Prince Harry's first sex partner reveals her identity 'to take control of the situation'
Sasha Walpole, the woman to whom Prince Harry lost his virginity, has finally revealed her identity.
Harry previously detailed in his best-selling memoir Spare how he lost his virginity in a field behind a pub to an older woman who "liked horses, quite a lot, and treated [him] not unlike a young stallion."
The said woman since came forward with her story to United Kingdom newspapers in order to regain agency in Harry's narrative.
“At least now I can tell my story, in my words, with the correct context and detail, and without panicking. I can stop looking over my shoulder. I wanted to take control of the situation before it took control of me…I would never have spoken out if Harry hadn’t. I’m not that sort of person. If I was going to talk about it, I could have done so a long time ago. He has brought it to my door by writing about it,” Walpole said.
She admitted waiting for the situation to end but eventually pulled back the curtain after speculation into the identity of Harry's first sex partner peaked.
"At first I thought I could hide and that it would blow over. But as the names of different women, some of whom I know, became public I realized that to make the speculation stop. I needed to tell the truth," Walpole said.
Women previously implicated in Harry's early sex life included Elizabeth Hurley and Catherine Ommanney.
Rather than “wak[ing] up one morning and find[ing] a barrage of cameras outside my house," Walpole decided to beat them to the finish.
"I kept this a secret for 21 years," she said, adding that she did so because the Duke of Sussex "was a friend, regardless of whether he’s a prince or not."
Walpole added that she didn't want any attention but said people would continue looking for the person Harry was referring to if she didn't reveal herself.
Walpole, however, couldn't understand why Harry had to talk about his sexual experience in detail.
"I don’t understand why he went into such detail. He could have said he lost his virginity and left it at that. But he described how it happened, in a field behind a pub. That’s fine if you’re not the other person involved. But if you’re me, then you suddenly feel as if your world is getting a little bit smaller," Walpole clarified.
Spare is the fastest-selling non-fiction book title in the United Kingdom. It sold an initial 400,000 copies, according to its publisher, Penguin Random House.