As a young couple, they were always the focus of the British press from 2004: Chelsy Davy (37) was the woman at Prince Harry’s (38) side for almost a decade. In 2011, the relationship between the British royal and his childhood sweetheart broke up. In the witness stand of the Supreme Court in London, Prince Harry spoke openly about the reason for the relationship and gave media reports an enormous share of the blame for the failure of his first long-term love relationship. The royal is taking action against the media group Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) and is one of several plaintiffs who accuse the publisher of illegally gathering information.
In his testimony in London, Prince Harry said, according to the Daily Mail, that whenever he was in a relationship, his partner was not just in a relationship with him, “but with all the tabloids” who were trying ruining his relationship.
The media reports at the time had put a lot of strain on the relationship between him and his then-girlfriend Chelsy Davy, Prince Harry explained in court. As a young couple, they started “distrusting everyone around us”. They constantly felt like they were being watched. He believes that “it was even more difficult for Chelsy to deal with when she was living in England”. Originally from Zimbabwe, Chelsy met Harry as a teenager while attending boarding school in England.
The constant feeling of surveillance would have led to the end of the relationship, Prince Harry is sure on the witness stand: “Ultimately, these factors led to her making the decision that royal life was not for her, which made me incredibly sad at the time.” , the British royal added in court.
In his memoir “Reserve”, which was published in January 2023, Prince Harry had already indicated that the media hype was the reason Chelsy had split from him. “I completely understood her desire for freedom. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t want this life either,” the book says.
Chelsy was one of the few girls who wasn’t interested in him being a prince. “Unlike so many people I knew, she didn’t seem to care about looks, about propriety or about royalty,” Harry says of their first meeting.
“I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to meet a woman who doesn’t widen her eyes at the mention of my title, but widens her eyes to me, my mind and my heart. With Chelsy, that seemed like a real possibility. She wasn’t interested in my title but seemed bored with it.”
Today, more than ten years after splitting from Prince Harry, Chelsy Davy lives a relatively reclusive life. In 2016 she founded the London-based jewelery brand Aya, for which she works as owner and jewelery designer. Trained as a gemologist, Chelsy is an expert in gemstones and uses this knowledge to design her range of jewellery. Only ethically sourced gemstones are used for the glamorous pieces of jewellery, which models such as Bella Hadid (26) adorn themselves with.
Since 2020 she has also been offering trips and vacations in her native Africa with her travel company Aya Africa Travel. Her businesses also support charitable causes in Africa, such as building schools in communities near the gem mines. In an interview with Tatler magazine in 2020, she said: “I’m very happy where I am today. I’m happy with everything. I’m doing something in Africa that I’m passionate about and I’m excited to how my vision will develop. Everything just falls into place.”
Chelsy Davy has not only chosen her own personal path professionally, she also seems to have found great happiness in her private life. In May 2022, she reportedly married hotelier Sam Cutmore-Scott. Before that, the two are said to have had their first child together, a son named Leo, in January 2022. There are a few glimpses of her personal life on her official Instagram account, such as photos with her young son, dog and friends. According to information from “Tatler”, the couple lives in west London.
Years after breaking up with Prince Harry, Chelsy seems to have remained on friendly terms with the British royals. So she was last in 2018 both at the wedding of her royal ex-boyfriend with his current wife Duchess Meghan (41) and at the wedding of Harry’s cousin Princess Eugenie (33) with her current husband Jack Brooksbank (37).
