adminIT was one of the glamorous romantic stories of a generation – a Zimbabwean beauty dating a British royal.
Now, the Prince Harry/Chelsy Davy romance is part of a historic court case in London, which is dominating headlines around the world.
In written testimony, the Prince said their phones were repeatedly hacked while the two were dating.
Much of Harry’s case against Mirror Group Newspapers focuses on leaked details about his relationship with Chelsy Davy, a Zimbabwean entrepreneur whom he dated on-and-off from early 2004 until 2011.
In written testimony, filed to the High Court in London on Tuesday, Harry said newspaper articles routinely mentioned private conversations between them that Mirror journalists would have not have been able to obtain other than through illicit means.
The duo didn’t eventually marry but what happened to Chelsy?
The glamorous Zimbabwean was Harry’s most famous and long-term girlfriend, appearing on his arm and splashed across tabloid pages for the best part of a decade.
But, in January this year, the 36-year-old gave birth to her first child, a baby boy called Leo, with hardly anyone outside her circle even knowing she was pregnant – or, indeed, who the father was.
Though Chelsy was one of the world’s most recognisable faces during the seven-year period from 2004-2011, where she dated Harry on and off, she found the scrutiny of the British press difficult to handle.
Since the couple parted ways over a decade ago she has resolutely tried to stay under the radar, giving only a couple of interviews and shedding many of the friends she had during her days with Harry. Most of the people who used to run in the same circles as her haven’t seen her in years.
Harry and Chelsy were just teenagers when they met.
Chelsy grew up in Victoria Falls — the daughter of a wealthy businessman and an ex-model — on a game park twice the size of Surrey managed by her father.
There she roamed free, running around barefoot with herds of buffalo and battling with monkeys as they tried to steal the balls on the tennis courts.
In the 2011 documentary ‘William and Kate into the Future’, royal author Richard Kay noted that Chelsy was Harry’s “real love match” and that there was “great passion between the two of them.”
One private investigator, Gavin Burrows, revealed the lengths he went to dig up dirt on Chelsy, saying she became an “object of obsession” for investigators, claiming that phone hacking was used to obtain information about her.
“There was a lot of voicemail hacking going on, there was a lot of surveillance work on her phones, on her comms,” he said.
He said investigators were particularly interested in her medical records – “had she had an abortion, sexual diseases?” – as well as information about her ex-boyfriends and details of her education, though Burrows’ claims are yet to be tested in court and are strongly disputed.
Since Harry, Chelsy has managed to keep her subsequent romantic relationships quiet – until recently, her last known boyfriend was the television producer James Marshall, whom she split up with in 2018.
In an interview with Tatler in 2020, Chelsy revealed there was a special person in her life, but refused to share his name.
“Yes, there is someone, and I am quite taken by this one, but it’s very new and I don’t want to say too much.” – New York Times/The Independent/H-Metro Reporter
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