Prince Harry and his girlfriend Cressida Bonas have split up.BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt tweeted that the break-up was “said to be ‘amicable’ and they remain ‘the best of friends'”. He said the prince was “keen, according to those who know him, to make it clear the relationship didn’t end because he found Cressida ‘too needy’.” Their attendance at their first official engagement together in March had prompted engagement speculation.The pair sat together and embraced in the stands at Wembley Arena at a We Day UK charity event. Speculation had since mounted that the fourth-in-line to the throne would pop the question with his 30th birthday looming. News of the split came as Clarence House announced Prince Harry would embark on a three-day official visit to Estonia and Italy next month.
The trip, from 16 to 19 May, will see the prince meet a range of servicemen from World War Two veterans to serving military personnel.’Unwanted attention’Prince Harry and Miss Bonas, 25, were reportedly introduced by Princess Eugenie in the summer of 2012. It was not long after their meeting that photographs of a naked Prince Harry partying with a group of girls in a Las Vegas hotel room were front-page news across the world. The couple then endured a five-month separation when the prince was deployed to fly Apache helicopters with the British army in Afghanistan. Their relationship resumed when he returned and the pair were often photographed together attending various events, like the Glastonbury music festival and a society wedding. According to the Daily Telegraph, it was unwanted media attention and engagement speculation that led to the pair’s split, while the Press
Association reported the couple decided to go their separate ways to allow Miss Bonas to focus on her career. She completed a year-long contemporary dance course at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire in Greenwich, south London, last year, before securing a marketing job in the city’s West End. Miss Bonas is the daughter of Old Harrovian businessman Jeffrey Bonas and Sixties “It girl” Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon, who once posed semi naked, streaked in engine oil, for a coffee table book called Birds of Britain in homage to her racing driver grandfather Francis, the 5th Earl Howe. News of the split coincided with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s third wedding anniversary. Prince William and Kate famously broke up for several months four years before they married in 2011. On Tuesday, Prince Harry visited Tedworth House in Tidworth, Wiltshire, where he met 25 athletes hoping to take part in the Paralympics-style Invictus Games. The sporting championship for injured members of the armed forces, which the prince launched in March, will see servicemen and women take part in sports like wheelchair basketball, indoor rowing and sitting volleyball. Harry’s visit to Tedworth House marked the beginning of a selection process for the event.The prince has further commitments over the coming months. On top of visiting Estonia and Italy, he will travel to Brazil and Chile in June on a trip expected to coincide with the World Cup. The prince’s most serious previous girlfriend was Zimbabwe-born Chelsy Davy. They had an on-off relationship while Harry was training in the Army and overseas, and while Chelsy was at university in her home country. – BBC Entertainment
