The Sunday News
Bruce NdlovuSunday Life Correspondent
WHILE hundreds of young Zimbabwean women marvelled at the fancy hats, designer dresses and David Beckham’s immaculate dress sense and well toned body, there was one Zimbabwean girl who may have been envious of the fact that she could not have Prince Harry, the top prize on offer at the blockbuster Royal Wedding a fortnight ago.
For seven years Zimbabwean Chelsy Davy was the woman in the life of the young man who is the sixth in line to the British throne, but when he walked to the alter last week, American Meghan Markle and not Zimbabwe’s Davy was the woman he promised to stick to through life, for better or worse.
The royal wedding was a glitzy affair, with thousands of eyes glued to the ground-breaking union between a British presence and a woman of African American descent.
Besides the couple, the world also took a special interest in Davy, a young Zimbabwean woman who dated the prince on and off for seven years after meeting him in Cape Town in 2004.
With a royal union looking like a sure bet, the two officially broke things off and when Meghan walked down all eyes and camera lenses were on Davy who had also been invited to the wedding by her ex.
Later that week, it emerged, however, that despite all the smiles during a royal wedding seen as a glitzy three-way marriage between African-American culture, British royalty and Hollywood glamour British tabloids revealed last week that the crown prince and the princess that never was shared an intimate phone call that ended with Harry’s former beau in tears.
“It was their final call, a parting call in which they both acknowledged Harry was moving on. Chelsy was quite emotional about it all, she was in tears and almost didn’t go to the wedding,” a source said.
Long regarded as the British prince’s long lost lover, Chelsy was by Harry’s side as he attended Sandhurst, the British military academy, supported him when he was banned from going to fight in Iraq and there when he returned from a secret mission to Afghanistan.
Chelsy seemed to be bound to the hip with royal family, after she met the Queen at a society wedding, was a guest at Prince Charles’ 60th birthday, and was even invited to Prince William and Kate Middleton’s despite no longer being with Harry.
The daughter of a millionaire father, Chelsy had a typical Zimbabwean farm childhood, shocking the British press with her tales about her encounters with snakes, elephants and a pet hyena that her family kept.
However, despite such a rough and tumble childhood, Chelsy seemed never quite ready for the scrutiny that comes with life under Buckingham Palace’s shadow. While the Hollywood-bred Markley shined beneath the glare of flashing cameras, Chelsy wilted under the pressure of the spotlight that comes with being a royal girlfriend.
“It was so full-on: Crazy and scary and uncomfortable. I found it very difficult when it was bad. I couldn’t cope. I was young, I was trying to be a normal kid and it was horrible,” she told British publication The Times.
Like her father Chelsy is business minded and this year, Chelsy turned her back on her law degree to start her own luxury jewellery brand, Aya while she now owns also her owns her jewel mine in Zambia, and splits her time between there, her parents in Zimbabwe and her West London home.
