Ben Duncan, a college classmate of the Prince and Princess of Wales and a reality TV star known for being a housemate on Season 11 of the U.K.’s Big Brother, died Thursday night after falling about 100 feet from a hotel rooftop bar in London.
Duncan, 45, fell from the seventh story of the swanky Trafalgar St. James Hotel, a Metropolitan Police spokesperson told the Daily Mail.
A spokesperson from a London ambulance service also told the Daily Mail: “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.”
“Very sadly, despite the best efforts of our crews, a man was pronounced dead at the scene,” they added.
Police responded to a call about concerns over a man on the rooftop of the celebrity hotspot, where rooms run for as much as $1,300 per night. Authorities did not say what caused the fall, but are not treating the death as suspicious.
Duncan had met Prince William and Princess Kate Middleton while attending St. Andrews University, and was said to be in their friend group around the time they started dating.
“Because we’d had Will and Kate in our midst, we had royal protection officers swarming the place,” Duncan said in November 2010. “We knew that they had hit it off and we knew that something was happening, but they were just left along to get on with it.”
After graduating, Duncan went on to appear in a number of U.K. television series in addition to Big Brother, including Ladette to Lady, Celebrity Coach Trip and Come Dine with Me.
Josie Gibson, who won Big Brother Season 11 after Duncan was eliminated, posted about her late housemate in an Instagram Story Tuesday.
“My heart goes out to Ben and his family,” Gibson said. “I love you Ben... one [of] the most unique, hilariously funny, dry witted guys I know.”
