The 'older woman' who took Prince Harry's virginity is being exploited
The 'older woman' who took Prince Harry's virginity is being exploited
Like Sasha Walpole, I was forced into the spotlight over a romantic relationship by the media and Hollywood
Just like Prince Harry’s first sexual partner Sasha Walpole, I never wanted to be a public figure. We were both forced into this world by the actions of our former romantic partners. We both enjoyed normalcy until powerful forces invaded our privacy and changed our lives forever.
Walpole was outed when Harry wrote in his memoir “Spare” the specific details about the “older woman” (by two years) who took his virginity. I was thrust into the spotlight when The Street Journal and a Hollywood movie used my real name in stories about my former fiancee.
Exposed by Harry
Walpole, 40, has been “panicking” for the past month since Harry, 38, published his book which gave a detailed account of having sex with her in 2001. The mother of two said she was embarrassed to have to tell her father about having the fling with the prince before he read it in the paper.
Harry was paid $20 million for a multi-book deal and the memoir has been a massive, global bestseller.
“I kept this a secret for 21 years. I did it because Harry was a friend, regardless of whether he's a prince or not,” Walpole told The Daily Mail. “I didn't invite any of this attention, but I know the hunt would have kept going until people found me.”
The reason she waited a month is that she thought she “could hide and that it would blow over.” But as names of different women became public, she “realized that to make the speculation stop, I needed to tell the truth.” She finally decided to do two interviews with British papers.
“He has brought it to my door by writing about it,” said Walpole, who works as a “digger” (excavator driver.) “I would never have spoken out if Harry hadn't. I'm not that sort of person. If I was going to talk about it, I could have done so a long time ago.”
Walpole said someone could have warned her it was coming, whether Harry or high-powered teams of lawyers and publicists. “If you're me, then you suddenly feel as if your world is getting a little bit smaller,” Walpole said.
Like a virgin
In Harry’s 408-page book, the only* time he writes about having sex was the one time with Walpole (page 70):
Inglorious episode, with an older woman. She liked horses, quite a lot, and treated me not unlike a young stallion. Quick ride, after which she'd smacked my rump and sent me off to graze. Among the many things about it that were wrong: It happened in a grassy field behind a busy pub. Obviously, someone had seen us.
Walpole explained to The Sun that they had jumped over a wall to a field for the unexpected romp. But when they came back, the pub was closing so everyone was outside.
"My friends saw me and started laughing. I didn’t have my belt and it’s obvious when you come back a bit disheveled from a field,” she recalled. Harry was hiding from his security in a phone booth.
Walpole said Harry could have respected her privacy by simply writing that he lost his virginity, without giving the specific details that identify her.
The prince also decided to add the tantalizing tidbit about “an older woman,” which created the media spectacle. Multiple, high-profile women who are significantly older have been asked by reporters if they were Harry’s “older woman”, and all denied it.
Spotlight on me
My stepfather called me one morning in 2006 to tell me I was on the front page of The Wall Street Journal with my ex-fiance. My stepdad was panicking and upset for me. He had helped me get through my heartbreak when Mike Scanlon called off our wedding four years earlier.
The headline was this:
There was a dot matrix picture of me (below) in the center and above the fold of the newspaper. This was the first line:
WASHINGTON -- The engagement of Emily Miller and Michael Scanlon was supposed to mark the coming out of a new Washington power couple.
I hadn’t told my stepdad that I might be in his morning newspaper because I thought I could kill it. Through a lawyer friend, I had tried for months to get the reporter and his editor not to run the story because it was not accurate. Also, I didn’t want to be publicly connected to serious federal crimes.
Now that the paper was published, I cried and asked my stepfather how to make it all go away. I decided, just like Walpole, that if I said nothing more, it would all blow over in time. But silence makes it worse because the false narrative takes hold.
Gone Hollywood
The Journal article was factually incorrect — from the small personal details to the larger role I had in the FBI investigation into the man I almost married. I wrote about it in more detail here.
Never mind the truth, a big Hollywood director made a movie called “Casino Jack” based on the WSJ article.
The director called me, and I begged him to change the name of my character to a fictional one. He refused. I asked him to make it accurate. He said it was too late because the film was in pre-production.
I tried to hire a lawyer on contingency to fight it. No one would take the case because they said Hollywood just uses sketchy accounting to make it look like movies don’t make money.
I’ve never watched the film, but I know from the script that Emily Miller goes to the FBI with red lace panties and turns in her fiance because he cheated on her. Emily’s personal relationship leads to the downfall of powerful members of Congress. It’s all false.
UNWANTED FAME
My public exposure was a long time ago — the wedding was 2002, the WSJ was 2006 the movie in 2010 — but for those years, my romantic life was the only thing people knew about me. My career up to then had all been behind the scenes. I had worked on the production side of network TV news and then as a press secretary on Capitol Hill and the State Department.
By 2010, I only saw two options to get a job — write under my real name or legally change my name and move where no one knew me. I took the less scary path. I gave up trying to get my old life back and started writing and reporting professionally. At least Emily Miller now had substance behind her public image.
I assume Walpole thinks that, after these two interviews, she can go back to her regular life. That will never happen.
The entire world knows she had sex with Prince Harry. She will never again meet people who haven’t googled her and have preconceived ideas of her character. Strangers will recognize Walpole, ask her personal questions and take her picture.
Walpole will learn, as I have, that once you are forced into the bizarre life in which strangers recognize you and know your name, you’re trapped forever.
It’s both the power imbalance — how this fame was against our will— and the permanency of public life that make all of this unfair. Harry owes Walpole an apology. I’m still waiting for mine from The Wall Street Journal.
*I’m still trying to get through “Spare”, and it doesn’t have a table of contents or index. So if I missed a scene, let me know in the comments.
Emily, I wrote and re-wrote this post multiple times. I kept creating a book, so I took me a few times to say this concisely. I recall when you first discussed betrayal, heartbreak and the resilience required to overcome. I remember reading how you had push back against the way people like Eric Wemple wanted to cast you in such a way as to be a prop for his articles. I would imagine that is exactly what Sasha Wampole is struggling with. It’s my opinion that Harry doesn’t regard the impact he is having on people who’ve been a prop in his ongoing drama.
I had no idea you were caught up in that horrible drama. Wow. I just knew you from Emily Gets Her Gun and afterwards. Reading the Wikipedia article on you--if you ever want the Establishment opinion, that’s where to start--it seems like you have a defamation case against the filmmakers, as you were not a “public figure” at the time. I’ve never seen the movie in question, but even if I had, I would not have associated a character who’s a materialistic bitch criminal with you anyway, even if they gave the character a seemingly coincidentally similar name. Looks like you escaped a trap worthy of Batman -- the 1960s Batman, not the recent ones.