When she looks back on her life, there is one period in time about which Ruthie Henshall is particularly nostalgic. It was the late Eighties, a time that she describes as “the golden age of theatre”. In 1987, she was 20 years old, on the cusp of fame and starring in her first West End show, Cats. The following year, she crossed paths with a young Prince Edward, then 23, and they embarked on a five-year on-off love affair that took Ruthie into the centre of the royal’s inner circle.
It is this period of her life that Ruthie, 59, has made the focus of her new memoir, which she has titled The Showgirl and the Prince. And although she knows that some of the details she has divulged about the Duke of Edinburgh, as he is now, will make sensational headlines, the heart of the book is pure and simple. “This is a love story set against the backdrop of the Eighties and Nineties of musical theatre,” she tells hello! in this exclusive photoshoot and interview. “We had all the mega-musicals coming in and it was buoyant and brilliant. The experiences and the romance made it a very heady time.”
A blossoming romance
Indeed it was. Ruthie and Edward, now 62, met in 1988, when he was working as a production assistant for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Theatre Company. Romance blossomed, and it continued as the talented ingenue from Bromley landed major role after major role in shows such as Les Misérables, Miss Saigon and Crazy for You. But their diverging careers, coupled with the effort of trying to keep the romance a secret, put a strain on their relationship. Following a few short break-ups, they split for good after five years, having eventually realised that Ruthie would never be able to put her career on the back burner. “I don't think I would have been a very good royal and I could never have sat there watching other people do what I love,” she tells us.
The idea to write The Showgirl and the Prince came to Ruthie when she was clearing out boxes in her garage and found her diaries and some romantic letters from Edward. After deciding to put pen to paper, she gave her former boyfriend a heads-up. “He thanked me,” she tells us. “I didn't want to blindside him and I wanted to assure him that it wasn't a kiss and tell. My experience with him and his family was really rather lovely.” At the time of our interview, Edward had not read the book. “I hope he won’t blush too much,” Ruthie says with her trademark candour, adding that she felt that their story would have sounded inauthentic had she not included some intimate details.
A very passionate affair
“It was a case of… a love story is a love story. I don't think it would be the whole story if I didn’t include that aspect of it, and we had a very passionate affair. We were intimate and that is part of a loving relationship. I wasn't going to describe his body and I hope people understand that he's a hot-blooded male. The details include a description of an evening that the couple spent together ahead of Trooping the Colour. “I used to keep him up all night,” she says. Was she tempted to leave out any of the particulars of their romance? “I’m not that kind of girl,” she laughs.
Her daughters with her former husband, Tim Howar – Lily, 23, an artist, and Dolly, 21, an aspiring actress – knew that she had had a relationship with the Prince. But, she says: “I never went into detail. I told them a few stories, but they'll get more details [from the memoir] than they probably want about their mother.” The book is also peppered with recollections of visits to royal residences, including Buckingham Palace, Sandringham, Windsor Castle and Balmoral. There are anecdotes about meeting the late Queen Elizabeth II – whom Ruthie describes as warm and remarkably informal when she was with her family – as well as the late Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen Mother, Prince Charles, Princess Diana and the former Duchess of York.
Fond memories
Ruthie spent time with them all and has particularly fond memories of Princess Margaret, calling her “a doll” and saying that they bonded over their shared love of the theatre. What is her lasting memory of the late monarch? “Her candle will burn brightly for ever because she was a brilliant queen,” she says. “I found it incredible how she always put duty first, and she seemed to have this wonderful way of balancing duty with loving her family. She was always friendly and welcoming because I think she could tell I was a friend of Edward's.” Ruthie had a “good laugh” with the royals, and recalls drinking her first martini at Balmoral, which, she says, “knocked me off my feet”. She also describes singing the Les Misérables song I Dreamed a Dream at the royal dinner table in front of the late Queen and Princess Margaret after being urged to do so by Diana.
She only met Diana a few times but was touched when the Princess wrote her a note of thanks after watching her on stage in Crazy for You. “There was that cheeky side of her and she was very complimentary,” she recalls. “If we'd spent more time together, I think we would have got on like a house on fire.” In her memoir, Ruthie notes that the book covers a period before Sarah Ferguson met the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, meaning that she was writing about the Sarah she knew back then.
“She was always inviting me to places,” Ruthie recalls. “If we were all together with the family, she would always bring me into conversations. She was very welcoming, so I find what has come out since disappointing and horrendous. We are not still in touch and I wouldn't be now. As a person who's been sexually abused, [if there’s] even a whiff of it, I won't go there.”
"That's my story"
Ruthie writes about the devastating sexual assault she experienced at the age of six, as well as her parents’ toxic marriage. She also covers her disordered attitude to eating and her experience of the condition trichotillomania, which resulted in her pulling out her eyelashes and eyebrows. Perhaps inevitably, she says that she cried a lot while working on the book. “One particular night, I phoned a friend to come around because I could not stop crying. I've got that side to me that can be a bit of an ice maiden, although the hurt is always there. But I wanted to write about it all because that’s my story. And I think it shows why I am the person I am.”
Ruthie and Edward kept their romance secret for the first few years to avoid it getting into the press, and this turned her into someone she didn’t recognise. “You want somebody to declare their love,” she says. “I was so desperate for him to say: ‘This is the woman I love.’ I think I got more insecure and clingy and needy of his time – and there's nothing more unattractive than neediness.” What would she tell her younger self now? “I would say: ‘Remember, he's lucky, too,’ because I couldn't see that. I would have perhaps told myself to have been a little bit more elusive at times, not quite as available.”
Great joy
Eventually, their romance fizzled out, with Ruthie knowing that she wasn’t prepared to sacrifice her career. She later got engaged to the actor John Gordon Sinclair, although they never married, and her marriage to Tim, also an actor, lasted six years. Edward, of course, has two children with his wife, the Duchess of Edinburgh. He and Ruthie are still in touch, speaking on the phone two or three times a year, and she says that he always remembers to call her on her birthday. Both our lives moved on, but we have a great friendship,” she says. “I have so much love for him and he has ended up with the right person, as has John Gordon Sinclair. I’m a complicated lady to have a relationship with, and so it gives me great joy to see two people I love so dearly still be happy with the perfect person for them.”
Ruthie and Tim divorced in 2010 and she is single for now – and refuses to use dating apps. She is currently starring as Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret, in London’s West End, and hosts a weekend radio show on Magic Musicals. She says she would love to move on to parts in shows such as Hello, Dolly! and Gypsy. Clearly, her steely drive remains. “I still feel ambitious – there are things I'd like to do. But I am very aware that we don’t make stars in musical theatre any more. I think I was probably one of the last ones. “That whole time was a whirlwind,” she adds. “What was amazing about reading my diaries was that I got everything I had hoped for.”
The Showgirl and the Prince is out on 16 July, published by Macmillan, priced £22
