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If the royals did the #10YearChallenge

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

From Cosmopolitan

If you've been anywhere near Instagram over the past few days, you'll have seen your feed flooded with #10YearChallenge posts. The idea, in case you hadn't grasped it, is fairly simple. You dig through the archives and find the most embarrassing picture possible of you in 2009, and post it alongside a picture that demonstrates the sophisticated, chic and Instagrammable AF person you are nowadays, in 2019.

We've had Reese Witherspoon proving she's the real life Benjamin Button (does that woman not age??), Jason Momoa highlighting just how much hair growth is physically possible in the space of ten years, and various beauty YouTubers reminding us of the artistic phases they were going through a decade ago. It's been frankly enlightening.

But there's one group of people who leave a bloody great hole in the #10YearChallenge world - and that's the British royal family. Maybe it's because I'm personally obsessed with them, maybe it's because I write about them day in, day out, but I feel the world is a lesser place without a comparison of 2009 v 2019 Meghan Markle, Kate Middleton, and the rest.

So I decided to do the work for them. You can post on your super private Instas if you like, guys. No need to give me a photo cred or anything.

Prince Harry

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images


Despite looking like an actual child back in 2009, Prince Harry was not. He was a fully-fledged adult, aged 24. But I tell you what, that facial hair he's grown really does things for him, doesn't it? Harry was still dating his first long-term girlfriend Chelsy Davy around this time, although in 2009 they broke up for a period (when Harry was linked to Caroline Flack). Work-wise, Harry was in the army during 2009, and started his Army Air Corps pilot training that year. Now - a decade on - recently married Prince Harry is also known as the Duke of Sussex, working as a senior royal for charitable causes close to his heart. Top guy.

Meghan Markle

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Things were very different for Meghan Markle back in 2009. She was a jobbing actress, not yet having landed the role of Rachel Zane in Suits that went on to define her acting career. Now, ten years on, Meghan has not only quit acting altogether, but she's a member of the British royal family having married a real life prince, and is now expecting his baby. I mean, you couldn't even write that in one of her cheesy Hallmark movies, could you?

Kate Middleton

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Although Kate Middleton's love of a wedge-heel is still going strong ten years after the picture on the left was taken, most other things in her life have changed. The following year, Prince William proposed to her, and the couple married in 2011. Since then, they've had three children, and Kate is now an active senior member of the royal family, practicing being future Queen in her spare time.

Prince William

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Sadly, the years have not been kind to the hairs on Prince William's head. Since 2009, he's embraced baldness and, you know what? Maybe it suits him. (Or maybe he just has very little choice unless he wants to go all Donald Trump about it and start wearing a toupee). A decade ago, William became a full-time helicopter pilot with the RAF Search and Rescue Force. Somewhat poetically, in 2019 Prince William - by now a knackered dad of three - became patron of the London Air Ambulance.


So those are the main ones (in our book), but in case you're interested in everyone else - here's what various other members of the royal family looked like in 2009 versus now:

The Queen

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Prince Philip

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Photo credit: Getty Images

Prince Charles

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Princess Beatrice

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Princess Eugenie

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Prince George and Princess Charlotte

Photo credit: Getty Images
Photo credit: Getty Images

Well, they were just a twinkle in their father's eye back in 2009, weren't they?

Follow Cat on Instagram (and see my very own underwhelming #10YearChallenge, if you want).


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