Princess Kate's brother James is expecting his first child with wife Alizée

Congratulations!

Alizee Thevenet and James Middleton attend the wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston at St George's Chapel on May 18, 2019 in Windsor, England.
(Image credit: Photo by Pool / Max Mumby / Getty)

More royal (adjacent) baby news!!!

Just weeks after Princess Eugenie welcomed her son Ernest Brooksbank, it's been announced that Princess Kate's brother James Middleton is expecting his first child with his wife Alizée Thevenet — meaning Kate and William will be aunt and uncle to the baby, and their children will be cousins.

The entrepreneur took to Instagram to share the happy news.

He posted two photos of Alizée with a visible baby bump and playing with two of the couple's many dogs.

"We couldn’t be more excited … well Mable might be," he wrote, referring to one of the dogs that was jumping up on his wife in the pictures.

"It was a very difficult start to the year after losing my beloved Ella however we will end the year with the most precious little addition to our growing family"

In January, James shared that he had sadly lost his dog Ella, who had helped him when he was struggling with depression — and who lent her name to James' company James & Ella, a raw dog food brand.

James and Alizée got married in September 2021 in Alizée's native France. At the time, the happy groom wrote on Instagram alongside a stunning photo of the newlyweds: "Yesterday I married the love of my life surrounded by family, friends and of course a few dogs in the beautiful village or Bormes-les-Mimosas. Words cannot describe how happy I am"

The happy couple's little one will join their already quite large family: the two share many dogs together, and James was even the one to give Kate and William their cocker spaniel Orla.

While this will be James' first child, his eldest sister Kate is mum to George, 9, Charlotte, 8, and Louis, 5, and their sister Pippa is mum to son Arthur, 4, and daughters Grace, 2, and Rose, 1, so there'll be plenty of cousins to play with when the new baby gets here.

Iris Goldsztajn
Iris Goldsztajn is a celebrity and royal news writer for Marie Claire. As a London-based freelance journalist, she writes about wellness, relationships, pop culture, beauty and more for the likes of InStyle, Women's Health, Bustle, Stylist and Red. Aside from her quasi-personal investment in celebs' comings and goings, Iris is especially interested in debunking diet culture and destigmatising mental health struggles. Previously, she was the associate editor for Her Campus, where she oversaw the style and beauty news sections, as well as producing gift guides, personal essays and celebrity interviews. There, she worked remotely from Los Angeles, after returning from a three-month stint as an editorial intern for Cosmopolitan.com in New York. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles, she interned at goop and C California Style and served as Her Campus' national style and LGBTQ+ editor. Iris was born and raised in France by a French father and an English mother. Her Spotify Wrapped is riddled with country music and One Direction, and she can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.