Before Meghan Markle, Prince Harry Reportedly Dated This Future ‘Love Island UK’ Star

All the headlines for the past several years have been about Prince Harry this, Meghan Markle that, so it’s surprising to remember that at one point, his flirty, fleeting dalliances dominated the headlines to a lesser extent prior to finding his betrothed. From Chelsey Davy to Cressida Bonas, Harry was chasing the skirts of blondes from the upper echelons of society who were well known on the party girl scene. However, Meghan wasn’t Harry’s first brunette that we know of — it was actually Camilla Thurlow. Camilla won the hearts of millions when she graced our screens as the demure ingenué of the villa in Series 3 of Love Island UK, but wait til you hear all about her romantic entanglement with the Spare of England!

Prince Harry and Camilla Thurlow Were Once a Hot Item

While it’s unknown exactly how Harry and Camilla met, they were first spotted together back in 2014, three years before Camilla’s stint on Love Island UK. He was fresh off of his split with his girlfriend of two years, Cressida Bonas. Prince Harry was taken with Camilla because of her work with philanthropy. Harry has his own passion for charity work, something he inherited from his mother, Princess Diana, with his main passion projects being the Archewell Foundation and the Invictus Games Foundation, which he founded. Camilla, on the other hand, made a career out of traveling to war-torn countries where she diffused land mines.

Harry and Camilla’s fling started during the peak of summer, and within six weeks, he took her on a yacht to meet his closest friends in Saint-Tropez. A royal insider spilled to E! News, “Camilla’s the full package—she’s got beauty and brains. But Harry loves how she’s devoted her life to charity—she’s fully committed to helping other people, and he sees a lot of his mother Diana’s goodness in her.” Hmm…sounds a lot like his now-wife Meghan.

Camilla actually touched on her fling during Love Island UK, but only after being interrogated about it by her castmates. While her discussion about it didn’t make it to the main episodes, it was featured in an Unseen Bits episode. She remained coy about the whole thing, but that’s to be expected of Camilla. While she’s incredibly shy, Camilla was vulnerable about how a serious long-term boyfriend cheated on her when she was younger, and since then, she’s had impostor syndrome and trust issues when it comes to men. She went on to say that this resulted in her trepidation with serious relationships, and often balked at the idea of taking things to the next level. Many people believed she was alluding to Harry wanting to make things more serious, only for Camilla to break things off with him.

Don’t Worry — They Both Got Their Fairytale Endings

We all know that Prince Harry eventually found his better half. There was a bunch of superfluous drama such as paparazzi chase through the streets of Manhattan and, you know, Meghan and Harry being ostracized from the royal family to the point where they felt they had no choice but to abandon the throne and place roots in Monteray, California. Harry pursued his passion of oversharing while asking for privacy with the release of his book, Spare, whilst Meghan pursued her own passion of putting flower sprinkles on everything while acting endearing-but-dorky for the cameras with her hit show With Love, Meghan. They’re identically equal parts glamour, grace, earnest, and a little bit cringe, but isn’t finding the only person that matches your dorky energy the real fairytale ending?

Camilla, on the other hand, is one of the only people to find lasting love on Love Island UK. She is now married to Jamie Jewitt, who she coupled up with after he was a bombshell towards the end of Love Island. It was as if the producers summoned him from the heavens above after Camilla was exhausted from being coupled up with guys who were underwhelming and quite daft. Jamie was a Calvin Klein underwear model at the time who was equally as introspective and well-read as Camilla — it was almost as if he was too good to be true.

Camilla and Jamie went on to have three children: daughters Nora and Nell, and most recently a baby boy named Brodie. They are situated in the suburbs, where they make social media content that touches on parenting and philanthropy. While Camilla didn’t marry into the royal family, it sounds like all parties involved got their fairytale endings.