Princess Catherine’s Mom 'Desperately' Trying To Shield Her From Middleton Family's MASSIVE Debt

Yikes — cancer isn’t the only problem the Middleton family is dealing with right now.

Princess Catherine‘s mother is “desperately” trying to shield the royal from an intense family crisis, according to a new report! Apparently family business The Party Pieces Company went into administration last summer amid owing creditors £2.6 million. This means they needed to hire a firm to come in and help them restructure the business to make it profitable — or to sell off assets to recoup the money, which they did. But now they’re still in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt! Like, it’s REALLY bad!

According to The Times UK on Monday, Carole Middleton and her husband Michael Middleton cannot come up with the “£260,000 (over $329,000 USD) insolvency firm costs” for their embattled business. Interpath Advisory, whom they hired to manage the collapse, can’t even get paid for their work! The restructuring professionals were reportedly charging an “average hourly rate of £566 ($716),” so that tallied up fast.

On Thursday, a source told Us Weekly that Carole is trying to keep this mess away from the Princess of Wales, who is currently undergoing treatment for cancer, and her siblings Pippa and James, explaining:

“Carole is desperately trying to keep Catherine fully focused on her recovery. It’s a very worrying time for the family but they are not looking for any assistance from their children and don’t want them to worry. Catherine and her parents are very close and they always check in with each other, but talk about the business is off limits as she needs to focus on her health.”

Royal commentator Afua Hagan also chimed in:

“Carole will be doing all she can right now to stop her daughter from stressing as she undergoes chemotherapy. It’s a stressful time at the moment and she will be pulling out all the stops to shield her daughter from this. Party Pieces has collapsed and it’s been devastating for the family, but Carole will be most concerned about Kate’s well-being right now.”

This money problem is a huge issue, but Kate Middleton‘s health 100% comes first!

That said, it’s not like this will be news to Kate, who worked for Party Pieces before marrying Prince William. The family biz (established in 1987) has been struggling ever since the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, reports surfaced which claimed the company lost over £250,000 ($316,000) due to the effects of the pandemic. They then launched a retail partnership in the US, but that quickly backfired too when three financial backers stepped down as directors. That’s when the business appointed the consultancy firm, who told them that their “options” were “a sale or finding new investors,” per The Daily Telegraph.

As the company fell into administration, a close friend of Carole’s told DailyMail.com that she was “upset and deeply disappointed in this situation.” She’d hoped to find a buyer who would “honor any outstanding debts” but that hasn’t happened. The friend noted:

“Carole believes in accountability and accepts she had been a little naïve to step back and trust someone else to run the business she had spent decades nurturing and it’s been desperately sad to see the company sold off in this way.”

Hard to go out like this, for sure. And now she has to deal with this challenge on top of Kate’s emotional cancer diagnosis! Oof. We cannot imagine the stress levels. Hopefully, it gets sorted out!