Catherine, Princess Royal

Catherine, Princess Royal
Catherine, Princess Royal
Born	Catherine Charlotte Natalie Lauren Charles; January 28, 1969 (age 55); London, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Model; Actress; Businesswoman; Activist;
Years active	1991 - 2005
Spouse(s)	Jodie Foster (m. 2011)
Partner(s)	Mick Jagger (1989 - 1994); Madonna (1989 - 1995); Dennis Rodman (1994 - 1995)
Children	Georgia May Jagger; Corey Rodman; Charles Foster; Kit Foster
Parent(s)	Charles III (father); Lauren Bacall (mother)
	Modeling information
Height	170 cm (5 ft 7 in)
Hair color	Blonde
Eye color	Blue
Agency	IMG Models

Catherine, Princess Royal (Catherine Charlotte Natalie Lauren Charles; born 28 January 1969), known professionally as Kate Joan, is a British supermodel, actress, entrepreneur, and a member of the British royal family. The only daughter of King Charles III and American actress Lauren Bacall, she was made Princess Royal in 1996 upon the death of her great-great-aunt Mary, Princess Royal.

Beginning in the early 1990s, under the pseudonym of Kate Joan, Catherine first rose to fame as a model for Victoria's Secret, becoming its first-ever British Victoria's Secret Angel in 1993. Over a decade-long career, she walked for various designers and brands including Vera Wang, Karl Lagerfeld, Alexander McQueen, Prada, and Louis Vuitton, appeared on a variety of publications including Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Glamour, and notably holds the record with six cover appearances for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, surpassing Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson. Due to her ancestry, Catherine was often compared to fellow English model Kate Moss, with Karl Lagerfeld famously dubbing them "The Great Kates". By the turn of the century, she was one of the highest-paid models in the world and was dubbed by Anna Wintour to be the "quintessential English rose" with her slim build and high cheekbones being distinguishing features.

In 2005, Catherine retired from professional modeling in favour of an acting career, beginning with a role in Just Like Heaven. Following this, Catherine further starred in several films including The Holiday, 21, and Inglourious Basterds before properly establishing herself as a major star as the fictional English secret agent Kate Joan, a role that she portrayed across three films: Dangerous Entry, Dark Network, and Downfall, all three of which were directed by Christopher Nolan. Following this, Catherine went on to appear in other films including Argo, Money Monster, Jason Bourne, Disobedience, Ocean's 8, and Knives Out. The winner of three Academy Awards and BAFTA Awards, Catherine is considered to be one of the most successful and well-known female action stars in Hollywood and arguably the most successful former fashion model to have turned into an actress. In addition to her modeling and acting careers, Catherine has also been actively involved in activism, especially concerning women's and children's issues. In 2014, she founded the program Women Without Silence in order to combat domestic violence, workplace discrimination, and other related issues. Moreover, she was also made an honorary advisor to the Minister for Women and Equalities, a role she has held since 2017.

Known for her unconventional lifestyle, Catherine is the first member of the British royal family to publicly identify as bisexual, having been in previous relationships with both men and women including Madonna, Jenny Shimizu, Mick Jagger, and Dennis Rodman. Since 2011, she has been married to the American actress Jodie Foster, with whom she has four children including the fashion model Georgia May Jagger and the basketball player Corey Rodman.

With an estimated net worth of $28.5 billion via her shares in the multi-billion dollar holding company Atlantic Connection, Catherine is widely accepted to be the richest fashion model in the world and also the fourth richest woman in the world.

Early Life

Born on 28 January 1969, Catherine is the youngest of three children of King Charles III and the American actress Lauren Bacall. As the couple's only daughter, Catherine immediately enjoyed a very comfortable upbringing with her mother playing a particular role in the young princess's development.

Owing to her status as the only girl out of three siblings, Catherine, by virtue of growing up with two older brothers, namely Thomas and Nelson, gradually came to develop a noticeably "tomboyish" attitude while ultimately retaining the more feminine aspects of herself. During a later interview, the Princess Royal said, "Without a doubt, growing up as the only girl aside from my mother was quite a challenge in itself but in the end, I learned to adapt to the circumstances as I grew up and thankfully, on their part, my father and brothers were never really that harsh on me simply due to my gender and instead almost always tried to get me to do things that they love to do on a daily basis".

Modeling Career

In 1991, at the age of twenty-two, while in the midst of her studies in the United States and using her alias of "Kate Joan", Catherine's "English rose" beauty led to her being discovered by the American lawyer Mark McCormack who, having accurately seen great potential in the royal as a model, promptly signed Catherine to IMG Models, a subsidiary of International Management Group, a company founded by McCormack himself. Soon enough, while representing IMG Models, Catherine made her debut as a fashion model with an appearance on the cover of Vogue to much acclaim and praise. Buoyed by the initial success, Catherine went on to appear on the covers of several other magazine brands including Glamour, Vanity Fair, Elle, and Cosmopolitan, thereby progressively establishing herself as among Britain's leading fashion models alongside Naomi Campbell and, during the later years, fellow English model Kate Moss whose similar height and first name promptly gave way to comparisons between the two British beauties with Vogue particularly speaking of an apparent rivalry between Catherine and Moss although both women have since mostly denied the existence of such an adversarial relationship.

Meanwhile, in 1992, Catherine became the first British model to land an appearance on the highly coveted cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue where she donned a Union Jack-themed bikini with Andalusia, the southernmost province in Spain, serving as the background. Following this, Catherine went on to appear on Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue a further five times to make it a total of six cover appearances, the most for any model in the magazine's history with only Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson coming close to equalise Catherine's record with a total of five appearances.

In 1992, Catherine joined the famed lingerie company Victoria's Secret and, by the following year, was made a Victoria's Secret Angel, becoming the first British model to achieve such a prestigious feat. To that end, from 1993 to 2005, over a twelve-year-long period, Catherine appeared in each of the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show events with her appearance in 2002 notably seeing her don the "Star of Victoria Fantasy Bra" which included a single 60-carat Mouawad Mondera diamond, 1,600 emeralds, and 1,150 rubies while being adorned by an exquisite leaves-and-roses pattern.

Acting Career

In 2005, shortly after her retirement from modeling was announced, in a radical shift towards becoming an actress, Catherine made her film debut in the romantic comedy Just Like Heaven opposite Mark Ruffalo in which she portrayed an overachieving doctor named Elizabeth whose spirit comes face to face with Ruffalo's character David. A modest hit among critics with around $100 million made at the box office, an amount twice its $50 million budget, the positive reception towards her debut role soon saw Catherine appear in the 2006 romantic comedy The Holiday alongside fellow English actress Kate Winslet where she plays Amanda Woods, a woman who agreed to a home exchange with Iris Simpkins, played by Winslet, for the holiday season. Soon enough, despite the film's "predictable" plot, much like her co-stars, was met with utmost praise from critics for her performance which, in turn, resulted in nominations for Best Actress at the Academy Awards, British Academy Film Awards, and Golden Globe Awards, although neither nomination was ultimately won by her.

In 2008, following a two-year hiatus, Catherine returned to star in the romantic fantasy film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, playing the role of the love interest Daisy Fuller opposite the titular character Benjamin Button played by actor Brad Pitt, a role that garnered her yet another critical acclaim while also delivering the royal her first few Best Actress awards at both the Academy Awards and the British Academy Film Awards. In the following year, Catherine took on her first-ever action role as the German film star turned spy Bridget Von Hammersmark in Inglourious Basterds, a film that would come to precede her subsequent establishment as a female action star shortly afterward. To that end, in 2010, with the primary support of the British filmmaker Christopher Nolan, whose work on Batman Begins had captured her interest, Catherine starred in Dangerous Entry, the first of three films of the Kate Joan trilogy, in which she portrays a female British secret agent who suddenly found herself double-crossed during an important mission and, in turn, sought to unravel the espionage mystery surrounding her. Considered by many to be the feminine equivalent of the famous James Bond, the role was met with instant acclaim from critics and was reprised by Catherine for two further films, namely Dark Network, and Downfall, all of which saw her win a total of two Best Actress Awards, both of which at the British Academy Film Awards, while she was otherwise nominated seven times for her role as Kate Joan. In this, despite the popular comparisons to James Bond, the character itself has been noted for its more grounded approach and pure focus on action and intrigue over romance. During a 2016 interview with BBC News, Catherine said, "Truthfully speaking, it is quite easy to simply have my character, a female spy, go around bedding men as she pleases because that is what most people are expecting of a female spy, especially one that they consider to be the women's equivalent of a promiscuous character like James Bond. However, in making the Kate Joan character from scratch and bringing her to life, I wanted to break all the conventions people normally associate with female spy characters and make Kate a dynamic, unique, and polarising character in her own right who cannot simply be pinned down to one particular quality by critics".

In the midst of her Kate Joan films, Catherine also starred in the 2011 heist comedy Tower Heist, where she plays an FBI special agent, and the 2012 historical thriller Argo where she portrayed Cora Lijek, one of six Americans who successfully fled the American embassy in Iran that was laid siege upon by hostile Iranian locals during the Iran hostage crisis from 1979 to 1981. Then, in 2014, Catherine starred alongside Seth MacFarlane and Amanda Seyfried in the Western comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West, a film that was otherwise met with much criticism although the royal herself returned the following year to appear opposite Will Smith in Focus as grifter Jess Barrett, a role that promptly restored her favorability among critics. Then, in 2016, Catherine appeared alongside Matt Damon in Jason Bourne as CIA Cyber Ops Division head Heather Lee while also appearing in Money Monster, a crime thriller directed by her wife Jodie Foster who cast her as IBIS chief communications officer Diane Lester.

In 2017, Catherine would come to enjoy her most successful year as an actress with her role as Edwina Morrow in The Beguiled alongside Nicole Kidman's Miss Martha Farnsworth winning her Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards while her role of Esti Kuperman in the romantic drama Disobedience won her Best Actress at the Academy Awards. In this, owing to her own lesbian identity as evidenced by her marriage to actress Jodie Foster in 2012, Catherine's own role in the film as a lesbian Jewish woman quickly attracted much attention from critics to which Catherine herself later explained that as the daughter of a Jewish woman who was initially ostracised by society herself, she felt a sense of emotional attachment to the role and thus approached her co-star Rachel Weisz, a Jewish woman herself and who served as the film's producer, for a role in the film, having personally known Weisz through her brother who is friends with the actress's husband Daniel Craig. Meanwhile, in regards to the film's somewhat sexually explicit nature, a stark contrast to her more "grounded" and "unromantic" films beforehand, Catherine said, "Ultimately, as long as the scenes serve their purpose of telling a story and conveying the necessary emotion, I don't really have much of a problem with it. Besides, the explicitness of the film absolutely pales in comparison to the things I did as a model back in the 90s, and, in the end, it is an essential part of the story that ultimately requires the right set of actions and emotions to really make it work and thus complete the overall story". In the following year, Catherine appeared alongside the Israeli-American actress Natalie Portman in Annihilation while also pairing up for Ocean's 8 with fellow actresses Sandra Bullock, Sarah Paulson, Helena Bonham Carter, singer Rihanna, and her own niece-in-law Anne Hathaway whose husband and Catherine's nephew William Carter also appeared in the film as himself in a cameo capacity.

Activism

Entrepreneurship

Personal Life

As per longstanding British royal customs, being the eldest and only daughter of the British monarch, in 1996, Catherine was given the title of Princess Royal by her father sometime after her great-aunt, who previously held the title, had passed away. Ironically enough, during her subsequent years as a model and later an actress in her own right, Catherine largely avoided using the title herself, preferring to instead be referred to by her own given name as opposed to simply being known as "the Princess Royal", a title that she once described as "fancy to have but not so pleasant to be known by especially in public".

Standing at approximately 1.70 metres tall, compared to her family members, Catherine is known for her somewhat short stature, especially in contrast to her older brothers Thomas and Nelson, who stand at 1.87 metres and 1.82 metres tall respectively. Conversely, she is of similar height to her 1.70 metres tall daughter Georgia May Jagger although her wife Jodie Foster is much shorter than herself, standing at roughly 1.6 metres tall.

As a fashion model of British ancestry and fair complexion, Catherine was often the subject of comparison and a supposed rivalry that pitted her against fellow British model Kate Moss. In this, while the two women were born five years apart, both emerged in the modeling industry around the early 1990s and went on to become global names in their respective rights. However, unlike Moss, who represented a departure from the "traditional supermodel look", Catherine came to be perceived by many as a "continuation" of the so-called "traditional supermodel look". In this, owing to the two of them both being named Kate, a rivalry between them came to be popularly nicknamed as "Battle of the Kates". However, in a 2017 interview discussing the "rivalry", Catherine herself claimed that it was "manufactured by the industry and media", adding that she and Moss "got along well in general". Adding further, she said, "Frankly speaking, there are some things about her (Moss) that I might not personally agree with but that's normal since we're all humans who have different lives and ways of thinking. Irrespective of this, me and Kate don't have any sense of deep and personal hatred for each other. In the end, we're both in a way representatives of British fashion and we're absolutely proud to shoulder that responsibility every single day". Later on, Moss herself was in attendance at Catherine's 2011 wedding to actress Jodie Foster while Catherine is a godmother to her friend's daughter Lila Moss.

Despite her well-known list of romances and unconventional lifestyle, in a 2018 interview, Catherine claimed that for much of her adult life, she never took drugs in the slightest out of both respect for her own family and for her burgeoning modeling career, especially during her early years. In a candid revelation, Catherine remarked, "While I did indeed date and, in some instances, make love to some people here and there, drugs or the sort, especially the most harmful ones, never really found their way into me in the slightest. In the end, I knew how to have fun and just indulge in my deepest desires but at the same time I had a growing career to work on and I do not intend to jeopardise that either way. Simply speaking, I am and can be a professional when I want to". In addition, Catherine also cited the rather early birth of her two children as a reason behind her dramatic shift in lifestyle, stating that as a mother, she "wanted to set the best example that I could for my own two children". Nonetheless, Catherine has and does otherwise drink alcohol on multiple occasions, albeit occasionally rather than regularly, having once said, "Indeed, I do drink at times but that, like most people who do so in a controlled manner, is only when I'm looking to relieve myself of some great pressure or the sort. If anything, I can go a whole month without drinking if I'm asked to, provided that I'm not otherwise saddled with strenuous tasks along the way".

Relationships

Mick Jagger

From 1988 to 1994, Catherine engaged in a romantic relationship with English singer and The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger who was said to be her first serious boyfriend. In this, reportedly out of general familiarity owing to their common English nationalities as well as Catherine's own high social standing as a member of the royal family, she first engaged in a discreet relationship with Jagger while the latter was then still in a relationship with his then-partner and English model Jerry Hall, with whom he later parted ways after his relationship with the royal was discovered sometime afterward.

Over the course of their almost five-year-long romance, the couple had only one daughter, namely Georgia May Jagger. Then, around January 1994, an alleged refusal on the part of Jagger to officially enter into a state of marriage resulted in the couple eventually parting ways with Catherine herself taking sole custody of their daughter although the two are said to have since maintained fairly cordial relations following their separation with Jagger later attending the investiture ceremony of Catherine's niece Queen Alexandra in October 2019 as one of the honorary guests. Meanwhile, in December 2023, their daughter Georgia wedded the American actor Patrick Schwarzenegger, son of the Austrian bodybuilder, actor, and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, the niece of President John F. Kennedy. Prior to this, the couple, who began their relationship in late 2015, had already welcomed two sons Michael and Albert in 2016 and 2021 respectively.

Dennis Rodman

Around 1994, via her then-girlfriend and singer Madonna, Catherine became acquainted with the American professional basketball player Dennis Rodman who was then playing for the National Basketball Association's San Antonio Spurs. Not long after their first encounter, Catherine, having recently parted ways with English singer Mick Jagger, began a relationship with Rodman whose mutual attraction towards Madonna, Catherine's own girlfriend, resulted in them establishing a short-lived ménage à trois that famously led to both Catherine and Madonna being dubbed "Rodman's Little Ladies" given that Rodman largely towers over the two of them in height. In that same year, the couple's affair reached a new high when as part of a spontaneous challenge in which both Catherine and Madonna attempted to have children by the basketball player, Rodman, promised by financial rewards, reportedly attempted to impregnate both women at the same time. In this, Rodman proved only moderately successful, having successfully fathered a son Corey by Catherine while otherwise failing to do so with Madonna. Consequently, for the next few months or so, Catherine lived together with Rodman as she raised their child together. However, the arrangement would prove short-lived as alleged issues of incompatibility and Catherine's own apparent inability to adapt to the unusual living circumstances led her to eventually leave the trio altogether while also assuming full custody of their son.

During a later interview in 2016, in recounting the past years of cohabiting together with both Madonna and Dennis Rodman, Catherine described it as an "undoubtedly eventful and colourful period" but admitted that she has since looked back on it with some regret and skepticism, stating, "Back then, I was just very in touch with my wildest senses and was personally very into trying stuff that would be considered abnormal or unconventional by most people. Among others, getting both yourself and your own girlfriend pregnant by the same man was definitely something that I just look back on and now question whether it should have happened at all. Undoubtedly, not many people thought of ever doing that yet me and Madge did it and it is certainly something that will remain forever etched in our minds no matter how hard we try to forget it". Meanwhile, having essentially raised Rodman without the latter's father present, Catherine has since enjoyed a warm relationship with her son who currently plays as a point guard for the Golden State Warriors in the National Basketball Association where he has so far won the championship a total of four times. In January 2022, Rodman announced his engagement to British model and Victoria's Secret Angel Alexina Graham, with whom he currently has two daughters Hailey and Jane.

Madonna

Prior to her eventual marriage, among Catherine's best-known romantic relationships was the one with the American singer Madonna, an affair that was particularly the subject of much attention and controversy, most of which was due to Madonna's own provocative and controversial persona as a singer. In any case, the couple's relationship was said to have begun sometime in June 1989 when Catherine, while attending a local concert featuring Madonna in California, was granted the rare chance of meeting the American singer herself after much negotiation and persuasion with the latter's security detail. To that end, after a reportedly fruitful first encounter backstage, the couple soon began an initially discreet romantic relationship that was only known to their closest acquaintances. Thus, as the apparent love interest of the American singer, Catherine quickly became an integral member of Madonna's inner circle. To that end, when Madonna held the Blond Ambition World Tour the following year, Catherine followed the singer around to each of the fifty-seven stops that made up the concert tour. In this, despite being a relatively unknown figure at the time, photos of Catherine being romantic with Madonna backstage and on other occasions soon brought her much notoriety as the apparent girlfriend of the American singer who, in the public eye, is known for her somewhat sexually expressive lyrics in her songs. However, despite the two being apparent romantic partners, their shared propensity for a wild and often uninhibited lifestyle meant that both Catherine and Madonna otherwise had other romantic partners on the side with those of Catherine including singer Mick Jagger and professional basketball player Dennis Rodman, both of whom went on to father a child by Catherine.

In the end, by around 1995, despite a seemingly unbreakable relationship, the couple began to gradually drift apart, reportedly after Catherine was introduced to the American actor Jodie Foster. Despite this, at the alleged behest of Catherine herself, Madonna was subsequently invited to perform at that year's inaugural Victoria's Secret Fashion Show during which Catherine herself gained much notoriety for briefly kissing the singer on the lips after walking to the end of the runway while Madonna herself was performing. Ultimately, by around the middle of 1996, reports claimed that the couple had officially parted ways with Catherine having apparently stopped accompanying Madonna to her various performances. Later, during a 2015 interview with The Guardian, almost two decades since her relationship with Madonna had reportedly come to an end, Catherine acknowledged her romance with the singer for the first time, stating that Madonna was her "first serious love" as an adult. In this, Catherine added that while she initially found Madonna "enigmatic" and "intriguing", a subsequent introduction to actress Jodie Foster, whom she later wedded, led her to re-evaluate her relationship with the singer whose many controversies surrounding from her many infamous acts were, after some time, deemed too much for Catherine herself to handle given her budding modeling career at the time. Nonetheless, despite their short-lived romance, Catherine has since come to regard Madonna in a fairly positive light.

Jodie Foster

During the final years of her relationship with her then-girlfriend Madonna, Catherine was introduced by her older brother Thomas to the American actress Jodie Foster. In this, their first meeting was said to have taken place when Thomas, who starred together with Foster in Maverick, first befriended the American actress during filming and, in turn, felt that his younger sister, who shared a common interest in women as did Foster, would make a good romantic couple especially given Foster's comparably "clean" and "less controversial" image compared to Catherine's then-partner Madonna. However, Catherine herself later revealed that Thomas setting her up on a date with Jodie Foster was actually a way of repaying his younger sister's previous deed of having set him up with the American supermodel Christy Turlington whom he later ended up marrying.

In any case, after a reported first encounter at a New York restaurant, despite Catherine herself already then being in a relationship, the two gradually became fond of each other with Catherine's interest in Foster largely cultivated by her older brother Thomas, a friend of the actress himself. Eventually, by around July 1996, at which point Catherine finally chose to part ways with Madonna, the couple officially began their relationship. However, given the scandal that resulted from Catherine's previous romance with Madonna, coupled with the prevailing societal attitude towards homosexuality at the time, the couple chose to keep their romance a close-knit secret that was only known to an extremely select few which included their closest friends and family members. In this, Catherine later added that her own parents, the liberal-minded late King Charles III and Queen Lauren, were extremely supportive of the couple's relationship although Charles, for both his daughter's and the monarchy's sake, advised the two to keep their romance a close secret until their relationship would be more thoroughly accepted by society and thus be perceived as less controversial in the public eye. Eventually, on 1 January 2011, roughly six years after civil unions were first permitted in the United Kingdom via the Civil Partnership Act 2004, the couple was officially wedded in the form of a civil union, making it the very first time that the couple's relationship was ever made known to the public, a revelation that also generated some scandal for the British royal family which otherwise came out in full support of the couple. Later, on 1 January 2015, following the legalisation of same-sex marriage via the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, the couple subsequently upgraded their civil union into an official marriage in an intimate ceremony at Oheka Castle in New York, United States, the site where Catherine's siblings and parents had previously wedded.

Throughout the course of her nearly three-decades-long romance with Jodie Foster, Catherine went on to welcome two further children, both of whom are by Foster, namely sons Charles and Kit. In this, unlike her two biological children, both of Catherine's children with Foster generally enjoy a more private and nondescript life in London. In a 2018 interview with Tatler, Catherine said that despite neither Charles nor Kit being biologically hers, she ultimately sees and raises them as a co-parent alongside their biological mother Jodie, stating, "Ultimately, it doesn't really matter if the boys are my flesh and blood or not because in the end, as Jodie's life partner, I am responsible for ensuring that if their mother isn't available then they would be safe and sound under my supervision. Generally speaking, we all got along very well with each other while those quirks and oddities that come about from the nature of my relationship with my wife are a thing of the past and mostly something that we occasionally laugh about at dinner or anything like that".

Titles & Honours

28 January 1969 - 10 January 1979 Her Royal Highness The Princess Catherine
10 January 1979 - Present Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal