Pippa Middleton tells Matt Lauer on 'Today': Kate and I are 'very close'

Pippa Middleton, younger sister of England's Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, says she and her sibling have kept a normal relationship since Kate became royalty.

"Yeah, we do we have a very normal, sisterly relationship. We're very close," Pippa Middleton, 30, told Matt Lauer in a two-part "Today" interview scheduled to air on the morning show Monday and Tuesday. "And, you know, we support each other and get each other's opinions and things."

Middleton, whose given name is Philippa, added that, "I mean, obviously she has pressures that she's taken on and things. But we spend a lot of time together. We still do a lot together as a family."

Speaking in her first television interview, she said, "I think that's really the heart for all of us is having a really close family that we can sort of be normal with each other, treat each other normally. And that's sort of kept us all, you know, affixed to the ground."

Earlier this month, Pippa Middleton, her 27-year-old brother James and others on an eight-person team bicycled 3,000 miles through 12 states in the 33rd annual Race Across America charity event. Middleton told Lauer she found the United States "very friendly, very welcoming. And we felt that the entire way. The scenery was incredible. And I think that what lifted our spirits when it really hurt, sort of grinding on the bike, was to see everything around us. From the mountains, the desert -- through the flat plains of Kansas."