The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
James Middleton
tells Bryony Gordon about surviving depression and getting engaged
‘I’M VERY PLEASED THAT I WENT THROUGH IT, BECAUSE OF WHO I AM ON THE OTHER SIDE’
After years of struggling with dyslexia, ADD and depression, there’s finally brightness on the horizon for the Duchess of Cambridge’s brother. The newly engaged James Middleton reveals to Bryony Gordon how much his life has changed – and how he is looking forward to settling down with his wife-to-be and, of course, his beloved dogs. Photography by Jooney Woodward
An engagement is a happy occasion for any family, but for the Middletons, the news that their youngest child James had proposed to Alizee Thevenet, his girlfriend of a year, was particularly sweet. Just 18 months ago, the whole family – the Duchess of Cambridge included – were accompanying him to therapy sessions in an effort to untangle him from the grip of depression; now they are celebrating an event that will give hope to anyone currently in the depths of this most miserable of illnesses.
As news of their engagement broke last week, Middleton officially announced it with a post on Instagram, captioning a photo of the happy couple with Alizee wearing a large sapphire ring surrounded by small diamonds. The caption read: ‘She said Oui. Our secret is out but we couldn’t be happier to share the news,’ followed by a hashtagged fusion of their two first names – ‘Jalizee’.
In September, Middleton took Thevenet, a French financial expert, to the Lake District to ask her to marry him. It’s a part of the world that is special to the couple, being one of the first places they went to after they met in the summer of 2018. If he hadn’t been so open about his mental health and sought help for the situation he found himself in, he wonders aloud, ‘Would I be in this place now? To have fallen in love with her, and for her now to be my fiancée in essentially the space of a year and a month? Probably not.’
He met his 29-year-old fiancée after his dog Ella approached her in the South Kensington Club, where they were both having meetings. Thevenet, who met the Royal family in May when she accompanied him to the wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor, is trilingual and grew up in Germany, Indonesia, Chile, France, Belgium and England. She has a master’s degree in investment and finance.
Middleton, 32, tells me he is ‘pinching’ himself now, ‘to feel how lucky I am. The way I was a couple of years ago was about as far the other end of the scale as it could be.’
This is no exaggeration: James was so depressed that he couldn’t even talk to his family. ‘There are certain snapshots that I have, little memories of just how…’ He breaks off for a moment. ‘I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t read a book, I couldn’t watch a film, I couldn’t eat. If I ate something it just sat there.’ He touches his neck. ‘I was just like, “What am I meant to do?” I was better off in my own company, so I didn’t have the additional worry of someone thinking, “What’s wrong with him?” I removed myself from everything.’
Middleton is as articulate a spokesperson as any for the feeling of utter futility that accompanies a major depressive episode. We are sitting in a restaurant overlooking Wimbledon Common, his five dogs dozing at his feet, but when he speaks about his experience it is so palpable that the darkness seems momentarily to descend. I ask him if he felt able to talk to his family about his depression, especially given his sister the Duchess of Cambridge’s work with mental health charities such as Place2be. ‘The fact is, no matter what expe
rience someone has, your family members are the hardest people [to talk to]… You also have a very different way of interacting with your family than you do with your friends. And actually, I behave like Kevin from Kevin
& Perry.’ He laughs. ‘I’m the youngest child, so I think that’s normal. And they are so tuned into you that they can see what other people can’t. My mother will see how much I’m eating and know that there’s something wrong. She’ll see the way that I look at her and know there’s something wrong. It’s the same with all my family. We are very close. And I think that can be… a challenge. And I do remember feeling that I almost had to say to them, “I’ll be back, but this is a process and it’s going to take time for me to recover.”’
In the end, the Middletons used his friends to communicate with him. The way he tells it, they had to make an intervention. ‘I remember my friends turned up one morning and rang the doorbell. I saw it was them and I just didn’t answer the door. And they rang it again. They rang my phone. I was like, “I’m not answering.” I thought: “What am I going to do? What are they going to say?” I understood that they cared about me. But I couldn’t see what they were going to do for me.’
Eventually, he took himself to a private psychiatric hospital for a consultation, where he was asked if he was having suicidal thoughts. Middleton finds this hard to vocalise, and has not spoken about it in public before. ‘I remember thinking, “I might have to answer this one truthfully, because I want them to help me.” So I said, “Well, actually, yes, but I don’t think I’ll ever action it.” In my report it said I had suicidal thoughts but wasn’t a threat to myself.’
We speak a bit about the great taboo of suicide, of how it is more complex than we are often willing to talk about. For Middleton, as is so often the case, it wasn’t so much a desire to die as ‘just not wanting to live with the current mindset. I couldn’t bear to do that to my family or dogs, but it was that moment of like…’ He pauses, considers his words. ‘My mind was going down that route. Because I thought “you need a way out”. So having Ella [one of his dogs] with me that entire time…’ Again, he pauses. ‘I wouldn’t say she saved my life because we never got as far as that. But actually, what I have learnt since having been exposed a bit more to this [mental health] conversation is that suicide is often the word you feel you can’t go anywhere near, but to think about it is quite common, and talking about that should not be a taboo.’
Middleton immersed himself in recovery, and underwent almost a year of cognitive behavioural therapy. ‘Before I started it I was completely lost.’ He describes the experience as like ‘sitting in a chair with a ball of wool made up of eight different colours, and then a therapist is sitting opposite you with a needle untangling it. When we started mapping everything out, and it was on a page, it was absolute chaos.’ Eventually, his family joined him for some of the sessions. ‘And that was actually, a very, very big thing.’ All of them? I ask him, even the Duchess of Cambridge? ‘All of them,’ he nods. ‘Not necessarily at the same time, but either individually and [sometimes] together. And that was so important because that helped them understand me and how my mind was working. And I think the way the therapy helped me was that I didn’t need my family to say, “What can we do?” The only thing they could do was just come to some of the therapy sessions to start to understand.’
Middleton was 13 and had just started at Marlborough College when his eldest sister began dating Prince William. He was shielded from it at school, but when he left there was no way of keeping him out of the media spotlight. Things like this are tricky for Middleton to talk about, because whatever he says, he runs the risk of being judged – for complaining, for not checking his privilege, and so on. But even the most cynical republicans must have some sympathy for a young man catapulted into the spotlight simply because of his sister’s romantic life. His apparent inability to get a ‘normal’ job, instead working for the family party-supplies firm, Party Pieces, before setting up a variety of businesses that never
‘I almost had to say to my family, “I’ll be back, but it’s going to take time to recover”’
quite took off, earned him a starring role in the royal pantomime played out in the media. He was allotted the part of useless brother, dating society girls (he went out with Donna Air for some time), and seemingly not earning his keep. But as ever, his portrayal in the press often lacked context, nuance or compassion. He talks a lot about the ‘disappointment’ in himself he feels so easily, and it doesn’t take a qualified psychiatrist to work out that this is probably in part the result of being publicly painted as a privileged fool.
Privately, he was also doing battle with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder (ADD), which left him feeling ‘like a square peg trying to fit into society’s round hole’. At school he struggled in a system that did not favour people with learning difficulties. ‘Being given extra time in an exam…’ he laughs at the hopelessness of it. ‘Well, for me it was just an extra half an hour or 40 minutes of being able to work out that I wasn’t going to pass that exam.’ He has a ‘wild imagination. I think outside the box. I don’t to think outside the box, it’s just that my route from A to B is a very different one to a lot of other people’s. And I have learnt that is very typical of dyslexia and ADD.’ He can’t spell, he says, frankly. ‘I still use mnemonics, like Betty Eats Cakes And Uncle Sells Eggs [because] – that’s one of thousands in my head. And the reason I always wanted to work for myself is because I find it very challenging to follow instructions. Not because I’m belligerent, but because I have never been able to explain myself, or finish [what I’m doing].’
Therapy has taught him to manage his own expectations of himself. He has found solace, too, in his dogs, and works as an ambassador for the charity Pets As Therapy to spread the message of how animals can help mental health. He talks about how wonderful dogs can be for dyslexic children. ‘If you ask a kid to read to a dog it relaxes them. It allows them to read more freely because they’re feeling less judged.
‘Ella is an emotional support dog for me,’ he says, patting his cocker spaniel. ‘I have such confidence when I am with her. If I was to have come on this shoot today without her, I probably wouldn’t have said that much. If you want me in the room, the dogs need to be in the room.’
He is passionate, too, about giving back to dogs – ‘it’s not a one-way street’ – and recently became involved with the Kennel Club Friends for Life competition, searching for the UK’S top dog hero. For the past few months he has also been developing a new type of dog food. ‘I think the diet we feed our dogs is horrific. Often there’s only a tiny percentage of chicken or beef in the food. And if you look at dogs, they share a lot of their DNA with wolves. Do you think they want to be eating pellets? I’m now looking into a new category of dog food, that’s not dry, wet or raw.’
I can tell that he worries a lot about what people think about him. He tells me he experiences a fair amount of social anxiety. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to talk about. I mean, I’ve got plenty to say, but I’m never quite sure how I am going to start saying it. I’m not very up to date about what is going on socially. I don’t watch Love Island ,orfollow pop culture. I’d rather read Yachting
Monthly or Classic Boat Magazine.’ He chuckles. He is charming, endearingly open and honest, and, like all the best people, perhaps a little bit eccentric. I get the impression that until recently, he has avoided embracing those eccentricities for fear of how he might be perceived. But his face
‘Ella is an emotional support for me. I have such confidence when I’m with her’
changes completely when he is talking about the things he loves: his fiancée, his dogs and the bees he keeps at his parents’ house in Bucklebury in Berkshire. He produces a jar of honey from his bag. ‘This is for you,’ he beams. ‘I made 72 litres last summer. I’ve got 10 hives. I’m not the best beekeeper.’ What does he love about the process? ‘It’s so immersive. I can lose an hour, two hours. It’s almost like someone’s pressed mute in my mind on all the things that are worrying me or giving me anxiety. And you’ve got to be very methodical when you go to see the bees. If you’re calm, they are more likely to be calm. There’s a process, and you follow it step by step. Look for the queen bee, check she’s laying. You have to respect them. You can’t just do what you want.’
Today, James Middleton feels like himself again. ‘I’ve always said, “I’m James Middleton and my sister happens to be…” rather than “I’m the Duchess of Cambridge’s brother”. And I will always stand by that. It’s not said in disrespect to them at all, because I am one of their greatest supporters.’ He is grateful for his experiences with depression. ‘Despite all of it, I’m very pleased that I went through it, because of who I am on the other side… well, it’s like a rebirth. I can’t remember feeling like it [ever]. This is who I am now. I am conscious that I have not got rid of it [the depression], it’s still there. But I’m on top of it, and I’m aware that if I don’t work hard at maintaining control of it, then it has the ability to come back.’
He exercises a lot – long-distance running, cycling and skiing. He listens to audiobooks – when he was at his lowest, Stephen Fry’s narration of the Harry Potter books kept him company. He and Alizee lead a quiet life at home in Battersea, south-west London – they like to go to bed at 9.45pm and wake up early. ‘It’s the time of the day when nothing is expected of you,’ he explains. They haven’t set a wedding date yet. ‘We’re a pretty relaxed couple.’ Will they try to do it quietly? ‘That’s probably what we will end up doing. I’ve had enough of big weddings!’ He’s joking, I think.
As for his famous family, ‘everyone is delighted. They’ve seen me where I was, and to see me now…’ He is happy and content and some part of him can’t quite believe it. ‘It was a dark and miserable place to be, but the fact is there is hope at the end. It requires effort and energy, but the other side is… the grass can be greener than it was before. For me, now, there’s a feeling that I can take on anything, in the nicest possible way. Not in a [combative] way. Because if I can talk about my mental health and the things I am passionate about and the way I truly feel… well then I’m not pretending to be anyone. This is who I am.’
‘I’m very pleased I went through it because of who I am on the other side’