The Duke of Sussex had two major relationships before Markle. He had an on-again, off-again relationship with Chelsy Davy for seven years and dated Cressida Bonas for two years. When Prince Harry met Markle, he said she was “the one.” However, in 2020, they decided to step down from their royal duties and moved to the United States.
According to Viscountess Hinchingbrooke Julie Montagu on the U.K. Channel 5’s “Harry and Meghan: Three Troubled Years,” they left for the same reason Davy and Bonas decided to not marry the royal family.
“If you look back at Harry’s prior relationships, neither of those girls wanted to commit and now you’re wondering: Is that the exact same reason that Harry and Meghan have now left? Because of these exact reasons these two prior girlfriends did not want to marry into the Royal Family,” Montagu said as quoted by Yahoo! Life.
Both of Prince Harry’s exes left him because they couldn’t stand the intense pressure of being part of the royal family. The same can be said of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex who decided to distance themselves from the firm to have privacy and for their mental health.
“We all know what the British press can be like, and it was destroying my mental health,” Prince Harry told James Corden on “The Late Late Show.” “I was like, this is toxic. So I did what any husband and what any father would do.”
Both Davy and Bonas spoke up about the same pressure and intrusion of privacy in their previous interviews. The two admitted that dating Prince Harry and being in the spotlight wasn’t the life they wanted. They couldn’t stand the overwhelming attention from the public and the press.
“Yes, it was tough. It was so full-on: crazy 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,” Davy told The Times in 2016.
“If you go out once, they take a picture, but they don’t take a picture of you going to work every morning, it’s of you falling out of a nightclub at 4 am.”
Meanwhile, Prince William and Kate Middleton’s official trip to New Zealand and Australia reportedly “spooked” Bonas. According to royal biographer Katie Nicholl, seeing the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with Prince George during their royal tour made her realize that she didn’t like to live the same life.