When Pippa Middleton got married back in 2017, it was a big deal. The famous sister of Kate Middleton wed James Matthews, former racecar driver and current finance manager. At the wedding, both Prince Harry and Prince William attended, and Matthews’ brother, reality star Spencer Matthews, served as the best man. Even Prince William and Kate’s kids participated. But there was a notable absence when Meghan Markle didn’t show and a new book indicates it all had to do with bums.
According to new book Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, then-royal couple Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were already concerned about Markle’s presence at the wedding given the media they had been dealing with while dating. Then, the book notes a report in The Sun came out calling out the event as “The Wedding of the Rears.”
Allegedly, following that report, any thought that the two might attend the event together went out the window. According to Finding Freedom (via Page Six), it seemed obvious the butt thing would be an ordeal, though news reports at the time only mentioned the concept of "no ring, no bring," and the difficulties of managing a private wedding with royal expectations and security as reasons Meghan Markle was not on the guest list. In this version, the memorable headline made the decision clear.
If they worried their arrival might create a media circus despite taking every precaution, now they had no doubt it would.
To understand this, one must go even further back in history to the historic 2011 wedding between Kate Middleton and Prince William, which was televised and viewed all around the world. Kate Middleton’s dress and the ceremony at Westminster Abbey were both notable, but the big tabloid story of the day was related to Pippa Middleton. More specifically, the story everyone seemed to latch onto was Pippa Middleton’s butt after she bent over to help keep her sister’s wedding dress from dragging the ground.
These days videos on the Internet are devoted to topics such as “How To Achieve Pippa Middleton Bum” – and those are the nicer videos on the subject. She’s taken it mostly in stride, though she once told Matt Lauer it “was embarrassing because it wasn’t planned.’ It’s also continually been a topic of conversation related to the Middleton sister and when Pippa Middleton was preparing to marry, the butt conversation came 'round again.
It’s important to note that Meghan Markle was not involved with the new book at all and that its authors chose to interview people near the palace and who knew both Harry and Meghan instead. Still, of all the stories in the book, if this one holds true it’s a bit of a bummer, though understandable given even I couldn’t resist a ‘bum’ related joke there.
Instead, it is fact that Meghan Markle skipped the wedding service so the focus could be on Pippa Middleton and James Matthews. She did join Prince Harry at the reception, with the book saying she wore a “decidedly unflashy long black gown.” Meanwhile, while Meghan Markle avoided the “rear” related headlines that night, her pal Jessica Mulroney attended and landed the butt-related headlines instead. So if that was the real reason she passed on the wedding, perhaps it wasn't the worst idea.
