Don't just call me Harry's ex, says Cressida: Actress says she finds it 'incredibly frustrating' while she is trying to forge her career

  • Cressida Bonas said people have been 'very quick' to pigeonhole her in her carer
  • She is currently starring in a London play as the second wife of George Orwell  
  • Bonas is said to have split with Harry as she could not have endured the scrutiny 

By Susie Coen, Showbusiness Reporter For The Daily Mail

Published: 18:57 EDT, 8 August 2017 | Updated: 19:29 EDT, 8 August 2017

Cressida Bonas has said she has found it ‘incredibly frustrating’ to be ‘pigeonholed’ as Prince Harry’s ex-girlfriend while trying to forge a career as an actress.

The 28-year-old, who dated Prince Harry for two years, said she had found people ‘very quick’ to put her in a box when it came to her career.

Miss Bonas is currently playing Sonia Brownell, a literary editor remembered as the second wife of George Orwell, at the Old Red Lion Theatre, London.

She is said to have split with Prince Harry in 2014 because she wanted an acting career and could not stand the public scrutiny she endured during their relationship.

Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas at the inaugural We Day event hosted by Save The Children at Wembley Arena

Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas at the inaugural We Day event hosted by Save The Children at Wembley Arena

When asked whether the publicity gave her an insight into ‘being defined by a much more famous man’ yesterday, she replied: ‘Yeah, I think it’s that thing of being pigeonholed. Especially in this country, I find 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”.’

Asked if she found it frustrating, she told Radio 4 Woman’s Hour: ‘Yes, it’s incredibly frustrating. ‘Especially, you know, in the industry that I’m in. But, you know, it is the way it is and it’s sort of making a stand and saying “No this is who I am, and this is what I want to do.”

‘And the same with Sonia [Orwell], but in obviously a completely different context. I think if Sonia was in today’s world I think maybe she’d be celebrated because she was very ambitious, she was very modern.

‘But in that time I think, you know, it was, you know, maybe in her group of friends yes they were all like that but in that time in that world I think it was a man’s world and I think ambition and that wasn’t, it wasn’t the thing for a woman to be like.’

Miss Bonas is said to be in a relationship dated 27-year-old property developer Harry Wentworth-Stanley, an old Harrovian Wentworth-Stanley and son of Clare Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven, who she dated two years before she met Prince Harry.

Miss Bonas is currently playing Sonia Brownell, a literary editor remembered as the second wife of George Orwell, at the Old Red Lion Theatre, London

Miss Bonas is currently playing Sonia Brownell, a literary editor remembered as the second wife of George Orwell, at the Old Red Lion Theatre, London

Miss Bonas, daughter of 60s ‘It’ girl Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon and entrepreneur Jeffrey Bonas, starred in an American horror film The Bye Bye Man last year and featured in a scene where she appears to be naked in bed.

The actress has plenty of theatre experience, having performed the one woman show An Evening With Lucian Freud at the Leicester Square Theatre in 2015.

The play follows Laura-Jane Foley - an art history undergraduate at Cambridge who is invited to dinner by the artist six decades her senior.

Miss Bonas also features in the film Tulip Fever with Dame Judi Dench and Cara Delevingne. It is set to be released later this month,

The star has even tried her hand at modelling, and in 2015 was the face of a campaign for luxury leather bag brand Mulberry.

 

 

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