This Is What Dating A Royal Is Really Like, According To Prince Harry’s Ex
It’s no fairytale.
No matter what The Prince & Me might have made you believe, dating a royal is not all galas and tiaras. According to Prince Harry’s ex-girlfriend, Florence St George, dating a member of the royal family is more taxing than you might think. When the duo dated back in 2011, she felt intense “scrutiny” from the press, and the public interest in her and her relationship with Harry was so severe that it began to take its toll on her mental health.
On Nov. 21, St George opened up about their romance to The Telegraph, explaining, “[When we started dating,] my privacy ended abruptly, and the scrutiny began.” According to her, the news cycle was constant and unrelenting. (Sound familiar?) “A new story would appear almost every day in the press, my school friends were interrogated, and there were photographers outside my front door,” she claimed.
In hindsight, she’s actually relieved their romance was brief. “Although it was sad at the time, I feel lucky that the relationship was short-lived,” she added.
This isn’t the first time that St George has opened up about the impact of her relationship with Prince Harry, either. Per Cosmopolitan, in 2020, she told The Times, “What it was like to be under that focus I found it really terrifying and I made a decision quite quickly that it wasn't the right thing for me.”
Despite their romance’s brevity, according to St George, the hyper-focused attention from British tabloids still "left [her] with a total fear of the camera and anxiety." She told the Telegraph, “I’ve probably lived with anxiety since my teens, but it became really noticeable when I was in my 20s” — around the same time she was dating Harry.
Per St George, it takes a special kind of person to sign up for a life of constant scrutiny. “I take my hat off to those people who can cope with that lifestyle,” she added, “but I knew I couldn’t.”
Here’s hoping the UK tabloids keep this in mind for any future coverage of Meghan Markle — or maybe they could just leave her and Harry alone from now on 👀.
