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Ruthie Henshall talks her emotional memoir which details passionate Prince Edward romance and how he "definitely had experience”
The Showgirl and the Prince is an explosive kiss-and-tell memoir.
Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for The National Lottery
- Bill Borrows
Published: Monday, 20 July 2026 at 5:00 pm
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This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
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If you believe the gossip sheets then, as the title suggests, The Showgirl and the Prince is an explosive kiss-and-tell memoir that reveals intimate details about a hitherto secret relationship involving royalty.
It contains passages such as: “The red flags were abundantly clear from the beginning, but the physical attraction was so great, an electricity between us, that I ignored them all”, and “A girlfriend told me he’d come on to her, and when I confronted him, he said, ‘No, no she came onto me’… A few months later she admitted that they’d slept together.”
But those quotes are not about Prince Edward (they refer to another of Henshall’s famous lovers), and this memoir certainly isn’t all about the man who was fifth in line to the throne when he first met the author in 1988 and who features on the cover of the book.
No, this story is about a different kind of royalty: 59-year-old Ruthie Henshall – true Olivier Award-winning queen of Britain’s musical theatre scene – and her journey from a dysfunctional family in Bromley in south London to leading lady on the West End stage and, among many other claims to fame, the only British actress to have played all three leading female roles in Chicago.
The third son of the late Queen makes several cameos in the book (it’s “one-third about Edward and our relationship,” estimates Henshall) in the course of their discreet six years together. But the most revealing, inspirational and fascinating parts of The Showgirl and the Prince revolve around the author’s determination to see her name in lights despite the obstacles liberally scattered before her.
Ruthie Henshall. Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Bauer
These began at home. Her mother Gloria was an extrovert who would “suck up all the energy in any room” and prone to drink and violence. On one occasion, this involved the stabbing of Henshall’s beloved father: “As I arrived he was being put in the ambulance, holding a tea towel to the wound on his chest, blood dripping down his fingers.” He would subsequently refuse to press charges and their volatile relationship continued.
The author was, she reveals, sexually abused aged six and again aged eight or nine by an uncle. When his wife discovered what had happened, “She waved a finger in my face and warned me not to say anything to my parents who, she claimed, would be upset and furious with me.” Unsurprisingly, these formative experiences would go on to impact Henshall’s relationships with men in adult life, and the comments that open this article refer to a lover she chooses not to name and shame, referring to him only as “The Peacock”.
Not naturally academic, at school she found an escape in the form of performing and dance under the tutelage of the appropriately named Mrs Tapp. From there her ambition and drive took her to theatre school, then the heady West End scene of the '80s and '90s when new musicals like Miss Saigon, Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera and Cats all opened. It was backstage at Cats when Edward Windsor, having just controversially left the Royal Marines to work for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Theatre Company, walked into her life.
“I headed straight over to say hello,” she recalls in the book. “I gave him my best smile and said, ‘Welcome to the litter.’ ‘I’m the runt,’ he said, making me laugh. And I thought, you are not what I expected.” Flirting ensued. And then a date and a first kiss. The rumours about his sexuality that had arisen around the time of his career pivot were scotched for Henshall in January 1989. She writes, “He undressed me and took me to his bed and we made love for the first time. He was romantic and gentle and definitely NOT GAY!” And he definitely had experience.”
Prince Edward. Shaun Botterill/Getty Images
Prince Charles had married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, but by the time Ruthie Henshall and Edward were together the relationship was in trouble. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had married Sarah Ferguson in 1986 and though publicly still close in 1989 the fault lines were beginning to show. The problems associated with being the significant other to someone in line to the throne soon became apparent, and it’s easy to see why the then Duchess of York warned Henshall, “Get out while you can.”
But, she explains, she was very fond of Edward. Her denial of any kind of serious relationship – while at the same time having tea with the Queen and charming Prince Philip at Balmoral and continuing to excel in her chosen career – served her well. The press were kept successfully at bay, although her journalist father David often commented ruefully that the biggest scoop of his career had to remain a secret.
Ultimately, she and Edward went their separate ways in the mid-'90s but he remains a close friend and gave his approval to be included in the memoir. “He was very generous and said, ‘You have a right to tell your story. You’re a person of profile’ but part of me wants to say, ‘Look, they are a family too.’ I come from a dysfunctional family, and I’m sure they are a dysfunctional family. My respect for them is huge because of the way they treated me, and also because they were a family behind closed doors.”
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Bill Borrows
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