James Middleton might be related to a member of the royal family, but that’s not why people stop him on the streets.
“I don’t know if I’m recognized often on holidays. I don’t put myself in the category of being a celebrity, as I’m essentially known by default,” Middleton, 37, shared during an interview with the U.K.’s Sunday Times published on Sunday, December 29. “But people sometimes reach out to me on social media to say they’ve seen me with the dogs.”
Middleton and his wife, Alizée Thevenet, share 15-month-old son Inigo, but they are also parents to six dogs: Mabel, Nala, Zulu, Inka, Isla and Luna.
“I think they recognize the dogs first, to be honest,” Middleton said about being out in public with his pups. “They get recognized more than I do.”
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Middleton spoke candidly about his relationship with animals in his memoir, Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life, which was released this past September. In the book, Middleton revealed that his late spaniel Ella (who died in January 2023) was instrumental in saving his life during one particularly dark period in 2017.
“Life is no longer worth living,” Middleton wrote in his book. “I feel suicidal. I contemplate ways of dying so I can get off the giddy roller-coaster that is sending me to the brink of madness.”
The author recalled Ella sensing his “strange, agitated state of mind” during one night in particular when he climbed onto the roof of his house.
“Dark thoughts crowd in on me. What can I do to make them stop? I think about jumping from the rooftop,” he wrote. “As I pace, I look down through the skylight and see my spaniel Ella’s gentle eyes looking back up at me. Like me, she has been wakeful all night.”
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Throughout the book, Middleton recalled how Ella specifically helped him over the years.
“I have loved her with every bit of my being since she was a tiny, sightless, newborn pup,” he wrote. “She has been my companion, my hope, my support through my darkest days.”
Their close-knit bond allowed Middleton to open his heart to multiple dogs — which is how he currently ended up with six.
“The dogs love going on car journeys — and there are increasingly more wonderful dog-friendly hotels in the U.K., where you feel that the dogs are being looked after better than you are,” Middleton said in Sunday’s interview. “The dogs get their own menus and beds and everything. It’s fantastic to see hotels opening up that cater to the whole family; four-legged friends as well as two-legged ones.”
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