Prince William’s college friend Ben Duncan died after falling from the rooftop bar of a luxury hotel in London. He was 45.
The incident occurred last Thursday night at the Trafalgar St. James hotel, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.
Duncan fell seven stories — around 100 feet — from the hotel’s rooftop bar.
A rep for the Metropolitan Police told the outlet that officers were dispatched to investigate reports of a “man on the roof of a building in Cockspur Street, Westminster,” just after 11 p.m.
They noted that “the man sadly fell from height.”
“Despite the best efforts from the London Ambulance service, he was sadly pronounced dead at the scene,” they said, stressing that Duncan’s death is “unexpected but non-suspicious.”
A London Ambulance Service spokesperson echoed the information, telling the outlet that they “sent resources to the scene, including an ambulance crew, an incident response officer, paramedics in fast-response cars, paramedics from [their] hazardous area response team (HART) [and] a trauma team in a car from London’s Air Ambulance.”
Duncan’s body is understood to have been found in Spring Gardens, which is just off Trafalgar Square.
According to the Daily Mail, the hotel’s rooftop bar has high plastic screens around its edges as a safety feature.
William, his wife, Kate Middleton, and Duncan all attended the University of St. Andrews in Scotland together, which is where the royal couple’s romance began.
It’s believed Duncan was part of the their inner circle before becoming a TV personality; he appeared on “Big Brother” and other reality shows.
According to the Daily Mail, Duncan previously spoke about how William and Middleton’s relationship blossomed throughout college.
“Because we’d had Will and Kate in our midst, we had royal protection officers swarming the place,” Duncan reportedly said in a 2010 interview.
“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 also recalled being present at the now-famous campus fashion show where Middleton is said to have captured William’s attention with a “very daring dress.”
“He was sitting front row, and his eyes were like stalks,” Duncan reportedly said.
“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.”
Reps for William did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
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