MIKE & ZARA 20 years of LOVE AND LAUGHS

IT'S BEEN TWO DECADES SINCE THE BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY'S MOST RELATABLE COUPLE MET IN A VERY SURPRISING PLACE

- Kylie Walters

This month marks two decades since Mike Tindall first laid eyes on his wife, Zara, leading to one of the British royal family’s most successful pairings, with the couple becoming well-known for their fun-loving, supportive and thoroughly modern relationship. But theirs is a right royal love story that started about as far away from Buckingham Palace as you can get.

Mike met the niece of King Charles III during a night out at a Sydney pub in November 2003 while he was in Australia playing for England in the Rugby World Cup. He had headed out on the town after being given some bad news while Zara, a keen sports fan, was in Australia to watch the tournament during a year off.

“Clive [Woodward, my coach] had just told me I was dropped for the semi-final, so I went out for a beer with two others who weren’t playing. We got introduced but didn’t speak that much,” Mike told the Daily Mail. “Later on, Austin [Healy] gave me her number and said, ‘She wants you to text her, to say where you’re all going out after the final so she can come along.’”

With airs and graces not being important to Zara despite her blue-blooded upbringing, the low-key theme continued the next time they met.

“First actual date, just went out for lunch locally,” Mike revealed during his stint on the original British version of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in 2022. "And ended up being quite a boozy one. Then we figured out that we both quite like getting smashed. It was a good start."