A private investigator admits he hacked Chelsy Davy’s phone & medical records

B7303_200711_06_202558_0017

Before The Princes and the Press (Part 1) aired on the BBC last night, the BBC broke some news in advance. In the documentary, there’s an interview with a private investigator (Gavin Burrows) who was hired by News Corp (Rupert Murdoch’s papers) to dig into the backgrounds and tap the phones of anyone involved with the royals, especially Prince Harry’s girlfriends. Some of this came out during the phone-hacking scandal and the subsequent Leveson Inquiry in 2011-12. Basically, both William and Harry were targeted by Murdoch’s papers for years and years when those papers hired third-party investigators to hack into associates’ phones and more. Gavin Burrows told the BBC that he hacked into Chelsy Davy’s phone when she dated Harry and that Harry was always the bigger target and the more interesting brother to the red-top tabloids.

A private investigator has apologised for targeting the Duke of Sussex’s ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy for surveillance when they were dating. Gavin Burrows told the BBC the press had focused on Prince Harry in the 2000s as “the new Diana”.

Prince Harry is one of several people pursuing legal action against the publisher of the Sun and the News of the World, News Group Newspapers, as well as the owner of the Daily Mirror, over allegations of phone-hacking and other illegal newsgathering activity.

The private investigator’s claims feature in a BBC documentary that investigates the relationship between the younger princes and the media. Media editor Amol Rajan speaks to journalists about how they were briefed on stories, including claims about the behaviour of the Duchess of Sussex. Mr Burrows’ account sheds new light on the background to an impending conflict over the conduct of the press.

Prince Harry, who has sharply criticised the media and advocated for reform, has so far declined to settle his phone-hacking claim, raising the prospect of a trial. Former BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt said the prince battling newspapers in court over allegations of unlawful activity – seemingly driven by “avenging” what he sees as unfair treatment of his mother – would be a “massive” moment in British public life.

Mr Burrows told the programme there was much greater interest in Prince Harry than in Prince William when he began working for the News of the World in 2000.

“As explained to me by a couple of editors, Harry had basically become the new Diana,” he said. Editors had told him putting Prince Harry on the front page sold more copies of newspapers than Prince William, Mr Burrows said. The private investigator said when Prince Harry began dating Ms Davy in 2004, it opened a lucrative new avenue of business as her communications were targeted.

“There was a lot of voicemail hacking going on, there was a lot of surveillance work on her phones, on her comms. Chelsy would brag to her friends when she was going to see him,” he said. He said investigators were interested in her medical records, ex-boyfriends and details of her education.

Mr Burrows apologised, saying he was “very sorry” and that he acted this way “because I was greedy, I was into my cocaine, and I was living in a fake state of grandeur”. But he said there was a “ruthless” culture in parts of the media around that time: “They’ve got no morals – they absolutely have got no morals.”

He also said he regretted his treatment of Prince Harry. “I was basically part of a group of people who robbed him of his normal teenage years,” Mr Burrows said.

[From BBC]

I don’t even believe they had much on Chelsy beyond “she likes to party and have fun” and she apparently “bragged” to friends about seeing him. There was no reason to enter into all of these highly criminal activities to monitor a private citizen. The Sun (again, a Murdoch outlet) did the same with Meghan too – a private investigator admitted getting access to Meghan’s Social Security number and finding out her bank account information, address, mother’s address, everything. It makes my skin crawl to think of someone in the media poring over my personal information, my medical records, my finances just because I went on a date with a prince. It’s completely disgusting.

Also: “…There was much greater interest in Prince Harry than in Prince William when he began working for the News of the World in 2000…” A tradition which continues to this very day. While William obviously never wanted the press to crawl up his ass, let’s also be clear that William has always had a chip on his shoulder about Harry being naturally charismatic, watchable and interesting. William was always the “boring brother.”

The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

avalon-0335950167

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

104 Responses to “A private investigator admits he hacked Chelsy Davy’s phone & medical records”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. Rapunzel says:

    And according to some, Meg was supposed to be “prepared” to get treated like this for dating Harry.

    This is appalling and it’s no wonder Chelsey didn’t marry Harry.

    • Sydney says:

      Can’t marry someone who doesn’t ask you to marry them in the first place.

      • notasugarhere says:

        This. People need to get over the idea that Chelsy is the lost love of Harry’s life. It he’d wanted to marry her, he would have asked her. He didn’t.

      • Ginger says:

        Agree Nota. Harry was really young when he was with Chelsy. I highly doubt he was thinking of marriage at that age. The relationship ran its course. Harry wasn’t going around proposing to everyone and then settled for Meghan
        ( which is what the press are trying to push)

      • Angel says:

        What makes you think that she wanted this life lol ? A lot of women refused prince Charles and William too. Not everyone wants this life. Most women don’t even Meghan admitted that one of her friends told her not to marry him.

      • notasugarhere says:

        What makes you think she didn’t? She’s whined enough through the years to sound like a jealous jilted ex. Chelsy dated him for seven years. If she didn’t want to be around him or potentially marry him, she’d have left after the first few weeks.

      • Aang says:

        Harry and Chelsea could have discussed marriage/he may have proposed and she may have said no. That doesn’t mean she’s his long lost love or that he settled for Megan. It just means he may have been spared a mistake by a woman who wasn’t interested in this life. He wanted to marry Chelsea and yet he’s better off married to his current wife. Both things can be true.

      • Angel says:

        @notasugarhere common sense would make me think she didn’t. Not everyone is willing to give up their freedom and privacy for a life a harassment, bullying and defamation. Would you like to be part of that family and deal with what Megan dealt with ?

      • Dizza says:

        Chelsea was always very clear that she loved Harry but had no interest in being the royal spotlight for the rest of her life.

      • GraceB says:

        Chelsea did extremely well to stick it out for as long as she did, considering what was thrown her way.

        I don’t think anyone is making out that she’s his lost love who got away because she’s white and aristocratic. She is just a significant ex. It would seem likely that marriage was considered by both sides, given that they were together for so long. It’s also possible that given the media attention, they wanted to wait, knowing it would only increase. Then they went their separate ways, and we don’t know why.

        It’s not convenient for any love story to have significant loves who have come before them, but that is the reality in life. Most people have them, as they get older, unless they’ve been extremely fortunate or unfortunate in that department.

        I don’t understand why it’s a problem that Harry might have wanted to marry an ex at some point, but it’s fine that Meghan was in fact married.

      • ABritGuest says:

        Not sure if it’s true Chelsy didn’t like the spotlight: she did many interviews when she was dating Harry.

        Anyway it’s disgusting that the newspapers were spying on Chelsy & invading her privacy from when she was a teenager. It’s a shame the British public are so seemingly apathetic about how intrusive certain sections of the press are.

      • notasugarhere says:

        Chelsy continues to give interviews trying to get attention. This isn’t someone who wants to be out of the spotlight. I saw her as a Fergie in the making.

      • PrincessK says:

        Harry did not want to marry Chelsey, l think he realised that she was not really interested in doing all the kind of events and activities that royals do. Also l don’t think that he was faithful to her. At his wedding she looked very emotional and seemed to be fighting back the tears. Also l don’t think that she has moved on unlike Cressida. I think that Harry and Chelsey loved each other, unlike with Cressida. But l was really worried about Chelsey being a heavy smoker etc. Meghan is better for Harry for many reasons.

      • aftershocks says:

        @notasugarhere said:
        “[Chelsy] isn’t someone who wants to be out of the spotlight. I saw her as a Fergie in the making.”

        ??? There remains a measure of public interest in Chelsy simply because she’s a former girlfriend of Prince Harry. I don’t know much about Chelsy. I’ve never heard her speaking voice. I know nothing about her character. From all available evidence, she seems like someone with a fiesty, ambitious personality who has lived a wealthy, protected life.

        As a successful jewelry entrepreneur, Chelsy continues to live a comfortable, jet-set style existence with homes in Capetown, SA, and in London. She still has friends in the aristo set in London, whom she met when she dated Harry.

        I don’t see Chelsy as someone to get over-excited about or to excessively put down verbally because she’s positioned by some busybodies in the media as Harry’s first love who in some overwrought ‘racist’ minds is the more acceptable blonde white girl, favored as a royal bride over the ‘exotic’ divorced American, Meghan.

        The fact is, Chelsy was not interested in becoming a royal bride, despite her deep affection for Harry. Trying to equate Chelsy with Fergie is a non-starter. Chelsy has an economics degree from the University of Capetown, SA, and a law degree from the University of Leeds, London. Chelsy was raised by wealthy parents on a safari farm in Zimbabwe, yet she had the ambition to carve out her own successful jewelry business (whether or not she was given a head-start in developing her company via her father’s financial resources). It’s not a small thing to get a successful business up and running.

        Clearly, Chelsy was never suited to become trapped within the gilded cage by marrying a royal prince. Unlike Fergie, Chelsy was smart enough to know what kind of life she truly desired and was cut out for. So whether or not Harry ever proposed marriage, is moot. The whole topic is water well under the bridge, and well past its sell-by-date.

    • ARHUS says:

      Yep, glad she saw the royal world for what it was and high-tailed it out of there

  2. Stef says:

    I hope Harry takes this to trial. Poor Chelsy, this is literally my worst nightmare and I understand why she wouldn’t wanted to have married him.

    Hopefully it will also bring some eventual justice for Meghan.

    • Mac says:

      Harry was right when he said the past was repeating itself. Chelsy needs to be added to the lawsuit. She is entitled to a huge pay out.

    • notasugarhere says:

      Didn’t he join in a group lawsuit against the hacking scandal a couple of years ago. iirc just before the deadline to join came due.

    • notasugarhere says:

      If Chelsy didn’t want to mary him, she wouldn’t have stuck around for seven years. Enough with this pandering to the hater idea that Chelsy (the aristo white girl) is his lost love.

      • Rita Fires says:

        I don’t think that saying Chelsy wanted to marry Harry, or that Harry at the time thought about marrying Chelsy, is the same as saying that Chelsy is “the love of his life” who “got away.” I haven’t seen a comment trying to argue that Chelsy and Harry should be together instead of Meghan and Harry. People are just pointing out that Chelsy and Harry had a long-term relationship and probably talked about marriage…and that Chelsy probably didn’t want the pain and suffering of marrying into the RF. These things can be true without having any impact on Harry and Meghan’s relationship.

      • Angel says:

        Chelsy is not an aristo btw she not even English.

      • Jaded says:

        Chelsy isn’t an aristo. She comes from a wealthy South African family, but I think she wasn’t at all prepared for the type of life she’d have to live if she and Harry married. She’s got a law degree, opened her own successful, ethically sourced jewelry company that has provided employment opportunities for many people, has a boyfriend and she’s basically gotten on with her life being “herself”, not “wife of”.

      • aftershocks says:

        @notasugarhere, none of us own Harry or Meghan. Nor do we actually know them personally. We have no way of knowing what any of their previous relationships were like on an intimate level. All we are doing is speculating from afar.

        I’m not sure what you mean by “pandering to the hater idea that Chelsy (the aristo white girl) is Harry’s lost love.” First of all, Chelsy is not an aristo, no matter that she continues to run in those circles, largely as a result of having dated Harry when they were in their 20s. Chelsy is from a wealthy family, as I mentioned in my previous post. So yes, she’s rich and white. But culturally, she grew up in southern Africa. These days, she’s seemingly a rich, white, entrepreneur with a jet-set lifestyle.

        No matter what nonsense haters believe in and try to manufacture, neither Chelsy nor Harry have ever given any indication that they regretted splitting up for the final time. So nope, neither of them lost anything. OTOH, they surely learned life-lessons from the experience of having been together for awhile as young twenty-somethings.

        Read my previous post (ITA with @Rita and @Jaded). I think it’s better to be logical and realistic rather than unreasonably emotional about former relationships between people we have nothing to do with. Harry & Chelsy had a caring, but immature relationship in their 20s, which was tempestuous and on-again, off-again. They finally broke-up with each other for good and moved on. The only reason their former relationship is still brought up by the media and by royal observers is because Harry is a British royal prince.

      • BabsORIG says:

        Chelsy is NOT South African, she is not if Dutch descent. She is a descendant of English men that came to Africa and took over lands that belonged to Africans. She is therefore English by descent and African/Zambian by birth.

      • notasugarhere says:

        All of that said, Chelsy remains the ‘type’ the racists wanted Harry to marry. Given her propensity for giving interviews and trying to keep herself in the spotlight? She chooses to bring up their former relationship in those interviews. If Harry had asked, she would have jumped at the chance to marry him.

      • aftershocks says:

        ^^ @notasugarhere, there’s no way you know that’s what Chelsy would have done. That’s what you think she would have done, if Harry had ever asked her to marry. But as has been said by thoughtful posters, and mentioned in reports about their relationship, they were young and simply enjoying life during the time they were together. They may or may not have discussed marriage. There’s no way we can say for certain whether Harry did or did not officially propose to Chelsy at any point. There have been a lot of rumors on both sides of this unconfirmable speculation.

        Frankly, I don’t have any reason to not believe Chelsy when she has said that the constant scrutiny by photographers, and the often false tabloid headlines were too much for her. In addition, after attending and witnessing the 2011 royal wedding of W&K, Chelsy said it confirmed for her that becoming a royal bride was not what she wanted for her life. It was in 2011, that Harry & Chelsy reportedly finally split for good.

      • PrincessK says:

        If Harry had really wanted Chelsy they have been married. By putting it out that she didn’t want a royal life is to save her face.

      • aftershocks says:

        @Babs ORIG said:
        “Chelsy is NOT South African, she is not if Dutch descent. She is a descendant of English men that came to Africa and took over lands that belonged to Africans. She is therefore English by descent and African/Zambian by birth.”

        Uh, I mentioned that Chelsy grew up in southern Africa, and she did. Sure, some people think Chelsy is from South Africa, because she lives there, along with spending time in London too. She attended college at the University of Capetown, and she met Harry in 2004, in South Africa. Some sources think Harry and Chelsy met when she attended high school in Stowe, England. But that’s reportedly not the case.

        FWIW, Chelsy’s father is actually from South Africa, but he built his business in the former Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, which is where he met Chelsy’s mother (a former model, and a Miss Rhodesia beauty pageant winner). So note that Chelsy was born in Zimbabwe, not the neighboring Zambia. South Africa and Zimbabwe are countries located in southern Africa, which is a region. Africa itself is a continent.

        I believe that individuals born in Africa, no matter their skin color, generally consider themselves to be African by birth. And specifically citizens of the country in Africa where they were born, regardless of their parents/ancestors’ original heritage.

        When unrest occurred in Zimbabwe in the early 2000s, Chelsy’s family moved to England so she could complete middle school and high school. Being introduced to England for the first time was culture shock for Chelsy, as she has described in interviews.

        Yes, colonization is a serious problem that colonizers need to fully acknowledge and understand. But meanwhile, I would stay away from trying to suggest that white people born in African countries don’t have the right to identify as Africans. Chelsy is Zimbabwean by birth and cultural heritage. Her parents apparently were also born in southern Africa.

  3. Alexandria says:

    I’m glad Harry is still proceeding with the claim.

    • helonearth says:

      Yes, I hope it goes to court and then everything these newspaper and magazines do comes out. They really are scumbags and do not care at all about the people they write about.

    • The Hench says:

      Yeah – I mean it’s not going to go well for the press if PIs like this are more than happy to go on the record about their activities…

      • LaraW” says:

        From what little I’ve read, they’re trying to pick plaintiffs off from the lawsuit by offering individual settlements. I think the company’s board of directors are named defendants and they’re eager for this NOT to go to trial. (But don’t quote me on this, lol. I’m following Guiffre v. Andrew closely, but the other matters not so much.)

      • The Hench says:

        Thanks @LaraW” – I know you’re a lawyer so good to get your perspective. Yes, I bet the directors are eager for this not to go to trial!!

  4. lanne says:

    This is only going to get worse with social media. The lives of any future partners of the Cambridge kids will be destroyed. One option would be to cloister the kids completely. Keep them in tight aristo circles so that they know nothing and no one else. Or, go back to arranged marriages and select European royals as spouses for the children.

    My guess is they’ll go the cloistered aristo route, and teach the kids that the job of a royal is to “reign serenely over the populace,” not engage with them. Isolate and disengage seems to be the Cambridge MO anyway. I don’t know how that will play out over the long term, but these people aren’t long term thinkers.

    The best thing that could happen for the Cambridge kids would be for the monarchy to be abolished.

    • Alexandria says:

      Bulliam and Khate are extremely dumb and shortsighted. If they had joined Harry in the claim and refuse to take part in the rota format, they could have protected their kids and future grandkids. Too bad they have secrets and backstabbing to prioritize.

    • equality says:

      But is it that easy to get an aristo to marry in? William didn’t manage to.

      • lanne says:

        European royal then. Maybe a German hanger-on royal with no fortune. I can’t imagine any of the reigning houses of Europe wanting to subject their kids to the Brits.

      • Angel says:

        Right ? In reality only few people would this life. I know I wouldn’t despite all the privileges. I know Chelsy is happy right now knowing she doesn’t have to deal with all of this anymore.

      • Becks1 says:

        George would basically need someone like Kate – with enough money to get her or him in George’s circle, but not so much that they would be independently wealthy (i.e. so they can leave if unhappy), not titled or aristocratic but want to be ( so there would be an appeal to having access to significant country estates and castles, and having people curtsy to you, etc), and someone who shapes their adult life around being a future royal spouse.

        And that’s not getting into the press intrusion etc part of it. and when people look at how Meghan Markle was treated, that is just going to narrow the pool of future spouses even more.

      • Sofia says:

        I imagine they’ll find Kate-esque spouses. Someone who is upper middle class/new money but want the “approval” and “acceptance” of the aristos but getting the “ultimate” title. Even though Kate isn’t really liked or accepted and apparently, some aristos don’t even like the royals in general.

        What I’m saying is that there always will be people who “it’ll be different for me!” and marry them.

      • HeyJude says:

        That I’m sure was 1000% about what we know now is William’s ghastly and vicious personality. Plus his looks where degrading by then.

        It’s not worth being Queen for a few years at the end of your life when you’re already extremely wealthy (perhaps even more so than the royals) and often titled as an aristocrat as is.

        It’s not not worth it to suffer for decades with such an horrendous man who’s want to being publicly cruel to his partner and who’s physically unattractive.

        That was a complete indictment of William as a person that aristos ran the opposite direction from him.

        As we can see because Prince Harry didn’t have issues finding them on the other hand.

    • notasugarhere says:

      Or they immediately state their two younger children will never be working royals. They are private citizens. They will not use their titles, will not receive additional titles at marriage, they will earn their own livings off the royal dole. That gives those two younger children the opportunity to sue all these tabloids for invasion of privacy once they turn 18.

      • L4frimaire says:

        That’s never gonna happen. They are too obsessed with rank and status. If they treat every royal spouse the way they treated Meghan and Diana, there will either be a lot of widow/ers or they’ll need to start cloning themselves.

      • notasugarhere says:

        Of course it won’t happen. It would be in the best interest of the children, but it wouldn’t allow W&K to keep using them for PR.

    • Demi says:

      Even young aristos want freedom, modern life just look at kitty spencers’ social media and there are aristos women that rejected William. royal life is very very restrictive even by aristo standards.

  5. LaraW” says:

    I can only imagine The Other Brother’s reaction to the BM considering Harry “more interesting” and “the next Diana.” All that time he spent throwing Harry under the bus, and William doesn’t even get the coveted mantle of his mother.

    Also I guess this is one upside to the US culture of litigation. I’m presuming these “investigators” didn’t get their hands on Meghan’s medical records because that would be 1. A violation of federal law (42 U.S.C. § 1320d–6(b)(3): if the offense is committed with intent to sell, transfer, or use individually identifiable health information for commercial advantage, personal gain, or malicious harm, be fined not more than $250,000, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.) and 2. Grounds to sue the crap out of the doctor’s office and/or insurance company that dared to release the information.

    I mean, the US insurance companies have only gotten more paranoid about data security due to the massive hacks and subsequent class action litigation.

    • notasugarhere says:

      Since the courtiers actively used Harry to cover William’s ass? When they leaked to the press about everything Harry did, while covering up that William was doing 10X more negative things? Since William and the Middletons were briefing and leaking against Harry from the moment Kate/Carole got their hooks into William?

      Pretty sure William welcomes and encouraged the targeting of Harry.

  6. Amy T says:

    I hope we never see pictures of Archie & Lili’s faces. Those media outlets and anyone doing their dirty work are pond scum.

    • Persephone says:

      💯

    • Still_Sarah says:

      I agree but I admit I find the back-of-the-head photos confusing. I mean, why bother putting out the picture at all? I don’t think this “satisfies” the paparazzi who will just keep coming and wanting to get that first shot of the child’s face. I saw the Archie in the chicken coop picture from the Ellen Show and wondered if that was even him at all as there was no way to really tell. It could have been any child.

    • PrincessK says:

      My bet is that there will be Xmas photos of both Sussex children released.

      • aftershocks says:

        ^^ LOL! Good luck with that bit of wishful thinking. Fans of the Sussexes will be fortunate if we get another Christmas podcast on Spotify, this time with Archie reciting a Christmas poem, and Lili giggling happily in the background. Perhaps there’ll be a few Happy Holidays woofs from Guy and Pula too. 🙂

  7. FHMom says:

    I can completely understand why those British aristo women wanted nothing to do with marrying into the RF. Poor Meghan. She had no clue what she was in for. So happy for them for getting out.

  8. Noki says:

    Meghan got a rude awakening, Harry mentioned that he wanted to make sure that she knew what she was signing up for.And in their engagement interview Meghan in hindsight was totally naive(not her fault), and Harry was just being hopeful that things have changed. There is nothing in the world that could have prepared her for the BS she endured. I used to find it a joke that the Future King had to ‘settle’ for Kate because all his other choices ran for the hills,now i see.

    • Alexandria says:

      The UK press is indeed disgusting but I think the bigger shock to Harry was that his family did nothing and exacerbated it. He already knew the press were scum but he did not know he was a hostage in a cult that was willing to harm him and his family. I think that is more difficult to accept.

      • Merricat says:

        +1

      • Angel says:

        Then Harry is really naive, they already did this to his mother plus the racism.

      • MF1 says:

        Agree. I don’t think Harry thought they will use Meghan as a human shield for Will and Kate, nor that they would be openly racist to her.

      • MsIam says:

        I think William is the one who shocked Harry at how duplicitous he was. I’m sure they spent their growing up years complaining about how the press treated their mother and plotting revenge. I think Harry naively thought William wouldn’t side with the enemy against him and his family. At least not to the extent that Meghan felt suicidal. Like others have said, he thought she would be treated like Kate and protected by the family. I think he never imagined Williams hatred and disloyalty would manifest itself like this. To me that is the real story that needs to be broadcasted.

      • abritdebbie says:

        I also wonder if he was expecting the same protection and support that Kate was given. When Kate married in there was lots of talk about how “what had happened to Diana should never happen again”.

      • Nic919 says:

        Harry himself was protective of Kate in a few media interviews early on. So yes he likely expected his brother to treat his wife with respect. He probably didn’t expect his brother and sister in law to be the prime instigators of the smear campaign.

      • L4frimaire says:

        I wasn’t following them at the beginning of their romance, but I get the impression that William and Kate were hostile to the relationship from the very beginning, before anyone knew if it was even going anywhere. I assume they Googled the hell out of her, saw everything she had done and accomplished, knew she was way more than your average pretty face.

      • notasugarhere says:

        Harry admitted he didn’t know Kate after 10 years of William dating her, and only said one relatively positive thing about her when pressed by press a few years after the wedding And he admitted repeatedly that he didn’t spend time with W&K 2010-2018. The idea Harry is some Kate champion is all Kate stan fiction.

      • PrincessK says:

        I always felt that Kate didn’t want Harry to marry Cressida for many reasons, but she didn’t know that someone would come along who would put her in the shadows even more.

  9. Sofia says:

    This is why a lot of William, Harry and even Charles’ exes didn’t want to marry or even date them (even if W&H&C didn’t have strong intentions to marry them either). One of Charles’ exes was Lady Jane Wellesley (daughter of the Duke of Wellington) and when she was asked by the press if she wanted to marry Charles or something, she said something like “I don’t want another title, I’ve already got one thank you”. The press scrutiny is not worth it, especially if you’re already rich and titled. Why trade your privacy to marry a Prince when you can just marry a “regular rich guy”/titled aristo and be rich and/or titled in peace?

  10. Oh says:

    If she didn’t want to marry him, then why did she date him for SEVEN years??

    • Sydney says:

      They were young maybe even each other’s first loves. He wasn’t the Harry he is now. The marriage would’ve fell apart like a cheap shoes.

    • Ginger says:

      Exactly. She stayed with him for a long time and put up with a lot. Why? He wasn’t the best boyfriend back then. He was a mess. He forgot to pick her up at the airport, the constant fighting, etc. In my opinion, maybe she was expecting a ring and that’s why she stayed that long. But everything worked out for Harry. He is in a much better place and is married to Meghan ( who is a perfect for him)

      • BabsORIG says:

        @Ginger, they broke up several times and got back together everyone of those times. As you said, Harry was a mess during that phase of his life and he treated her horribly and with such disrespect. But she always took him back regardless. I’m not sure about Chelsy but it’s apparent to me that Harry was not interested in settling down with anyone at that time. He was just going through too much self destruction to even consider committment to anyone.

      • Nic919 says:

        I think the airport story was Cressida not Chelsy. And not long after that Harry and Cressida broke up for good.

      • Ginger says:

        No, the forgetting at the airport story is Chelsy. There are pictures. Harry didn’t buy Cressida a plane ticket and that’s when they broke up. You might be thinking of that.

      • BayTampaBay says:

        @Ginger – You are correct regarding Cressida. The Cressida-Harry plane ticket fiasco had to do with attending Guy Pelly’s 2014 USA wedding to Elizabeth Wilson (Holiday Inn heiress). Harry was supposed to attend with Cressida but when Harry did not or would not buy her a plane ticket Cressida walked.

        Cressida ended with a better match as she married a non-titled aristocrat from the Wentworth-Stanley clan.

      • Jaded says:

        When I was that age I stayed with a boyfriend who was a f*cked-up mess for way too long. I thought I could help him, love him into getting his sh*t together and becoming a nice person in control of his life. I was so naive…but so in love I was willing to put up with just about anything to make it work. Once I realized it was having a destructive effect on my life, my self-esteem and my mental health I finally had to pull the plug. Relationships are a learning process and the older you get the less tolerant you become of bad behaviour, and the quicker you are able to discern red flags and get the hell out.

      • aftershocks says:

        @Ginger said:
        “[Chelsy] stayed with [Harry] for a long time and put up with a lot. Why?”

        Why bother questioning Chelsy’s motivations for dating Harry for seven years though? There is such a thing as truly caring for a person, but never marrying that person, for whatever reason. In the case of Meghan and Trevor, they also dated for about seven years. And then, Trevor proposed to Meghan around the time she landed the Suits audition. Of course, M&T’s marriage did not work out. As mentioned earlier, a union between Chelsy & Harry was unlikely to have lasted either, which does not mean that each former couple didn’t share deep feelings. None of us are meant to marry every person we date, no matter how long the dating extends before calling it quits. And all marriages, especially twenty-something marriages, do not necessarily last.

        Young relationships are what they are. No more. No less. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the romances that Meghan & Harry both had before they met, prepared them for each other. Their prior relationships gave them invaluable knowledge and self-understanding crucial for developing the mature, lasting, ever-growing soul mate union they have together.

      • aftershocks says:

        @Bay Tampa Bay said:
        “Cressida ended with a better match as she married a non-titled aristocrat from the Wentworth-Stanley clan.”

        Cressida’s husband is also named Harry. Interestingly, she dated Harry Wentworth-Stanley before dating Harry Wales. So Cressida’s and Prince Harry’s relationship (starting in 2012) was a rebound relationship for both of them. Prince Harry and Chelsy had ended their on-again, off-again romance for good in 2011.

        I always got the vibe that Prince Harry and Cressida were more ‘hanging buddies,’ biding their time together, rather than being in a serious relationship. For sure, it was a significant relationship that lasted for two years, but that may have been partly due to Cressida being close to Prince Harry’s cousin, Eugenie. Harry hung with his cousin Eugenie’s circle of friends during that period. Eugenie is also friends with Misha Nonoo, which is how Eugenie knew Meghan prior to Misha bringing Harry and Meghan together in July 2016.

        If a boyfriend showed he didn’t care how or if I accompanied him to a long-distance wedding, I think that’s a good sign things aren’t going well, and it’s time to end the relationship. Cressida later rebounded right back to her former boyfriend, Harry W-S, with whom she is likely better suited, and meant to be with anyway.

      • PrincessK says:

        Cressida and also Chelsy were not very discreet, Cressida even more so as she said certain things about Harry. I think her mother was desperate for her to marry him. Imagine having two daughters almost marrying British princes and neither gets to the finishing line.

    • Monica says:

      Chemistry.

      • aftershocks says:

        @Princess K said:
        “I think [Cressida’s] mother was desperate for her to marry [Harry]. Imagine having two daughters almost marrying British princes and neither gets to the finishing line.”

        You’re creating your own fantasy storylines. In reality, no aristo young lady worth her salt was ever interested in marrying either of the Wales brothers. Let’s be honest that everyone knows what happened to their mother, Diana. That’s a cautionary tale anyone would wish to avoid. But especially, in the 21st-century, young aristo women tend to have more independent-minded aspirations, not tied to the fairy tale notion of marrying a prince.

        FYI: Isabella Calthorpe (Cressida Bonas’ older half-sister) was never interested in William. Reportedly, Isabella only allowed William to hang around her for a short time because he’s a royal prince. But pretty early on Isabella is said to have directly informed William point blank, “I can’t date you because it would destroy my career.” Period.

        Poor infatuated William had no choice but to crawl back to his reliable stand-by Kate Middleton, who put her foot down by making William promise never to see Isabella again. LOL! As if that was ever going to happen on Isabella’s end. She quickly moved on with her career ambitions, and later fell in love with and married Brian Branson, son of Virgin Group founder, Richard Branson.

        Regarding Isabella’s and Cressida’s mother, Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon, I seriously doubt she was ‘desperate’ for either of her daughters to marry into British royalty. Why would she be?!!! Curzon led a colorful, independent life of her own as a popular debutante in the late 1960s. Surely, she raised her daughters to have independent minds and free spirits, unshackled by dreams of princes and palaces.

        The gilded cage nightmare Diana faced, and the spectacle of Diana being led down the aisle like a lamb to the slaughter, with that overdone confection of a dress wearing her, will live in infamy.

    • notasugarhere says:

      It may be, like with William and Jecca, a big part of the allure of Chelsy was the ability to disappear on her family’s land in Zimbabwe or S.A.

      • aftershocks says:

        ^^ Seriously, both William and Harry did not need Jecca or Chelsy respectively, in order to disappear into secluded areas of the African landscape, whenever the heck they wanted to. They are blood-born princes of the British realm, with global connections.

        In addition, not every wealthy rich girl, and especially not aristo British women, were necessarily interested in becoming too intimately involved with either Wales brother. This is why William had to settle for Kate. This is why charismatic, but troubled young Harry worried about finding someone who would want to put up with the hazards and the burdens of dating, much less marrying, a high profile British prince.

    • mp says:

      This is silly, I have dated someone for 7 years and marriage was never the end game, we just loved each other, and well things ended and thats fine, so yeah maybe she was with him because she loved him, they were so young!

      • Mimi says:

        Same. Time can fly by really fast. Chelsy and Harry were on/off for years and they were very young. I’m sure their feelings for each other waxed and waned.

    • Couch potato says:

      It’s common not to think of marriage in the 20s in many parts of Europe. It’s a atually common many places to not get married at all. I know a prince “has to” marry, for the children to be in the succession of the throne. British royals/aristos are more old fashioned than most, but it’s still crazy to “demand” an “early marriage” especially with the princes. Once a woman’s gotten that ring on, she’s expected to turn her life up side down. Better to wait, have fun and enjoy the freedom as long as they can, before the Firm sucks them into lifeless dolls.

  11. what's inside says:

    I wonder if Chelsy will sue?

  12. Normades says:

    One day one of William’s children will take Harry’s place as the charismatic one and William will probably do nothing to protect them.

  13. Jay says:

    It tells me a lot that while three royal households were all up in arms with the BBC for airing this without their approval, Harry seems all on his own when it comes to this lawsuit. Isn’t that strange?

    At some point, you have to wonder why Harry’s father and brother wouldn’t want to support him ( and, by extension themselves) against the media’s abuse.

  14. molly says:

    None of this is funny, but “I was into my cocaine” as an excuse made me chuckle.

    • Rita Fires says:

      Right?? If only more people would be that honest and self-aware. I don’t respect him one bit for doing unethical stuff to feed his cocaine addiction, and yes he deserves to feel bad about his past actions. But I do respect that he seems genuinely remorseful and isn’t shy about talking about what a cretin he was.

  15. Amy Bee says:

    It doesn’t seem like Harry is willing to settle so I hope he wins his case in court.

  16. Songs (Or it didnt happen) says:

    I can think of a few reasons the “press” would want the medical records of a young woman dating a prince and all of them are gross……

  17. HeatherC says:

    The medical records part is the most disgusting part. You know they were looking for evidence of an abortion.

  18. DuchessL says:

    Harry is more interesting brother, he sells magazines, the new Diana, LOL Willnot will once more be incandescent with rage. While
    I’m giggling, i also think it’s so lame to be sending put a 3 royal household joint statement for a documentary. I mean they have not done anything for Meghan and the smear campaign. Of course they could not joint statement their own smear campaign, but this joint statement just shows so well what their real interest is (their lame selves). They just keep getting stupider and stupider.

  19. DeluxeDuckling says:

    I appreciate that he was honest about his struggle with cocaine – and the ‘fake state of grandeur’. I’ve seen lots of mostly cis straight white men in the media industry fall victim to drug addictions that make them momentarily feel like a hotshot, because they try to live up to toxic masculinity and white supremacy that tells them feel like they *should* be a big deal. They’re still responsible for their own actions though, and I don’t forgive this bro for invading a woman’s privacy. This is just a general observation.

  20. Robin Samuels says:

    Chelsy and Harry were young, wild, carefree, drinking, smoking, partying like young people with little or no thought of long-term commitment. She is not British; she is a South African native. He had another girlfriend after Chelsea, Cressida B, which didn’t last as long. He was getting older, taking life and his relationships more seriously, and probably still struggling with mental health issues. His sister-in-law made sure his girlfriends were not comfortable as though they didn’t fit. He knew what he was looking for, and they were not the ones. I don’t think he thought he would ever find his soulmate. I’m glad he did. He stopped smoking, cut back on his alcohol consumption, sought help, and that beautiful girl tripped and fell into his life, and he fell into her life.
    How do we know that Chelsy was not in the group that settled out of court? Thousands accepted the money. Harry and a few others refused the payoff and asked for a trial.

    • aftershocks says:

      @Robin Samuels said:
      “He stopped smoking, cut back on his alcohol consumption, sought help…”

      Harry may have cut back on smoking around 2012 or 2014, although I don’t think he significantly cut back on alcohol consumption then. He certainly didn’t stop smoking or limit his drinking substantially until sometime after he met Meghan. He apparently made the greatest strides toward resolving these addictions once they were engaged.

      I believe a turning point for the adult Harry occurred post the repercussions from the wild “boys will be boys” Las Vegas partying incident circa 2012. Later that same year, Harry was sent back to the U.S. to visit with the Obamas at the White House, likely to aid in repairing his image in the U.S. Although, Harry has always been so popular wherever he goes, I don’t think his image was too badly damaged by the Las Vegas fiasco. It’s just that he needed to wake up and to grow up.

      Training for the military at Sandhurst, and spending time in Botswana with Prince Seeiso at ages 18 – 19, is what started Harry on his path to redeeming his wild teenage years. But he still had a long way to go, and a lot of grief still to resolve. It was Harry’s friendship with the Obamas and the Bidens in 2012, which led to him witnessing the Warrior Games, and gaining the inspiration to create the Invictus Games.

      I would attribute Harry’s creation of the Invictus Games as another significant turning point, in a sense fulfilling the leadership promise he showed at 18, when he founded Sentebale with Prince Seeiso. Spending time in Africa, in essence, saved Harry’s life and helped him come to terms with being a prince. He began to understand that his position gave him a platform to extend and to honor his mother’s legacy.

      I commend Meghan for even dating a smoker and a borderline alcoholic. But Harry had and has many other redeeming qualities. I suspect that Meghan never nagged at Harry to quit smoking and drinking. Reportedly, she showed him by example, a healthier way of living. It was during the lead-up to their marriage that reports indicated Harry had stopped smoking and significantly cut back on drinking in order to match Meghan’s fitness and healthy lifestyle. And especially to be in healthy condition to work on having a baby after they married.

      • notasugarhere says:

        Harry’s possible issues around alcohol and drugs has always been exaggerated by the palaces and press to benefit William. And to continue to cover up William’s ongoing alcohol issues. Perhaps you forget it was William who got so drunk at a wedding in the US a few years ago, he fell and broke a tooth? William had always been the ones with the more serious issues, none of which have ever been addressed.

      • aftershocks says:

        ^^ Wow @notasugarhere. What is all this over-protectiveness about for Meghan & Harry? It’s in fact the case that Harry drank and smoke a lot in his teens and twenties. He was still smoking and drinking at age 32 (perhaps not quite as much though) when he met Meghan.

        I don’t even think Harry had to drink a lot to have trouble with alcohol. That’s the way it is for some people who can’t hold their liquor well. He was also still hanging around the same friends (including Tom Inskip) with whom he’d gotten in trouble with in his 20s. But once Harry and Meghan married, Harry moved on from that former crowd of partying friends.

        Furthermore, I’m not comparing Harry with his brother. This isn’t about William, who apparently still smokes and drinks a lot in private. All I was discussing is Harry’s growth arc, and Meghan’s impact and influence on Harry’s maturation process in recent years. Harry has truly come into his own as a man, now that he has a strong, independent, supportive woman and equal partner by his side.

        Harry quit his addictions in part because after meeting Meghan, he began facing his youthful hang-ups. He realized that he could break the cycle, and that he no longer needed the crutch of smoking and drinking to help drown his grief and sorrows. He had found a soul mate with whom he’s in sync, and with whom he could envision realizing his dreams of having the family he always wanted. Meghan gave Harry something more to aspire to in life, that wasn’t bound up in being royal.

        Of course, Harry was always a leader and an achiever. But meeting Meghan helped Harry to feel better about himself. She believed in him and supported him perhaps more than anyone had since he’d lost his mother.

        There’s no need to make this about a comparison of the Wales brothers’ wild teens and twenties.

      • Tessa says:

        According to Lacey’s book, it was William who established Club H. William did drink and he did go to nightclubs and there are photos of him leaving the nightclubs, looking worse for wear. And he smoked as well Harry appears to have eased up. But there are those photos of William some years after his wedding when he went on a partying weekend and was caught by the tabs.

  21. blunt talker says:

    To put Chelsey’s medical records out there is just plain disgusting-I have read what one so-called reporter wrote what he found out by hacking phones-this is so wrong on so many levels-absolutely cruel and dihumanizing. God help Harry get the justice in his law suit-I had no idea the British tabloids would dig into personal medical records-My God.