Britain's Prince Harry, left, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Photo / AP
Britain's Prince Harry, left, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Photo / AP
"It was so full-on: crazy and scary and uncomfortable. I found it very difficult when it was bad. I couldn't cope … it was horrible."
Reading that quote, the distress is palpable, but it didn't come out of the mouth of a survivor of a war zone or someone forced to sit through hours and hours of unedited Bachelor footage stone cold sober. Instead, this was what Chelsy Davy, Prince Harry's on-again, off-again girlfriend of seven years had to say looking back at the overwhelming level of press scrutiny and surveillance she faced during their relationship, news.com.au reports.
But are you ready for things to get kinda spooky?
Intriguingly, that interview with Davy came out in the Times magazine on June 27, 2016 which just happened to be the first day of Wimbledon that year. And it just happened to be right when Suits star Meghan Markle was in London to attend the famed tennis match (two days later the actress would be photographed courtside).
And it is widely believed that it at some point during that particular holiday in Old Blighty that she was set up on a blind date by friend Violet von Westenholz with a mystery redhead at Soho House and the rest is, literally, history.
Looking back, it's impossible not to wonder whether Meghan might have read Chelsy's interview at the time, and if those words have ever come back to haunt her in the years since then.
Fast forward to today and the woman who is now Mrs Henry Wales is intimately, horribly acquainted with the "crazy and scary and uncomfortable" reality that is being the significant other of a member of the Windsor family.
Yesterday was Meghan's 38th birthday and Harry took to the couple's Instagram account writing: "Happy Birthday to my amazing wife. Thank you for joining me on this adventure!' — Love, H."
And with those 14 words, Harry accidentally betrayed the years, if not decades, of pain he has endured, terrified that no woman would be willing to go on "this adventure" with him.
Because despite being a Prince, finding a woman willing to contend with all the "crazy and scary and uncomfortable" (or as he put it, the "adventure") that came with dating him, has been a tumultuous and painful experience for him.
There was a time where he clearly feared he would never find a woman willing to take on life as a member of the royal family, simply out of love for him.
In a 2015 interview he said: "There come times when you think now is the time to settle down, or now is not, whatever way it is, but I don't think you can force these things, it will happen when it's going to happen."
Then a year later, in 2016, the same year that Chelsy gave that interview: "At the moment, my focus is very much on work. But if someone falls into my life, then that is absolutely fantastic."
It is impossible not to hear the fatalism and the tinge of defeat in those words, his underlying fear that maybe no woman would want to take him on.
Heartbreakingly, Harry has twice had to say goodbye to women he loved who were terrified by the prospect of life as a member of the royal family.
According to royal biographer Katie Nicholl in 2014, Harry went to South Africa for a trip to focus on the issue of illegal poaching and during that trip reportedly met up again with Chelsy. (They had broken up three years earlier.)
Nicholl quotes a friend of the duo saying: "They got to spend some time together without anyone knowing. We were all hoping it would work out, and they were too. They really are kindred spirits, but it was a case of same old story. Harry was still a prince, and it wasn't the life Chels wanted."
Meghan is on this "adventure" with Prince Harry now. Photo / Getty Images
It was a situation that played out tragically a second time for Harry, when he started seeing actress Cressida Bonas 2012. According to Nicholl, Cressida was "completely spooked" by the prospect of life as an HRH after watching the Cambridges tour of Australia in 2014.
"She was sitting at home watching Kate on the royal tour of Australia, and it was a wake-up call," a friend told Nicholl. "There was no way she wanted that sort of attention and she told Harry so."
That same year, she reportedly ended things with him.
Similarly, Cressida is said to have told friends that being Harry's girlfriend meant being part of a "mad crazy world," a world she clearly didn't want any part of.
And for many years, no woman did.
Looking back it is clear that Harry truly felt that he might never find a woman willing to sacrifice their independence and voice, along with opening themselves (and their family) up to relentless criticism and judgment, just to be with him.
That is, until Wimbledon 2016 rolled around and Harry met Meghan. Whether she quite knew what she was getting herself into, here, finally was a woman willing to take on the extraordinary, nearly unthinkable pressure that came with being Harry's significant other.
Reading the tender words Harry wrote to Meghan overnight, his love is clear — but equally so is his gratitude that she was willing to abandon her life to forge a new one with him.
For better, for worse, for controversial trips to Wimbledon and for savage media coverage, she is on this "adventure" with him now.
