When COVID-19 reached pandemic levels in early 2020, most people retreated into their homes as governments imposed lockdown measures. Overnight, no one was allowed to throw parties across the U.K., and Carole and Michael Middleton felt the consequences. “Party Pieces is a well-established brand with a proud British heritage, but like many other companies across the retail space had been impacted profoundly by the restrictions on social gatherings,” one of the administrators hired by the Middletons told BBC in May 2023.
Between 2021 and 2022, Party Pieces suffered a net loss of about U$1.1 million. The Middletons applied for a loan to try to mitigate the losses, but it threw the business further into debt and forced them to sell. And because the loan scheme was sponsored by taxes, the roughly $274,000 the Middletons owe the bank was likely to be footed by the taxpayers. The Middletons’ public image was hit hard.
It also didn’t help that some of the creditors accused the Middletons of using their connection to the royal family to gain their trust. “What hurt me the most was that I trusted her as the mother-in-law of the future king — and she just betrayed me,” a spokesperson for the company that supplied them helium told the Daily Mail. None of this reflected positively on Kate Middleton, which supposedly led Carole and Michael to make an undesirable decision to protect her.
