When Henry of England went up on Tuesday to testify as a witness in his legal battle against the Mirror Group Newspapers corporation, the editorial group that owns the Daily Mirror, medium that he accuses of having obtained information about his private life illegally for years, a name resounded in the room up to 118 times: that of Chelsy Davy. The woman, who had an intermittent relationship with the Duke of Sussex between 2004 and 2011, thus became the involuntary protagonist of the day, while the prince explained how the excessive attention of the press, which persecuted them during the seven years they were together, it caused “enormous unnecessary tension and stress” on the couple and eventually drove them apart.
During the first decade of the 2000s, when many of the events mentioned by Prince Harry during his statement took place, a young Chelsy Davy, now 37, appeared in the British media every day. The relationship was labeled by the press at the time as “turbulent.” Henry of England was portrayed, in his own words, as “the womanizer, the failure, the dropout, the oaf, the underage drinker or the irresponsible drug addict.” Davy, who at the time was working long hours at a law firm in the City, London’s financial district, continually appeared as a party girl or a crazy party girl. Today she is married to businessman Sam Cutmore-Scott, with whom she has a son, born in 2022, named Leo. She owns a jewelry firm and is still friends with her ex. In fact, she was one of the guests at his wedding with Meghan Markle, held on May 18, 2018 at Windsor Castle.
Born in Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) in 1985, Davy is the daughter of Charles Davy ―a millionaire businessman dedicated to the safari business and one of the most prominent landowners in Zimbabwe― and Beverly Donald, former model and Miss Rhodesia in 1973. She was raised in a privileged environment, in the city of Victoria Falls, within his father’s game reserve, a piece of land that was twice the size of Surrey County. As a teenager, she was sent to study in the United Kingdom, first passing through Cheltenham College, an exclusive boarding school that, with an annual cost between 31,000 and 43,000 pounds (between 36,000 and 49,000 euros, at current rates), is a of the most expensive schools in the UK. Subsequently, she went to the no less prestigious Stowe School to study high school. It was during this period that he met Prince Harry, although it was not until a short time later, when they met in Cape Town, during the sabbatical he took between graduating from university and entering the British Army in 2003, that they began their relationship.
From there, Chelsy Davy’s life would take a radical turn. He moved back to the UK and began studying law at the University of Leeds, to be closer to his partner. She and Prince Harry were together for around seven years, albeit on and off due to the extreme pressure that she, allergic to the spotlight and being the center of attention, felt during this period. During his statement at the London trial, Prince Henry recalled some of the news from that time that weakened their relationship, such as when it was published that the Duke of Sussex had visited a club striptease while they were together. “This type of article made me feel like my relationship with Chelsy was doomed. Ultimately, they led me to make the decision that a life within royalty was not for her, which was incredibly painful for me at the time,” Enrique said in court.
In an interview at the Sunday Times In 2016, Davy spoke for the first time about that period, defining it as “a harsh and horrible experience.” “He was young, trying to lead a normal life and that was horrifying,” he stated.
![Chelsy Davy (centre) upon arrival for the wedding of her ex, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle on May 19, 2018 at Windsor Castle.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/dJHg_RMBR5Yzdu2iHnV4uVY9bg0=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/F6USG7PY2RHINFAOZOJWFAULYU.jpg)
“I think Enrique and I are going to be very good friends forever,” he also said in that same interview. The couple broke up on friendly terms in 2011, but “crazed, threatening and unbearable” pressure from British tabloids then forced the lawyer to give up her life in London and return to her native Zimbabwe.
In his controversial memoirs, the Duke of Sussex wrote that he “appreciated Chelsy’s carefree and authentic spirit” because she “never cared what others thought.” Chelsy “wore short skirts and high boots, danced wildly, drank as much tequila as I did,” he wrote. He also elaborated on her breakup, claiming that she wanted to “travel, have fun and enjoy her youth” while he launched her military career. “If we had stayed together, we would have been lucky if we could have seen each other a few times in those two years; and that is not a relationship,” the duke wrote.
In 2016, Chelsy Davy appeared before the media again, this time to promote her new jewelry brand, Aya, which she launched after leaving the legal profession. In 2018, she was photographed at Harry and Meghan’s wedding, which was also attended by another of the Duke’s exes, Cressida Bonas. In 2020, she announced that she had “met someone.” It was Sam Cutmore-Scott, a British businessman who, curiously, coincided with Prince Henry at Eton College, the elitist school where emblematic figures such as Ian Fleming or George Orwell have also studied, including numerous politicians and almost twenty of British Prime Ministers. In January 2022, the couple had their first child, whom they named Leo. Later, they were married in an intimate ceremony. Davy did not post any of this on her social media. In fact, the first image in which she appears with a baby on her Instagram account, without specifying whether it is her son, dates from October 2022. The information that she is was published in the Daily Mail.
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