on the Buckingham Palace balcony after marrying in 2011.
In the caption, she wrote: ‘Sending love to Kate Middleton, the future Queen of England and my university dormmate!’
She added: ‘She is the kindest, most caring, down-to-earth, genuine person, and it’s incredible to see her shining so brightly and inspiring the world with her compassion and courage.’
Before long the post had been viewed more than 600,000 times and saw her thrust into the global media spotlight once more.
Ms Warshauer said: ‘The interest is even greater now than it was the first time.’
Reminiscing about the party where the photo was taken, she remembers that she had just been to Paris to visit her sister who was studying there and recalls how their father also travelled to meet them.
Indeed, the outfit she has on in the snap is one she bought during that French adventure.
Even that trip to Paris had started with another cherished moment with William and Kate.
She said: ‘Kate and I were supposed to ride a taxi to the airport together but then Will gave her a ride so I got in on it. I love how he offered her a ride and that’s how I got to go.
‘It was so cool to arrive in Paris and be like, “So guess who gave me a ride to the airport?”
‘The radio was on and Will was like, “Laura, you can sing with the radio”. It was just like popular music. It was sweet that he made that reference to me as a singer.’
By then, Ms Warshauer had already started her musical career and was full of ambition.
Some of the pieces she wrote during her time at St Andrews went on to land her a first record deal with Island Def Jam.
One song – titled To Will and Kate, Meet Me at Exit 109 – paints a picture of a fun-loving couple who joined in a huge foam fight in the quad, drank wine out of plastic cups from Woolworths and sat on the floor to eat lasagne with fellow students.
Her music has featured in advertising campaigns for Ralph Lauren and Motorola, in addition to global video game franchise Just Dance and shows streamed on Netflix, Amazon and Fox.
She has also hung out with numerous celebrities, with Jay Z telling her she was ‘fantastically talented’ at a Grammy awards after-party.
She also got to meet such music legends as Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith.
Ms Warshauer has now written a workbook for others looking to make their own way, titled My Creativity is Killing Me, which she said is to help people take control of their creative careers.
It is her own experience that shines through, with Ms Warshauer saying: ‘I’ve experienced the amazing highs and the crashing lows of the entertainment industry.’
And as she looks back now she recognises that William’s encouragement is one of the things that has bolstered her confidence over the years.
She said: ‘I carried those words with me into the moments in my future.’
