Mike Tindall has shared fresh details of his fateful meeting with wife Zara Phillips, explaining that their love story started essentially by accident. The 46-year-old rugby star has been married to the 44-year-old royal since 2011 and they are proud parents to daughters Mia, 11, and Lena, seven, and four-year-old son Lucas.
The pair first met in 2003 during a chance encounter akin to the plot of the Gwyneth Paltrow movie Sliding Doors. Mike, who played for Bath and Gloucester and won 75 caps for England between 2000 and 2011, met the daughter of Princess Anne while he was taking part in the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia.
The outside centre had a mixed experience during the sporting event. While England won the tournament that year, he had been dropped by the team before the final. However, his bad luck turned to good fortune as this led to him meeting Zara during a night out away from the sporting life. Opening up to Australian golfer Wayne 'Radar' Riley, Mike revealed: 'I met Zara there, we won the World Cup there... It's always the sliding doors moment in the fact that I got dropped for the semi-final and I met her that night.'
It's not the first time he has opened up about their first meeting. In 2022, while taking part in ITV's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, he revealed: 'First actual date, just went out for lunch locally. And then ended up being quite a boozy one. Then we figured out that we both like getting smashed. It was a good start.' They made their romance public in 2004 and became engaged six years later.
Zara has previously peeled back details of their early romantic life, confessing to The Mirror that she initially found her future husband 'boring'. She said: 'I went out for an all day lunch with some girlfriends... Mikey, I thought was a bit boring actually.' Despite this, the couple wed in 2011 and have three children.
