Prince Harry opens up about "tainted" relationship with Caroline Flack

"The definition of carefree.”

Prince Harry has opened up about his short lived relationship with Caroline Flack, describing it as "tainted" due to the involvement of the British press. Harry has reportedly referenced their relationship in his new memoir Spare and spoke about the late TV presenter in an interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby over the weekend. Harry revealed that he met the once Love Island presenter through mutual friends in a restaurant in 2009. According to US Weekly, recalling the encounter, he wrote: “She wasn’t taken aback that I didn’t recognise her. She didn’t have a big ego.” Harry then went on to speak about the end of their relationship, continuing: "Very soon after they papped me and Flack, those photos set off a frenzy. “Within hours a mob was camped outside Flack’s parents’ house, and all her friends’ houses, and her grandparents’ house.”

And looking back at the media coverage of their relationship at the time, Harry added: “She was described in one paper as my ‘bit of rough’, because she once worked in a factory or something. “Jesus, I thought, are we really such a country of insufferable snobs? We kept on, I think, because we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company, and because we didn’t want to admit defeat.” He added: “But the relationship was tainted, irredeemably, and in time we realised it just wasn’t worth the grief and harassment. Especially for her family. Goodbye, we said. Goodbye and good luck.” He also mentioned Caroline during the interview with Bradby, which aired on ITV on Sunday night.

Speaking about his challenges with the press and his relationship, Harry said: “I made peace with it, I was willing to let a lot of it go back in 2020 when we left the country. “And if living in a new country, minding our own business during lockdown, not saying anything, not doing anything that would affect the British media at all, that every single day there’s an attack, well then, the assumption of it going away or moving on isn’t the case. “So I feel as though there is a responsibility to see this through because I think the benefits to a lot of people will be felt. You know I talk about Caroline Flack in the book as well.” Finishing off the discussion about Caroline, Harry got candid about her death and his reaction to the news that she had passed away at only 40 back in 2020. Harry wrote: “I felt so awful for her family. I remembered how they’d all suffered for her mortal sin of going out with me. “She’d been so light and funny that night we met. The definition of carefree.”