Cressida Bonas is an independent woman. In a new interview, the actress opened up about the downside of being known as Prince Harry‘s ex-girlfriend.
“I think it’s that thing of being pigeonholed. Especially in this country, I feel people are very quick to put you in a box or put you in a corner and think, ‘Oh, well, you’re that so you must be that,'” Bonas, 28, explained on the BBC’s Woman’s Hour radio show on Tuesday, August 8.
The model dated Harry, 32, from 2012 to 2014 after being introduced by her friend and his cousin Princess Eugenie. Bonas explained to the BBC that being defined as a royal ex-girlfriend has made further pursuing her acting career a bit difficult. “It’s incredibly frustrating, especially in the industry that I’m in,” she said. “But you know, it is the way it is.”
Bonas and Harry sparked wedding rumors during their relationship, but her brother Jacobi Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe quickly shut those down. “It’s challenging, you can’t deny it,” he told the Evening Standard in 2013. “It’s not something that is easy for anyone dating a royal or marrying into the family or anyone in the royal family themselves. I think on some level it is different to any other type of fame.”
A Bonas family source confirmed the breakup to Us Weekly in April 2014, saying, “It’s very sad that they have decided to split. It’s very amicable, but they have decided to go their separate ways.”
These days, Harry is dating Suits actress Meghan Markle. The couple recently traveled to Africa to celebrate her 36th birthday and have been together for more than a year. Meanwhile, Bonas is playing Sonia Orwell, the second wife of George Orwell, in the new London stage play Mrs. Orwell.
