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We have tragic news to report out of London today:
Ben Duncan, the UK reality star and longtime friend of Prince William and Kate Middleton, has passed away.
He was just 45 years old.
News of Duncan’s passing comes courtesy of a statement from the London police.
London police confirm Ben Duncan’s cause of death
According to a statement issued to the Daily Mail, Duncan “fell about 100 feet off a rooftop bar (on the seventh floor) at London’s Trafalgar St. James Hotel.”
A spokesperson says that “officers responded to concerns for a man on the roof of a building in Cockspur Street, Westminster.”
“The man sadly fell from height. Despite the best efforts from the London Ambulance service, he was sadly pronounced dead at the scene,” the statement added. “His death is unexpected but non-suspicious.”
In a separate statement, an insider at a London ambulance service spoke of the efforts to save Duncan’s life.
“’We sent resources to the scene, including an ambulance crew, an incident response officer, paramedics in fast response cars and paramedics from our hazardous area response team,” the insider told the Mail.
“We also dispatched a trauma team in a car from London’s Air Ambulance. Very sadly, despite the best efforts of our crews, a man was pronounced dead at the scene.”
An acquaintance of the future king and queen
Duncan competed on the UK version of Big Brother in 2010. He went on to appear on several more reality shows, including Come Dine With Me, Ladette to Lady, and Celebrity Coach Trip.
But he is perhaps best known for the fact that he attended the University of St Andrews at the same time as William and Kate.
“Because we’d had Will and Kate in our midst we had royal protection officers swarming the place,” he recalled in a 2010 interview (via Us Weekly). “We knew that they had hit it off and we knew that something was happening, but they were just left alone to get on with it.”
Duncan was also present at the famous student fashion show where Hate first caught William’s eye.
“It was the end of their first year. I was there, and in person there were a lot of attractive girls,” he recalled. “She was in a very daring dress, in a sheer stocking-like dress. He was sitting front row and his eyes were like stalks.”
Duncan added, “She brushed by him on the way to the catwalk and things were never the same again — the whole history of the monarchy had been altered.”
Neither William nor Kate has publicly commented on their former schoolmate’s passing.
Our thoughts go out to Ben Duncan’s loved ones during this enormously difficult time.
Ben Duncan Cause of Death; Friend of Prince William & Kate Middleton Was 45 was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
The Hollywood Gossip
