Anniversary bombshell: how Prince Harry’s other women led him to Meghan Markle… And four years of royal scandal

Last week marked four years since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle officially announced their engagement, posing outside Kensington Palace with huge smiles. It was a promising beginning, but life since has been a roller coaster of emotions for the pair, who famously left the UK for a new life in California and had a public falling out with their families.

And last week Harry, 37, was dropped an anniversary bombshell when a controversial BBC documentary, The Princes And The Press, delved into his love life, revealing the strain his exes had suffered when dating the sixth in line to the throne.

The show included an interview with a private investigator about Harry’s childhood sweetheart, Chelsy Davy, who he dated on and off for seven years, until 2011. The investigator claimed Chelsy’s phone was hacked and Chelsy, who is now married to a TV producer, has since revealed she found the press attention while dating the Prince “horrible.”

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Cressida Bonas also struggled when she dated Harry for three years until 2014. Royal correspondent Katie Nicholl tells Closer the media attention and expectation to fulfill royal duties was a huge wake-up call for the actress, who realised “it wasn’t the life she wanted.”

Katie reveals, “Cressida told me how much of a problem living in the spotlight had been and that the intense interest in everything they did and everywhere they went was unbearable. For both Chelsy and Cressida it was a case of sending good luck to whoever wants this attention, because it’s not much fun when you are the centre of it.”

And Katie – who wrote biography Harry And Meghan: Life, Loss, And Love and who has been on eight royal tours, including to South Africa with Meghan and Harry – adds that Prince William and Kate Middleton’s 2011 wedding “sealed the deal” for Chelsy.

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“Harry invited her to William and Kate’s wedding, and it was the nail in the coffin for their relationship,” she says. “I don’t think it was because she didn’t love Harry – but this life of a prince, under the spotlight, was not a life she wanted.”

Last week, model Florence Brudenell-Bruce – who dated Harry for two months in 2011 – also revealed she felt “lucky the relationship was short lived,” previously describing the attention she received as his girlfriend as “terrifying”. And Harry has spoken out too. In 2012, aged 27, he admitted fearing he would never find someone who could handle the pressure of dating a prince. Later, in 2016, he pledged that when he did meet someone, he would do his utmost to ensure they were comfortable together before “the massive invasion that is inevitably going to happen into her privacy.”

True to his word, when he met Meghan two months later, they enjoyed the first four months of their romance in private – getting to know one another as they camped under the stars in Botswana on their first holiday together.

At first Suits star Meghan, 40, seemed to have broken the curse on Harry’s love life – something Katie puts down to her inner strength.

Katie says, “I think Meghan is very different to Chelsy and Cressida. Anyone who climbs the slippery pole to success in Hollywood – which is notoriously tough – has to have a core of steel. She is strong, ambitious, driven and focused.

“Meghan was also in her mid-30s when she met Harry, and independent, personally and financially. She was successful, and she had a media savviness the others just didn’t have.”

But despite this inner strength, Meghan – who has Archie, two, and Lilibet, six months, with Harry – has famously struggled with the pressure. Shortly after their lavish 2018 wedding, stories emerged accusing her of being “high maintenance and rude” to staff, alongside claims that she had left sister-in-law Kate in tears ahead of the ceremony.

Tell-alls from her family members, including staged pictures by her father Thomas Markle, also came to light and, earlier this year, the couple said the ongoing scrutiny had left Meghan suicidal. It played a major factor in their bombshell decision to move to the US, with Harry admitting in a podcast that he feared he could lose Meghan like he lost his mother, Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. “It’s incredibly triggering to potentially lose another woman in my life,” he said.

Now Katie says that, despite the chaos, their decision to step away from the royal family will be the bond that keeps Prince Harry and Meghan together.

“They are a team. Leaving the royal family, relinquishing his military roles and giving up his royal duties [for Meghan]... it was life-changing,” she says. “It gives them a connection in a way Harry wouldn’t have with anyone else. They have forged this path together, and they are on this journey together. They are a partnership – and a pretty powerful one at that.”

And Closer’s psychological therapist, Emma Kenny, agrees.

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Emma says, “It’s clear Harry was utterly beguiled by Meghan from their first date, but even more than that, she has given him a sense of warmth and unconditional love that he hasn’t had since he lost his mother. Meghan was Harry’s lifeboat in the storm – this is the secret hold she has over him.

“She’s also had her fair share of secrets going on behind the scenes, like dealing with her dysfunctional family, but that’s probably been appealing to Harry as he’s had similar experiences. This, coupled with the previous women in his life leaving, is ironically what’s led to the last four years of scandal – by making him more adamant to tear up the royal rule book and do things their own way.

“But from chaos comes change and growth, and it’s clear Harry has chosen his camp – his new family. Harry can’t turn his back on Meghan because he has cut off everything and everyone from his old life. It’s them against the world, and that will bind them forever.”