The following article contains mentions of suicide.
The casual royal watcher may barely know of her existence, but royal pundits are quite familiar with Lady Gabriella Kingston’s special relationship with the royal family. The royal shared a birthday week with Queen Elizabeth II and had a cherished bond with the late monarch. She is the daughter of the queen’s first cousin, Prince Michael, and the sister of Lord Frederick, who is married to actress Sophie Winkleman.
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If you’ve never heard of Gabriella before, it’s because she’s not a senior royal and way down the line of succession — she is currently 56th in line to the throne and pretty much lives a normal life working as a freelance writer. The one time it was glaringly obvious that Gabriella is not, in fact, an ordinary citizen, was when Queen Elizabeth attended the lady’s wedding to Thomas Kingston. When the queen died, Gabriella was one of the many royals who attended her funeral, but she made headlines when photographers caught her fainting during the proceedings as the queen’s coffin was carried into Westminster Hall.
While much of Gabriella’s life may look like a fairytale from the outside, the royal has gone through some trials and tribulations throughout her life. From getting snitched on for the sins of her youth by her ex-boyfriend to her husband’s shocking death, Gabriella has faced plenty of tragedy over the years.
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Her ex-boyfriend spilled some sordid details about her younger years
When you’re young, you tend to make impulsive decisions without considering the long-term consequences, and having blue blood does not make you immune to scandal — in fact, it makes you all the more vulnerable. Unfortunately for Lady Gabriella Kingston, the trespasses of her younger years became public fodder when her ex-boyfriend (also a writer) decided to write a juicy piece for Vanity Fair in which he discussed — in detail — Gabriella’s shenanigans from her younger years and her family’s inner workings. The tea was piping hot, and poor Gabriella had to relive her teenage mischief along with the rest of the world.
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Gabriella and her ex, Aatish Taseer, met when the latter just landed a job at Time Magazine and Gabriella was studying at Brown University. When the two moved back to England together, they had plenty of clandestine fun, which Taseer recalled in vivid detail in Vanity Fair. “For three surreal years, Ella and I hung about Kensington Palace; we swam naked in the Queen’s pool in Buckingham Palace; we did MDMA [Ecstasy] in Windsor Castle; and we had scrapes with the British press,” he wrote.
It was the revelation about drug use that especially sent the British press into overdrive once Taseer’s article was published. “Royal Drug Scandal,” an Express headline blared in all caps. “Ex-boyfriend of Lady Gabriella Windsor reveals what royal life is REALLY like behind the gilded gates,” the Daily Mail chimed in. The headlines and personal revelations Taseer made about Gabriella were reminiscent of Prince Harry’s most controversial moments. Gabriella surely wanted to melt into the ground and disappear after the Vanity Fair article went public.
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She’s had to weather her mother’s scandals
Having to weather your own scandals is already hard enough, but Lady Gabriella Kingston has also had to contend with her mother’s impropriety, which was made all the worse by her ex’s Vanity Fair tell-all. In the article, Aatish Taseer addressed something that’s haunted Princess Michael of Kent for years: accusations of racism.
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In 2017, Princess Michael infamously wore a blackamoor brooch to a Christmas banquet, which is also where she met Meghan Markle (Prince Harry’s then-fiancée) for the first time. The piece of jewelry is often associated with the enslavement of Black people and colonialism. Needless to say, pundits and the press quickly pointed out that wearing the brooch, especially to a banquet where Meghan, who is Black and white, would be in attendance, was in very bad taste. This also wasn’t the first time the royal was accused of racism. Back in 2004, she was in hot water when she allegedly told Black restaurant patrons to “go back to the colonies” (via The Guardian). The incident occurred while the princess was dining in New York, and the encounter made headlines.
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Taseer rehashed both these events in his Vanity Fair feature, which didn’t put Gabriella’s mother in a better light. He recalled having a conversation about the New York incident with Princess Michael, and she insisted that it had all been much ado about nothing and that she never said what the papers claimed. “I would have liked to believe her, but I had my doubts,” Taseer wrote. “It was not that her father had allegedly been an SS officer, albeit a reluctant one; royals and Nazis go together like blini and caviar.”
The British public called out Gabriella’s parents for not paying their own rent
It’s no secret that British taxpayers are often disgruntled that they’re technically paying for the royal family’s lavish lives, and in Gabriella’s ex’s Vanity Fair exposé, Aatish Taseer wrote about Prince and Princess Michael of Kent’s 25-year tenure in one of Kensington Palace’s royal apartments — the bill for which was footed by Queen Elizabeth II “in gratitude for the many duties they undertook in her name.”
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The rent, which was said to total about £10,000 per month at the time, could arguably have been spent in better ways, and the British public made it known that they were not happy to pay for the apartment’s upkeep while the residents didn’t pay a penny to live there. What made the entire ordeal all the more contentious was the fact that the Kents, as non-working royals, had other sources of income, like Prince Michael’s consultancy business. In other words: They were more than capable of paying their rent. The case was eventually brought to Parliament, and it was ruled that the Kents had to start paying their dues or vacate their fancy home. This entire ordeal was likely embarrassing for their daughter, Lady Gabriella Kingston, who was living with them at the time, but having it brought up again years later by her ex may have felt even worse. It served to refresh the scandal in the minds of the British public who are growing ever more critical of the monarchy.
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Her husband died by suicide in 2024
In February 2024, Lady Gabriella Kingston’s husband, Thomas Kingston, died by suicide at the age of 45. The news came as a shock to the public, and Gabriella was left heartbroken. She and Thomas got married in 2019 and did not have children. Gabriella later noted that he’d been dealing with some work stress but that there was no indication that her husband was thinking about suicide; in fact, he appeared to be doing better.
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Thomas died at his parents’ house while his father, William Kingston, was taking the family’s dogs for a walk. When William returned, Thomas was nowhere to be found. After about a half-hour, his mother became worried and started looking for him. She and her husband found the bathroom door of the annex next to their house locked, with no response from their son. When William finally managed to break down the door, he found Thomas deceased from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In a joint statement released by the family after Thomas’ death, they described his suicide as a “great shock to the whole family” (via Daily Mail).
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org
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Lady Gabriella noted no ‘evidence of inclination’ at the inquest into her husband’s death
In the aftermath of Thomas Kingston’s death, Lady Gabriella Kingston spoke out about her husband’s suicide, revealing in a statement at the inquest into Thomas’ death that she believed he’d made a “sudden impulse” decision. The coroner revealed that Thomas had stopped taking his antidepressant medication ahead of his death. Gabriella is convinced the medication is to blame for her husband’s suicide, with his parents agreeing that it seemed incredibly out of character. “The lack of any evidence of inclination, it seems highly likely to me that he had an adverse reaction to the pills that led him to take his life,” Gabriella revealed at the hearing (via Mirror). She also shared that she and her husband had a very “loving and trusting” relationship and that she was certain he would have confided in her if he’d been plagued by suicidal thoughts. Thomas’ father agreed, saying that not even leaving a will or a note behind was unlike his son.
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Despite believing that Thomas’ medication is what led to his death, Gabriella and his family did not press charges against the financier’s doctor, who changed Thomas’ medication after he didn’t adjust well to the first drugs prescribed. The new drugs, like the first ones, were SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), and in retrospect, it was the wrong choice to prescribe the same type again. The family’s counsel, Martin Porter, told the coroner, “The family don’t blame (his GP) Doctor Naunton Morgan, she was acting as good doctors do. But the question is whether there is sufficient advice to doctors on SSRIs.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org
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