Rumors About Rose Hanbury's Husband Have Royal Fans Going Off

The rumors regarding Rose Hanbury and her husband, David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, are "Game of Thrones"-level juicy.

Since January 2024, chaos has run rampant within the royal family headlines after Kensington Palace announced Kate Middleton's "planned abdominal surgery" and her extended absence from royal duties. Since that fateful day, the rumor mill has churned non-stop about Kate's exact whereabouts after leaving the hospital post-surgery, with the hashtags #KateGate and #WhereisKateMiddleton trending on X, formerly known as Twitter. In response to the speculation, the palace released a statement slamming the inquiries. "We were very clear from the outset that the Princess of Wales was out until after Easter, and Kensington Palace would only be providing updates when something was significant," it said (via People).

Unfortunately for the royal family, their statement and subsequent attempts to prevent the gossip wildfire from spreading, like Kate's infamous fake photo controversy, have failed. In fact, new salacious rumors and articles have since come out about Kate, with many shining a light on her supposed marital problems with Prince William, including his alleged affair with Hanbury. While Kensington Palace has denied the infidelity stories, telling The Daily Beast that they are "totally wrong and false," it hasn't stopped social media users from putting a microscope on Hanbury and her husband, Cholmondeley, including rumors about the latter's own alleged extramarital affair.

Since those Prince William and Rose Hanbury affair rumors made headlines, fans have put on their detective caps to better understand why the two may be involved in a forbidden love affair. However, one problematic rumor that has run rampant X, formerly known as Twitter, is that Rose and her husband, David Cholmondeley, are in a marriage of convenience, with the latter supposedly having a male lover. "Just read that #RoseHanbury's husband has a male lover, and he only needed Rose to produce Heirs to his estate & that they have an open marriage leaving Rose to fully engage with Prince William," one user tweeted. Another person echoed similar sentiments, speculating that the controversial French photographer François-Marie Banier was the lover in question and that he and David live together in France. "People asking how to pronounce Rose Hanbury Cholmondeley, Prince William's mistress' name, when they should be asking why her husband lives in France with his boyfriend," they wrote alongside a clipping of Kate Moss's Financial Times interview describing the French estate in question.

While it's likely that neither Rose nor David will ever entertain the idea of clarifying the rumors, the latter's relationship with François has made headlines in the past. In 2010, amid François's high-profile legal battle against L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, the Daily Mail revealed that he and David had a close bond, with him even accepting the role of godfather to the 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley's twins, Oliver and Alexander.