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The Duchess of Sussex will be displeased by Prince Harry’s ‘older woman’ speaking out about their tryst, a royal commentator has claimed.
Sasha Walpole, 40, a digger driver and mother-of-two, revealed to the world that she was the first lover of the Duke of Sussex.
The then 16-year-old Prince and the 19-year-old stable girl had a one night affair in a field that is described in detail in Harry’s recent memoir, Spare.
Ms Walpole and the prince had been firm friends for two years before the encounter in July 2001 after they went out for a cigarette together during a pub trip.
One royal commentator said he thought Meghan Markle would be ‘annoyed’ by the revelation.
Prince Harry’s wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, will be annoyed by Ms Walpole coming forward publicly as the woman described in Prince Harry’s memoir, on royal commentator said
Sasha Walpole, 40, who now works as a digger driver, was just 19 when she and Prince Harry
Best-selling biographer Robert Jobson tweeted: ‘Loving the interviews with Harry’s ‘older woman’.
‘She seems down to Earth telling her ‘truth’ for cash. Not sure Meg will like Sasha Walpole telling Piers Morgan that the Harry she knew seems under a spell. But “H” started it by writing about her.’
Social media users agreed, with some suggesting that it was only fair, given that Harry had written about the evening first.
Others commented that the two year age-gap between the young lovers meant Ms Walpole was not much of an ‘older woman’.
The Duke of Sussex, 38, explained in his memoir how his first lover treated him like a ‘young stallion’ and detailed how the steamy exchange took place in a field behind a ‘very busy pub’.
Over lunch in a cafeteria shortly afterwards, one of Harry’s bodyguards – who had a ‘sombre look’ 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 with an older woman who liked macho horses and who treated me like a young stallion.
‘I mounted her quickly, after which she spanked my ass 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 fact the tryst was detailed in Prince Harry’s memoir
Sasha Walpole, 38, (circled) has come forward to admit that she was the ‘older woman’ who claimed the virginity of the Prince
The teenagers were frequent patrons of the local pub and bonded over 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 her days as a groom at the future King Charles’ Gloucestershire estate, Highgrove.
Before the teenagers had their frisky encounter in the field outside one of their favourite pubs, the two were fast friends.
They were part of a large group of friends who regularly socialised and were often invited to ‘Club H’, the princes’s man cave at Highgrove.
Ms Walpole fondly recalls boozy nights including games such as Spin the Bottle.
The first time the Prince rang her on the white push-button landline phone 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 friends with the princes
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‘Mum said, “Harry’s on the phone.” Afterwards she asked, “Was that HARRY?”. I said, “Yes!” and I remember her saying, “Oh, how funny”.’
Her close friendship with Harry was born of a common understanding: ‘Everyone was equal in the world of horses.
‘Our group was a very mixed bunch of polo players, grooms, hunt staff and racing people, a cosmopolitan crowd.
‘It didn’t matter if you were a groom, a Royal or a rider. There was no judgement.
‘Harry didn’t act like a Prince, there wasn’t any snobbery. Honestly, we were just two mates who talked horses.’
But their friendship came to an abrupt end when a quick cigarette break turned into a romp in a field – and they never spoke again.
Sasha Walpole is now happily married to husband Ian, a drift racer, and has two young daughters
‘He started to kiss me,’ she remembers. ‘It was passionate, intense. We both knew. It went from a kiss on to the floor pretty quickly.
‘It was instant, fiery, wham bam, between two friends. It was sparky because we shouldn’t have been doing it.
‘He wasn’t ‘Prince Harry’ to me, this was Harry, my friend, and the situation had got a little bit out of control. It felt naughty, I suppose, in the sense that it shouldn’t be happening.
‘We didn’t set out to do it – it wasn’t premeditated and I didn’t know he was a virgin.
‘There were no virgin vibes – he seemed to know what he was doing. It was quick, wild, exciting. We were both drunk. It wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t.’
Who is Sasha Walpole? Read MailOnline’s complete guide
Sasha Walpole, 40, is a digger driver and horse-lover from Wiltshire – a world away from Prince Harry’s glitzy life in California
Ms Walpole was hired as an assistant groom at Highgrove in 1999, at the age of 17
Who is Sasha Walpole?
Sasha Walpole, 40, is a digger driver and horse-lover from Wiltshire, who lives with her husband and two children in the Wylye Valley.
Born into a working-class family, she left school at 15 to pursue work in the equestrian industry.
Ms Walpole’s parents scrimped to buy her a naughty dapple grey called Beano and made her a horse box from an old British Telecom Luton van.
At 17, she was hired as an assistant groom 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 occurred the day before her 19th birthday, when the royal was 16.
She worked for the royal family from September 1999 until April 2001, when she left the stables to take a stop-gap job in local factory Stretchline, making elastic for bras and underwear.
She was preparing to leave home, having applied for a groom’s job in the Sultan of Brunei’s stables in the Home Counties – but an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease put an end to that dream.
