The announcement came on Wednesday that Prince Harry had decided to part ways after a solid two-year relationship with the stunning and seemingly down-to-earth Cressida Bonas.
And Harry has wasted no time getting back to his single life.
A blue-blooded, blond, leggy former model, Bonas had all the makings of a princess. But it was not to be. So what exactly do we know about the girl who could have been a royal?
Born in February 1989, Cressy, as she is known to friends, is the daughter of Jeffrey Bonas and Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon. She has one sister and three half-siblings from her mother’s first marriage.
Bonas studied dance at the University of Leeds but is also known to have tried her hand at stage acting. She has been pictured frequenting music festivals and is said to love partying on the dance floor. By all accounts, Bonas is laid-back and relaxed, choosing to focus more on her life and career than worry about the possibility of her life as a future royal.
It’s believed that Princess Eugenie, who is a mutual and close friend to both, was the one to introduce Bonas and Harry in June 2012.
The prince and Bonas were first photographed together after the premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises” in 2012 before hitting clubs and theaters together later that year.
As a couple, the pair were low-key and rarely gave the press a chance to catch them together.
They had a bumpy and sometimes turbulent relationship: Harry was pictured partying in Miami in 2012, which is said to have temporarily put the brakes on their romance. But the pair managed to patch things up and got more serious than ever.
But it wasn’t always smooth sailing, with Bonas said to have been unhappy at the amount of attention given to her by the press and overwhelmed at the possibility of becoming a royal.
When it was announced, the split surprised even the most avid royal-watchers: “Nobody had any idea that this was coming,” Ingrid Seward, editor in chief of Majesty magazine, told PEOPLE magazine. “She was moving into her new flat and getting on with her life. I thought they were very happy together.”
While rumors abound that the pair haven’t ruled out a reconciliation, we’re left to wonder whom the prince’s fancy will settle on next, and how we came to lose Bonas as our newest — and potentially coolest — royal-in-waiting.