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Call us fickle. Before Kate Middleton had even married her prince, the great British public had chosen a new queen of hearts. The pert sway of Pippa Middleton's behind as she steered her older sister's train into Westminster Abbey sparked a national obsession.
P-Middy's booty went viral on Twitter and YouTube, while her apparent flirtation with Prince Harry - the best man in only one sense of the phrase - saved the royal wedding from wholesomeness overkill. A new star, the people's choice, was born.
The reasons are simple. After years of patient courtship and forensic media examination, Kate is a known quantity and can now safely be parked in "domesticity" as the Duchess of Cambridge. Pippa is an enticing mystery. And possibly, we all like to think, a bit of a fruity one.
Was she really wearing butt-sculpting Spanx pants at the wedding? Or did she go "commando" in the Abbey? Did she fancy Harry, even a bit? Is she planning to cash in on her new-found fame, either romantically, socially or financially? What is her favourite colour? And are there any more photos of her in a bikini or dancing around in a mauve bra?
Here, the Evening Standard's authoritative and royally appointed* Pippapedia sorts the fact from the fiction.
*not really
Pippa Profile
Philippa Charlotte Middleton is the second child of party planners Michael and Carole Middleton, born on September 6, 1983, a year after her older sister and four years before her brother. James Middleton is the only one of the siblings not to have acquired a nickname that makes him sound like an Enid Blyton character.
"Pippa" - or "Panface", as she was known at school, because, despite being pretty, she had a flat-shaped face -spent the first 10 years of her life in a four-bedroom Victorian villa in Bradfield Southend, Berkshire, before the family moved in 1995 to a large house in the nearby village of Bucklebury. Pippa, like Kate, was christened at the local parish church of St Mary the Virgin, and undoubtedly visited the local supermarket, run by Hash and Chan Shingadia, and the village hostelry, The Old Boot Inn.
She was educated, like her sister, at St Andrew's School in Pangbourne, at Downe House (unlike Kate, there are no reports that she was bullied) and at Marlborough College. Ferociously athletic, she attended the latter on a sports/all-rounder scholarship.
Like Kate, she went to university in Scotland, but opted for Edinburgh and an English literature degree, rather than art history at St Andrews.
Whereas Kate was known to her student contemporaries as "Kate Middlebum" or "Princess in Waiting", her younger sister attracted the enviable soubriquet "Perfect Pippa". A hard worker, she was also a forceful presence on the university's upper-class social scene, especially at shooting parties.
After graduating, she was briefly employed at a PR firm promoting luxury goods, before her impeccable contacts secured her a job working three days a week for events planner Table Talk: she repaid the favour by enlisting the company's boss, Jojo Browner, to assist at her sister's reception. Two days a week, Pippa edits Party Times, the online spinoff magazine of her parents' company, Party Pieces.
She took an active part in the post-wedding party - it was her idea to have vans serving bacon butties and ice cream in the palace quadrangle - as well as an eye-grabbing, train-wielding, bridesmaid-coddling role in the ceremony.
According to one report, she now plans to "cash in" on her newfound status by launching her own party planning business.
Pippa shares a flat in Chelsea, purchased by her parents in 2002, with her brother James, who runs his own cake-making company.
The Pippa Posse
At Edinburgh the younger Ms Middleton hung out with the "castle crew" of heirs to land, large fortunes and stately homes. According to a source, she arrived "knowing no one and made it her business to leave knowing everyone."
Certainly, she shared a house with Lord Edward Innes-Ker, a son of the Duke of Roxburghe, and Earl Percy, heir to the Duke of Northumberland and therefore to Alnwick Castle, which stands in for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies.
For three years at university she dated a penniless tree surgeon … no, only joking, her beau was in fact Jonathan "JJ" Jardine Paterson, an heir to the Jardine Matheson Hong Kong banking fortune. She was also linked to Scottish aristocrat Billy More Nisbett and diamond heir Simon Youngman, but in 2010 got together with Alexander Guy Rushworth Loudon. The son of a former High Sheriff of Kent, Loudon has been a pal of Prince William's since they were at Eton, and played cricket for Warwickshire before becoming a banker.
Loudon and Pippa are thought to be pretty much engaged but have kept their relationship low-key to avoid upstaging Kate's royal romance. His Fulham home is close to her Chelsea flat and his parents have a stately pile in Kent, Olantigh Towers. Suitably rich, well-connected, handsome and posh, he is also thought to be handy enough to give Harry a spanking if he tries anything. Pippa is closer to Prince Harry's on-off girlfriend Chelsy Davy than Kate is.
Pippa Pandemonium
Steve Hirsch, CEO of porn producer Vivid, has offered Pippa $5 million to star in a single sex scene in one of his movies. "As far as I am concerned, you were the star of the recent royal wedding," he wrote in a letter to Ms Middleton.
In 2008 Pippa was named Number One Society Singleton by Tatler magazine, ahead of countless supermodels, actresses, rock stars and celebrity spawn. Even ahead of Princess Eugenie.
She appeared regularly on "cool" lists, but Pippamania really ramped up and out of control after her appearance at her sister's wedding. The Middleton sit-upon instantly inspired admiring comments on Twitter from singer Justin Bieber, cricketer Michael Vaughan and Calum Best. Teenage Olympic diver Tom Daley joked he was going to marry her.
There are now several people pretending to be Pippa on Twitter, including @IamPippaM, which claims to be her official site but clearly isn't, @Pippa_Middleton and @PippathePauper. The first has 4,207 followers, the second and third 3,100 and 1,269. The Twitter feed @PippaMiddleton has 298 followers although it has not posted a single message. Another feed, pretending to represent Pippa's bottom, has 1,555 followers, and recently posted the message: "Is anyone else watching Lady Gaga concert? My bum is nicer." The Twitter feed for "Orlando", the comic toff student character whose "Gap Yah" sketch went viral last year, is currently tweeting that he is not seeing Pippa. Or Harry. Whatever the superinjunction leaks say.
There are at least 15 people pretending to be Pippa on Facebook, 20 Facebook groups dedicated to her derrière, and 50 suggesting that she should get together with Harry. More than 100 people have used Facebook's "check-in" function to claim they have checked in to Pippa's house, bedroom or underwear, and 211,747 have given her bum the thumbs up.
The most popular video of her rear view as she follows Kate into the Abbey, entitled Pippa Middleton Shake Ya Ass, had 521,757 hits on YouTube at time of writing.
Pippa Paraphernalia
The Middleton sisters reportedly share the services of a mobile tanner who sprays them with fake bake, and Pippa has her hair done in the VIP section of Richard Ward's Chelsea salon.
She works out with her sister in the gym at Clarence House, likes swimming and tennis, but has given up her youthful passion for hockey: a shiner from an ill-wielded stick wouldn't have looked good at the Abbey. As a spectator she's been seen at - big surprise! - Royal Ascot and Cartier Polo.
Fashion-wise, Pippa shares her sister's passion for knee-high boots but prefers them in suede. She also wears ballet pumps from French Sole, well-cut tweeds from Katherine Hooker, and frocks from Sonia Rykiel and Chloe if she's after something more vampy and colourful. On holiday, we now know, she favours a white bikini.
Pippa is four inches shorter than her sister.
She drives a BMW Z4. She likes cheese on toast.
Reader views (20)
prokhozy: "ick"
Great wedding. Loveley women. You Brits did yourself proud! Thanks for the great show and the deep ritual.
- Jeff A, Louisville, USA, 12/05/2011 19:06
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If you consider her as gorgeous, well, you have probably never seen any really gorgeous woman, poor man
- prohozhy, Minneapolis, USA, 11/05/2011 22:32
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I've nothing against people being ambitious in any way at all. But please do not expect me to believe that a really extremely odd looking girl is a great beauty - she is not. She also looks formidably hard and determined. Positive attributes certainly but not attractive.
- manda, London UK, 11/05/2011 19:20
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Meeow!! Me thinks there's some real jeolous claws out!! Girls and some of you male b..ches out there, they are both absolutely gorgeous, William is a very lucky bloke, so is the guy that snares Pippa!!
- Mark, London, 11/05/2011 12:00
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She is using contacts to keep in the news more than likely, someone told her she was good looking and she believed them, no normal person wants to read about her I am sure, she can just go away if she chooses , stop calling the papers every time she goes to the shops, its all a bit sad but fills papers cheaply, is big brother finished ? she would be spot on, if she had been born in a council house she would be considered ugly
- Lord Pusey, London, 11/05/2011 11:40
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"Mummy wasn't stupid. Prince William was pretty likely to go to a Scottish uni so Mrs M made sure her daughters went separately to the 2 top ones" - nice assumption there. What makes you so knowledgable about the inner workings of Mrs Middleton's mind? It's a snide and horrible assumption to make but it seems perfectly acceptable in the Daily Mail mindset that because Carole Middleton came from a 'humble' background she must be a vicious social climber who'll stop at nothing to marry her daughters off to Royalty. Funny how this accusation is never thrown at Michael M..but then he's higher-born and male to boot.
- Ruth, London, UK, 11/05/2011 10:32
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So her local is "the old boot" what a coincidence, she looks liked tanned leather
- Seamus P Murphy, Buggleskelly, 11/05/2011 08:46
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Nothing attractive about her, looks a bit rough
- Peter Gee, Puglia, 11/05/2011 08:42
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The photo shows someone much older than 27 - the fake tan is not a good look. On TV on the wedding day, she did look hot with a fabulous figure, but who knows when you get up close!
- Peter, London, 11/05/2011 08:21
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Does she sing "shimmy like my sister Kate"?
- Alan Griffiths, Forest Gate, LONDON. E7, 10/05/2011 21:02
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So this is aftermath news from London, after the royal wedding. How disappointing. Why you may ask?
Kate is beautiful and appears to be very much in love with her man. So what if wants to wait until late twenties to wed. They are a lovely couple, and seem to have alot of fun, I see them shaking up the castle a bit. Along with Harry.
Pippa. Wow. She underrated. And she is not bootilicious. Get over it.
- Connie, Pismo Beach, United States, 10/05/2011 20:38
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by the way, she looks like 40 y.o. Mexican woman
- prohozhy, Minneapolis, USA, 10/05/2011 20:19
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She is ugly, and her sister is not outstanding at all
- prohozhy, Minneapolis, USA, 10/05/2011 19:03
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Can't help but have my suspicions that a similar description about the alleged personal life of a similarly aged young woman from a sink or council estate, would not contain such 'nice' implications about her alleged high qualities
Clear evidence were it ever needed, that double standards are still alive and well where anyone, even on the temporary fringes of the Royal household, are guaranteed to be treated far more favourably.
- Concerned Observer, Harrow, 10/05/2011 18:49
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Was that time studying journalism well spent Nick Curtis? I bet you dreamed you would one day be writing this tripe.
Your parents must be so proud.
- Simon, London, 10/05/2011 18:42
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wot a load of old tosh leave her alone
- jude, london, 10/05/2011 18:02
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Quote: "For three years at university she dated a penniless tree surgeon… no, only joking"
Like that would have happened Her "mother" would NEVER have permitted it and she has a lifestyle to achieve!
- Fed Up, London, 10/05/2011 16:33
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Mummy wasn't stupid. Prince William was pretty likely to go to a Scottish uni so Mrs M made sure her daughters went separately to the 2 top ones ( St Andrews & Edinburgh )so one them could "bag" William.
- Jane, London, 10/05/2011 16:32
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It is beyound my comprehension why anyone would be bothered in the slightest by this non entity.
- Bill Simpson., London.U.K., 10/05/2011 15:38
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How refreshing it would be if the press left her alone other than coverage of her attendance at formal or official events and just let her get one with her life.
- Lord Hingebottom, Hingebottom Bay, UK, 10/05/2011 15:34
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