I distinctly recall a season in all of our lives where every other week there was a story about Pippa Middleton, sister to Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. I cannot recall what any of these stories were about or why tabloids seemed so interested in the non-royal sister of a woman marrying into the royal family, but it seems that Pippa is being interesting again. Page Six is reporting that Pippa Middleton is pregnant with her second child and she is very happy about that. Congrats to Pippa.
If, like me, you have completely erased any information related to Pippa from the corner of your brain dedicated to British royals, let’s go through a brief history together.
Pippa was launched into worldwide attention when, of course, she appeared in her sister’s royal wedding, which was covered to kingdom come because royal weddings are really the only good thing the royal family does for us plebes—and also, they’re a goldmine for the media. Pippa was maid of honor and carried the hem of her sister’s train while also sporting a white dress of her own. The fact that she wore white, coupled with her looking beautiful, made for an instant tabloid lightning bolt. The media circus that was the royal wedding itself couldn’t last forever, and the next best thing was story after story of someone who had been a part of the whole thing.
In 2014, for instance, she wrote an article for Vanity Fair. The article was about some sort of horse-related event that is very popular in Britain, a country that, to my understanding, really loves horses. Shortly after explaining perfect horse and hats pairings to Vanity Fair, Pippa was fired from her job at the Daily Telegraph. Sad. For some reason, during Pippa’s job search (which was newsworthy?) she almost became a correspondent on NBC’s Today Show. What was there for her to correspond about at the time? I could not tell you if you paid me. Her prevalence in the news cycle waned a bit despite a tabloid item that she was dating Prince Harry, but she hit a nice peak in 2016 when her engagement to a fellow non-royal James Matthews was announced. It’s genuinely shocking that in 2016, with everything going on, Pippa Middleton found a way to be newsworthy.
Pippa and her man got married the following year in a “Scottish themed” wedding where her sister’s royal children served as flower throwers. It seems since then Pippa has been living her life outside of the tabloid headlines until this pregnancy announcement. Even though I re-read this history and was certainly alive for all of these moments, I cannot in the slightest remember them taking place or remember why we were all obsessed with Pippa in the first place. Wherefore art thou Pippa stans?