The Real Reason Kate Middleton Once Held A Special Place In Prince Harry's Heart

Prince Harry lost his mother, Prince Diana, at a crucial time in his life, as she died on August 31, 1997, just two weeks before Harry's 13th birthday. That day, Harry lost the main female presence in his life, Newsweek noted. Both his father, Prince Charles, and his older brother, William, were going through their own hardships and weren't "emotionally available" for Harry or each other, the report detailed. To some extent, his sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, eventually stepped into that role. When Harry was still a bachelor living at Kensington Palace nearby William and Kate, he would often show up at their apartment in hopes of eating some of Kate's homemade food, showing particular predilection for roast chicken, according to Newsweek.

Then, when Harry announced he was engaged to Meghan Markle in November 2017, William said he was happy for his brother and joked he was looking forward to seeing less of Harry in his home. "For me personally, I hope it means he stays out of my fridge and will stop him scrounging my food, which he's done for the last few years," William told a reporter, a clip of which the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge shared on Twitter. 

But Kate apparently wasn't bothered. She enjoyed giving Harry cooking tips and spending nights binge-watching "Game of Thrones" with him, according to the Daily Mail. Harry's relationship with Kate has cooled amid Harry and William's feud, but a grand gesture ahead of Kate's engagement to William showed how highly he thinks of her.

When Prince William introduced Kate Middleton to the royal family early on in their relationship, Prince Harry quickly developed a bond with his future sister-in-law. "Harry was always close to Kate and he always said she was the sister he never had," Christopher Andersen, author of "Brothers and Wives: Inside the Private Lives of William, Kate, Harry, and Meghan," said on the "Royally Us" podcast (via Express) in December. Harry's affection for Kate was so strong, in fact, that when William announced their engagement in 2010, Harry offered to gift him their mother Princess Diana's blue sapphire engagement ring — but only because it was Kate, Andersen explained (via SheKnows). "Harry joked with his brother that, under other circumstances, he might not be so willing to fork over the ring: 'If it was any other girl...'" Anderson claims Harry told his brother.

After Diana died, Harry and William each picked one piece of their late mother's personal jewelry collection to keep. Harry chose her engagement ring, while William went for her Cartier Tank watch, according to SheKnows. Harry thought Kate would be the perfect person to wear Diana's ring, knowing she might become queen of England one day, Diana's former butler Paul Burrell said in the 2017 Amazon Prime documentary "The Diana Story" (via The Sun). "His one thing he kept from his mother, he gave to his brother.," Burrell said. "That's selfless, kind and exactly who Diana was."