The Duchess of Sussex will be left unhappy when Prince Harry’s ‘elderly wife’ talks about their tryst, a royal commentator claims.
Sasha Walpole, 40, a backhoe operator and mother of two, revealed to the world that she was the Duke of Sussex’s first mistress.
The then 16-year-old prince and the 19-year-old stable maid had a one-night affair in a field detailed in Harry’s recent memoir, Spare.
Ms Walpole and the prince were firm friends for two years before meeting in July 2001, after going out for a cigarette together during a pub crawl.
A royal commenter said he thought Meghan Markle would be “annoyed” by the reveal.
Prince Harry’s wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, will be furious at Ms Walpole coming forward publicly, the woman described in Prince Harry’s memoir told a royal commentator
Sasha Walpole, 40, who now works as a backhoe operator, was just 19 when she and Prince Harry were together
Bestselling biographer Robert Jobson tweeted: “Love the interviews with Harry’s ‘older wife’.
“She seems to be down to earth and telling her ‘truth’ for money. I’m not sure Meg will like it when Sasha Walpole tells Piers Morgan that the Harry she knew seems to be under a spell. But ‘H’ started out by writing about her.’
Social media users agreed, with some suggesting it was only fair as Harry wrote about the evening first.
Others commented that the two-year age difference between the young lovers meant Ms Walpole was not a very “older woman”.
The Duke of Sussex, 38, explained in his memoir how his first lover treated him like a “cold stallion” and detailed how the steamy exchange took place in a field behind a “very busy pub”.
At lunch in a cafeteria shortly after, one of Harry’s bodyguards – who had a “somber expression” on his face – told the prince that he had been sent to “find out the truth”.
The father-of-two wrote: “I suspected he was referring to my recent loss of virginity, a humiliating episode involving an older woman who liked macho horses and treated me like a young stud.
“I quickly mounted her, then she spanked me and sent me away. One of my many mistakes was letting it happen in a field just behind a very busy pub. No doubt someone had seen us.”
The royal commentator speculated that the Duchess of Sussex would be irritated by the revelation, despite the tryst being detailed in Prince Harry’s memoir
Sasha Walpole, 38, (circled) has come forward to admit she was the “elderly woman” who claimed the prince’s virginity
The teenagers were frequent patrons at the local pub and shared a mutual love of horses, but were just friends until the evening in July 2001 when Sasha took the prince’s virginity
Sasha Walpole had known the prince since she was groom at King Charles’ future estate in Gloucestershire, Highgrove.
Before the teenagers had their hilarious encounter on the field outside one of their favorite dive bars, the two were fast friends.
They were part of a large group of friends who met regularly and were often invited to ‘Club H’, the princes’ man cave in Highgrove.
Ms. Walpole fondly remembers boisterous nights playing games like Spin the Bottle.
When the Prince first called her on the white push-button landline telephone wired into the wall at home, it was Mother Lyn who answered.
A younger Sasha Walpole dressed up for a polo ball around the time she was befriending the princes
Prince Harry married Meghan Markle and moved to California, a world away from Wiltshire where he spent his teenage years
‘Mum said, “Harry’s on the phone.” After that she asked: “Was that HARRY?”. I said yes!” and I remember her saying, “Oh, how funny.”
Her close friendship with Harry grew out of a shared understanding: “In the horse world, everyone was equal.
“Our group was a very mixed group of polo players, grooms, hunters and racers, a cosmopolitan crowd.
“It didn’t matter if you were a groom, a royal, or a horseman. There was no judgement.
“Harry didn’t act like a prince, there was no snobbery. To be honest we were just two buddies talking about horses.’
But their friendship ended abruptly when a brief cigarette break turned into a romp in a field — and they never spoke to each other again.
Sasha Walpole is now happily married to husband Ian, a drift racer, and has two young daughters
“He started kissing me,” she recalls. “It was passionate, intense. We both knew. It went from a kiss to the floor pretty quickly.
“It was instant, fiery, wham bam, between two friends. It was sparkling because we shouldn’t have.
“He wasn’t ‘Prince Harry’ to me, that was Harry, my friend, and the situation got a little out of hand. I suppose it felt naughty in the sense that it wasn’t supposed to happen.
“We didn’t intend to do that – it wasn’t intentional and I didn’t know he was a virgin.
“There were no virgin vibes – he seemed to know what he was doing. It was fast, wild, exciting. We were both drunk. It wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t.”
Who is Sasha Walpole? Read Web’s full guide
Sasha Walpole, 40, is a backhoe operator and horse lover from Wiltshire – a world away from Prince Harry’s glitzy life in California
Ms Walpole was hired as a Nurse Assistant at Highgrove in 1999 at the age of 17
Who is Sasha Walpole?
Sasha Walpole, 40, is a backhoe operator and horse lover from Wiltshire who lives in the Wylye Valley with her husband and two children.
Born into a working-class family, she left school at 15 to work in the horse industry.
Mrs Walpole’s parents skimped to buy her a cheeky dapple gray named Beano and built her a horsebox out of an old British Telecom Luton van.
At 17 she was hired as a carer’s assistant at Highgrove, a 15-minute drive from her home in the village of Acton Turville, Gloucestershire.
Her late-night escapade with Prince Harry in July 2001 took place the day before her 19th birthday, when the king was 16.
She worked for the royal family from September 1999 to April 2001, when she left the stables to take a stint at the local Stretchline factory, making elastic for bras and underwear.
She was preparing to leave home after applying for a job as a groom at the Sultan of Brunei’s stables in the Home Counties – but an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease put an end to that dream.