WHEN WE were growing up, all princesses looked like the kind you’d find on Disney.
Sadly for one little girl her fairy tale dreams were dashed early when she met Kate Middleton during a royal engagement – and the Duchess of Cambridge was forced to apologise for “not looking like Cinderella”.
Rhian Costello and her daughter Annabel, three, met Kate, 38, and Prince William, 37, outside the RNLI Mumbles Lifeboat Station in the Mumbles near Swansea yesterday.
According to the Daily Mail, the mum told the Duchess – who was greeting royal fans waiting along the pier – that her daughter was excited to meet a “real princess”.
The royal apologised to her little girl, saying: “I’m really sorry I’m not wearing a pretty dress today.”
A disappointed Anabel replied: “I thought you’d look like Cinderella.”
Despite this, she still gave Kate a big hug and was “so taken” with the the Duchess.
Of their meeting, Rhian later recalled: “We were incredibly lucky her car came and stopped right in front of us and she came straight over to us.
“I said, ‘Thank you so much for coming to visit us in Wales.’ And she said, ‘We always like coming back to Wales since we lived in Anglesey’.”
She added: “Kate was all smiles and very friendly. Annabel was so taken with her, she went up and gave her a huge hug and I was extremely surprised that Kate embraced her in such a way.”
Kate wore, for the occasion, a £349 navy maxi coat from Hobbs with a red knitted dress and a heart-print scarf.
The Duchess was also taken by surprise during her Welsh tour with the Duke of Cambridge when she bumped into two former school teachers.
Kevin Allford and wife Denise Evans-Allford taught her at St Andrew’s Prep School in Berkshire during her teens.
They insisted she “hasn’t changed at all” since being a pupil when she was “in such a wonderful class of girls and they got on so well together”.
In other royal news, we told you how the Queen wants someone to help refurbishment Buckingham Palace and you’ll get paid £38,000.
We also revealed how Kate Middleton has admitted she struggles to watch films now she’s a mum.
And fans spot Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s plug for Global Positive News is actually ad for online shop.
