Spare: Why Princess Eugenie grilled Harry after ‘painfully awkward’ first date

Prince Harry says Princess Eugenie sighed in despair after he ended his first date with Cressida Bonas by awkwardly leaning in for a kiss.

The Duke of Sussex, 38, was set up by his royal cousin on the night out with actress Cressida, 33, who he went on to date between 2012 and 2014.

According to the Sunday Mirror Harry said in his memoir Spare the date was “painfully awkward” as he had leaned in to kiss Cressida, but his “aim was off” and it ended up as a “graze”.

He said in the ghostwritten autobiography he called Eugenie the following day to talk about his embarrassment, but found Cressida had beaten him to it.

Harry added: “Disencouraged, I told her the date had gone well but the ending had left something to be desired. She didn’t disagree. She’d already spoken to Cressida. She sighed. Awkward.”

Harry also used the book to tell how he split from with Cressida – the daughter of 1960s ‘it girl’ Lady Mary Gaye Curzon, whose father was the 6th Earl Howe, and Jeffrey Bonas, her mum’s third husband who owns a fabric company called MacCulloch and Wallis – at a friend’s house as she did not want to deal with the strains linked to life in the royal family.

Cressida Bonas and Prince Harry attend We Day UK, a charity event to bring young people together at Wembley Arena on March 7, 2014 in London, England. Photo / WireImage

Mail Online said on Sunday it had been reported Prince William’s wife Catherine, then Duchess of Cambridge, was said to be helping Cressida handle the spotlight of life in the royals. But the actress shrugged off such rumours as “noise”, adding in an interview: “All that stuff is not real. It’s really important to remember that all it is noise, noise that can be very loud at times.”

Cressida is still friendly with Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie and attended Harry’s 2018 wedding to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, before she married Harry Wentworth-Stanley, 33, in 2020. The couple welcomed a baby together in November 2022 after IVF treatment.