Kate’s brother, James Middleton, shares devastating confession
A devastating health struggle impacting the Princess of Wales’ close-knit family has been laid bare in a harrowing new book.
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IN LONDON
The Princess of Wales’ brother has revealed he once considered “jumping from the rooftop” of a London building during a dark period in his life.
James Middleton, 37, shared the harrowing details of his struggle with depression in an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life, recalling that he used to “contemplate ways of dying” because he wanted to “get off the giddy rollercoaster that [was] sending [him] to the brink of madness”, per the Daily Mail.
James, who is brother to Kate and Pippa, and youngest child of Michael and Carole Middleton, recalled that during one of his most difficult moments, he was left unable to sleep as his “mind [was] in tumult”.
“The insomnia is dizzying. I am utterly exhausted. I feel misunderstood; a complete failure. I wouldn’t wish the sense of worthlessness and desperation, the isolation and loneliness, on my worst enemy. I think I’m going crazy,” he wrote.
“Yet I know I am privileged; fortunate, too, to have a loving and close-knit family — Mum and Dad, my sisters, Catherine and Pippa, their husbands, William and James — but I push them all away.
“I do not answer their phone calls. Emails remain ignored. Invitations to visit go unheeded. I hide behind a double-locked door, unreachable.”
James then detailed one harrowing night in late 2017 when he considered taking his own life.
“I wonder, if I jump, could it possibly be construed as a tragic accident? That way my family, although they would grieve desperately, would be spared the added torture of knowing that I had ended my life by suicide,” he wrote, before adding that it was his spaniel, Ella, who made him reconsider.
“I glance down the ladder again. Ella has not moved. Her brown eyes are still staring intently at me, soulful and pleading, and as my gaze locks on hers again, my brain quietens. In that instant I know I will not jump. What would happen to Ella if I died? How long would she wait alone in the flat for someone to find her?” James said.
“I haul myself back from the brink, slowly climb down the ladder and stroke Ella’s silky head. She is the reason I do not take that fatal leap. She is Ella, the dog who saved my life.”
Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life is set to be released on September 24.
Despite his family being thrust onto the world stage due to their proximity to the British monarchy, James lives a much more private life than Kate and their socialite sister, Pippa.
He has been married to Alizée Thevenet for just over three years, and the couple welcomed their first child, Inigo, in 2023.
In recent months, as the Princess of Wales underwent gruelling chemotherapy, James has issued rare public statements in a show of support.
Shortly after Kate released her initial video statement revealing her cancer diagnosis, James shared a heartwarming picture of the pair from their younger days on Instagram, writing alongside it: “Over the years, we have climbed many mountains together. As a family, we will climb this one with you too.”
Just last week, after Kate announced she had completed her cancer treatment, her brother publicly shared his delight, commenting underneath her video: “I couldn’t be more proud.”
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