Fifteen years ago, Pippa Middleton appeared to step suddenly into a level of fame few could have predicted.
While her older sister Kate made her way down the aisle at Westminster Abbey to marry Prince William, it was Pippa who unexpectedly became one of the defining images of the royal wedding.
Then 27, she wore a sleek, shimmering Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen gown and drew worldwide attention as she walked up the Abbey steps carrying Kate’s nine-foot train.
The fascination was instant. Pippa Middleton was hailed as a cover girl, a girl next door and a breakout star of the royal spectacle. From her wardrobe to her diet, every detail seemed to invite headlines, and the woman who arrived as the bride’s younger sister left the ceremony among the most talked-about women in the world.
But as she prepares to celebrate her 43rd birthday this weekend, the younger sister of the Princess of Wales appears to be living a far more low-key life.
Rather than remaining a fixture on the glamorous social circuit that followed the royal wedding, Pippa has largely stepped back from the spotlight. She is now focused on family life with her financier husband, James Matthews, 51, and their three young children: Arthur, seven, Grace, five, and Rose, four.
This year has proved difficult for Pippa, who has clashed with neighbours and residents in the Berkshire village of Kintbury
Pippa became a global talking point after carrying her sister’s nine-foot train at the royal wedding
In recent years, she’s been building a family with her financier husband, James Matthews (pictured), 51, and their three young children, Arthur, seven, Grace, five, and Rose, four
Indeed, the past year has been a particularly challenging one for the woman who once seemed to have mastered the art of having it all, after she fell out of favour with neighbours and locals in the Berkshire village of Kintbury, where she owns a 32-room Georgian property on a sprawling 150-acre estate.
The Matthews, who paid £15million for Barton Court in 2022, are embroiled in a planning row after blocking local dog walkers and ramblers from crossing their estate, where the path was once freely accessible to the public. The previous owner, the late restaurateur and designer Sir Terence Conran, had reportedly encouraged villagers to use it.
Their actions have sparked a groundswell of ill-feeling after they blocked the path with an electric gate and posted warning signs: ‘No trespassing’ and ‘Private, no public access.’
At a hearing in May, Mr Matthews explained that the gates were installed solely to protect the privacy of his high-profile family and insisted the path is rarely used by the public. But the debacle has alienated the couple and infuriated locals who have not been won over by the ‘Pippa effect’.
Now 35 residents, backed by The Ramblers association, have applied to the local council to preserve the right of way and await the decision of a government-appointed inspector.
Earlier this year it also emerged that the couple had been forced to sell their ‘passion project’, Bucklebury Farm, a 72-acre deer and safari petting park, after accumulating six figures’ worth of debt since its purchase in 2021.
Yet while the royal wedding put Pippa on the world stage, those in her social circle were long accustomed to her being the golden girl. During her school years at the £21,345-a-term Marlborough College, she was known as a superstar on the playing fields, having secured a sports scholarship.
‘We were all a bit sporty, but Pippa was different, she had exceptional athletic ability,’ a source tells Our News Outlet.
Academically gifted, she won a competitive place to read English at Edinburgh University, where she became friends with George Percy, son of the Duke of Northumberland.
Despite her accomplishments and high-powered connections, Pippa’s attempts to build an identity away from the shadow of her royal sibling seem to have so far, fallen flat.
In 2012 she brought out a book on party planning after securing a £400,000 advance from Penguin. But glossy photographs of Pippa decorating biscuits alongside advice such as sourcing a pumpkin for Halloween failed to shift copies and were widely mocked.
Then she became a columnist for a slew of high-profile publications, contributing to Vanity Fair and The Spectator. In September 2013, she began writing a fortnightly sports and social column, but by the following May it had been discontinued.
James Matthews seen attending a planning meeting over a a closed road across his and his wife’s estate
Her high profile and health and wellness credentials then saw her appointed an ambassador for the British Heart Foundation in 2014, where she took part in a 3,000-mile cycling race across America and the Bosphorus cross-continental swimming competition in Istanbul. But since her ravishing appearance at the Red Ball at the Park Lane Hotel in 2015, her connection with the foundation has somewhat, cooled.
For all her cleverness, sources say Pippa has never quite found her voice in public because, as the sister of the future Queen, her actions are closely monitored by the palace. Her younger brother James Middleton, 39, an entrepreneur, once alluded to the restrictions of royalty by association when he said: ‘I really want to promote my company, but I have to be very careful, I can never talk about my sister.’
Others suggest she has the best of both worlds – a queen without the scrutiny of a court, with the privileges of a profile she could use to promote worthy causes.
There are other pressures, too. Her society wedding in 2017 to hedge fund tycoon and former racing driver James Matthews, chief executive of Eden Rock Capital Management Group, was attended by the cream of British society, including Princess Catherine, Prince William and their children George, Charlotte, her parents Carole and Michael Middleton, her husband James’s brother, the Made in Chelsea star Spencer Matthews, as well as tennis legend Roger Federer and his wife Mirka.
Indeed, her annual visit to Wimbledon in July marked a rare public appearance: a stylish floral outfit showing off her toned physique, her hair expensively highlighted, looking serene in the royal box and with a million questions hanging over the polished mystique. Fashion darling or socialite? Hostess or philanthropist? International jet-setting wife? Pippa Middleton wears many hats. Which of them fits the best?
With her husband’s estimated wealth of around £2billion, she is no longer the society butterfly about town, but a member of an elite social clique where discretion and public image are paramount.
While few can really know what life is like for her behind the estate walls, Barton Court is just a short distance from Forest Lodge in Windsor Great Park, where the Prince and Princess of Wales are now based.
Sharing a close bond with her sister, Pippa was surely steadfast in her support of Kate during her cancer battle and is known to have fostered a close relationship with her children’s cousins.
Pippa was steadfast in her support of Catherine and is known to have fostered a close relationship with her children’s cousins
Royal insiders also speculate over whether Pippa will receive an honorary title, when Prince William succeeds King Charles to the throne and Kate becomes Queen.
Nevertheless, the woman once dubbed ‘royal hotness’, celebrated for her pert derriere and Sloane Ranger style, has mostly vanished from public life.
Fifteen years after she walked behind the future Queen and unintentionally stole the show, Pippa has learned that life away from the cameras is far more complicated than it may have seemed from the steps of Westminster Abbey.
Whatever the outcome of the footpath enquiry, Pippa and her husband don’t seem to have ingratiated themselves within their local community, coming across instead as a cold-blooded power couple who wish to pull up the drawbridge behind them.
But with her children still young and plenty of life ahead of her, Pippa still has time – and talent – to reinvent herself.
Once the whole world wanted to know what the princess’s sister would do next. But now, perhaps the final twist in the Middleton myth, is that very few people, actually know.
