Princess Kate’s younger brother, James Middleton, and his wife, Alizee Thevenet, are expecting their first baby.
“We couldn’t be more excited … well Mabel might be ❤️,” Middleton, 36, wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, July 5, alongside two photos of Thevenet showing off her baby bump while posing with one of the couple’s dogs.
The expectant father continued: “It was a very difficult start to the year after losing my beloved Ella however we will end the year with the most precious little addition to our growing family ❤️.”
Middleton — who wed Thevenet in 2021 — announced the death of his therapy dog Ella via Instagram in January.
“It is with great sadness that I announce my dear Ella has passed away. For 15 years Ella has been at my side, from my darkest days to my happiest. I’m going to miss her terribly,” he wrote at the time, noting that his canine companion “slipped away in my arms at home” after battling “a very short illness.”
Middleton has spoken candidly in the past about how Ella helped him cope with his major depressive disorder diagnosis.
“I got this diagnosis and Ella came to all of my therapy sessions, which I was reluctant to go [to] from the start,” he said during an August 2020 appearance on BBC’s Sunday Morning Live. “But with her by my side, I really became confident in understanding that I had a mental illness. … I would go so far as to say that I owe Ella my life, and she doesn’t know that.
The emotional support animal is also an integral part of Middleton and his wife’s love story. In 2018, Ella walked right over to then-stranger Thevenet while visiting the South Kensington Club in Chelsea, London, with Middleton.
“Rather embarrassed, I went over to apologize and bring Ella back,” the businessman told The Telegraph in March 2021. “Little did I know, but I had just met my future wife, all thanks to Ella. If I hadn’t trusted Ella, I wouldn’t have brought her to the South Kensington Club and she wouldn’t have been able to say hi to the woman who became my fiancée.”
The Ella & Co founder became the last of his siblings to get hitched in 2021. Kate wed Prince William in 2011 while her sister, Pippa Middleton, exchanged vows with James Matthews in 2017. James is an uncle to Kate and William’s three children — Prince George, 9, Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 5 — and Pippa, 39, and James’ three children — Arthur, 4, Grace, 2, and Rose, 12 months.
“I just want to be the best uncle possible,” the businessman said during a 2014 appearance on Good Morning America when the Duchess of Cambridge was pregnant with Charlotte. “Like any uncle wants to be, I want to be the cool uncle. The fun uncle… That’s what sort of I’ll always try and be.”
