‘It feels like he’s still with us’: Sophie Winkleman shares moving tribute to her beloved brother-in-law Thomas Kingston
No doubt Catherine’s service, with its celebration of empathy in the ‘darkest times’, was especially meaningful for Lady Gabriella this year. Just days prior to the event, she had delivered an emotionally charged statement at the inquest into Thomas Kingston’s death, where the coroner said that, while she believed the financier had taken his own life, there was no evidence that he had had a ‘settled intention’ to do so. ‘Intent remains unclear as the deceased was suffering adverse effects from medication he had been prescribed,’ she said.
Sophie Winkleman will also be mourning the loss of her husband’s aunt, the late Duchess of Kent, who died in September. Lady Frederick Windsor joined the royal family, including the King and the Princess of Wales, at the Duchess’s funeral at Westminster Cathedral later that month.
Lady Frederick Windsor, a former Tatler cover star, is set to return to our screens in the BBC drama Wild Cherry
Alex Bramall
Proximity to the royal family means that any tragedy is met with intense public attention, something that Sophie – who is no stranger to public scrutiny thanks to her storied acting career – admitted is deeply challenging for the Firm. ‘The more I get to know the royal family, the more I get that their lives are total hell and that level of unasked-for fame is a form of torture,’ she said during her interview in The Times. ‘I don’t think a life with that much scrutiny and pressure is remotely healthy, but they have no choice.’
Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston were married at St George’s Chapel in Windsor with the Royal family in attendance in 2019. Lady Gabriella has slowly been making a return to public life following the tragedy, joining King Charles, Queen Camilla, Princess Anne, and Zara Tindall at Royal Ascot in June. Insiders previously told Richard Eden that the 43-year-old had moved back in with her parents, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, at Kensington Palace. ‘They wanted Ella to be with them,’ the sources explained, ‘and she didn’t want to be alone in the home she shared with Tom.’
