A new royal book about Prince Edward and his five-year on-and-off relationship with West End star Ruthie Henshall is tipped to bring more angst among Palace staff and the wider Royal Family, according to reports. Henshall’s new book, The Showgirl and the Prince, will be published in July and promises to reveal “the bittersweet joy of first love” between the late Queen’s youngest son and the famous actress.
Edward dated Hendall on and off between 1988 and 1993, just before he met then-Sophie Rhys-Jones, the now Duchess of Edinburgh. According to Hensall, the prince’s recently discovered love letters were what inspired her to write her memoir. She claims the book will document their romance from its secretive beginnings to visits to Buckingham Palace and to Windsor for tea with Queen Elizabeth II.
According to The Telegraph, the release of the book is “likely to create angst amid courtiers and the wider Royal Family as it reels from the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor”.
It is not known if the royals were given a preview of the book.
The five-time Olivier Award nominee told the newspaper that she had been inspired to write it after finding boxes of memorabilia as she cleared out her garage five years ago
She said: “I found old diaries which I began writing in the 1980s and then found all my letters from Prince Edward, and I was struck by how precious this time in my life was.
“I was on the West End stage – my dream since I was a girl – and shared a love with a man very few people even know. If this was someone else’s story, I would think they had made it up. So here it is – a look behind the curtain of a crazy life in musical theatre and what happens next when a showgirl falls in love with a prince.”
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Henshall said that she fell for Edward because he was “kind and thoughtful,” while she was “not like anyone he’s dated before”.
The actress is thought to have remained on “good terms” with Prince Edward and his wife.
She said that she “genuinely fell in love with him [Prince Edward] and added about the royals: “I have nothing but nice things to say about them all. The Queen, in particular, was lovely. Here I was, this chorus girl dating her son – it must have been her worst nightmare!”
Buckingham Palace has been contacted for comment.
