Who is Sasha Walpole who took Prince Harry’s virginity married to?

The identity of the mysterious ‘elderly woman’ who took Prince Harry’s virginity was sensationally revealed last night when Sasha Walpole, 40, spoke out after the Duke of Sussex’s reference to the one-night stand in his recent memoir spare part.

Over two decades after the royal romp, Sasha’s husband Ian is said to be “relaxed” about the situation, having heard about it early in their relationship.

“Being exposed in a book is surreal,” she said. “I’m here at my home in Wiltshire with my husband Ian and my children and – 21 years later – here.”

Sasha had known the Harry since her days as a groom at Highgrove, future King Charles estate in Gloucestershire.

She is just over two years older than the prince and much younger than most of the women whose names have been suggested in the frenzy of speculation about herIdentity.

Sasha Walpole and her husband Ian in a beloved 2017 snap on social media. The couple first met in 2001 and married in 2016

She told her mother Lyn, now 65, and big sister Jodie Mayhead, 42, an accountant, that she was having sex with Harry at the time.

Ian, 44, also knew she had slept with the royal since she confided in him when their relationship got serious.

However, the global guesswork game over the name of Harry’s mystery lover meant Sasha was now forced to share details of her teenage sex life with her father Tony, 71.

“Father wouldn’t have cared if I slept with a prince or a frog as long as I was safe and happy,” she says, “but as a father, he didn’t really want to know.

“It’s not the kind of thing you want to talk about, even if you’re as close as we are. Fortunately, he took it just as well as my husband, who is very relaxed about it.”

But who is Ian and how long have they been together?

Here, FEMAIL takes a look at everything we know about the couple.

Who is Ian Walpole?

According to his social media, Ian lives in Warminster, Wiltshire and often posts about car drifting – a high-performance cornering technique – which is seen as a point of bonding between him and Sasha.

Speaking to The Sun, the mother-of-two revealed she first mentioned her experience with Harry to Ian when they were out for a drink and the infamous polo pictures just emerged.

When did Ian and Sasha get married?

Photos from Ian and Sasha’s wedding day – released in 2016 – show a colorful selection of the groom’s party in neon chartreuse and the bride in dark purple.

Commenting on a tagged Instagram post of the day, Ian gushed about the beautiful wedding.

“What a perfect day in every way,” he wrote. “We couldn’t have done so well without the help of all the help from our friends and family.”

The gold miner’s husband Ian is said to be “calm” about the situation, having heard about it early in their relationship

How did you meet?

After foot and mouth disease dashed her hopes of working with horses, Sasha began meeting up with other friends who were interested in motorsports rather than horses. It was then that she met and fell in love with her husband Ian.

Ian is a professional drift racer, and after the pair began dating in 2001, the couple married in 2016 – shying away from the traditional white and opting for a lime green and purple color scheme instead.

They settled in the Wylye Valley in Wiltshire and have two daughters aged five and three.

Who is Sasha Walpole?

Born into a working-class family, 40-year-old Sasha left school at 15 to work in the horse industry.

Her parents skimped on buying her a cheeky dapple-grey horse named Beano and built her a horsebox out of an old British Telecom Luton van.

At 17 she was hired as a carer’s assistant at Highgrove, a 15-minute drive from her home in the village of Acton Turville, Gloucestershire.

Her late-night escapade with Prince Harry in July 2001 took place the day before her 19th birthday, when the king was 16.

Speaking to The Sun, the mother-of-two revealed she first mentioned her experience with Harry to Ian when they were out for a drink and the infamous polo pictures just emerged

She worked for the royal family from September 1999 to April 2001, when she left the stables to take a stint at the local Stretchline factory, making elastic for bras and underwear.

She was preparing to leave home after applying for a job as a groom at the Sultan of Brunei’s stables in the Home Counties – but an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease put an end to that dream.

Sasha was born to mother Lyn and father Tony. Her mother, now 65, was a hotel cleaner while her father, 71, did floor work.

She has an older sister Jodie Mayhead, 42, who works as an accountant. Both Jodie and Lyn knew what happened between Harry and Sasha and together they had guarded it closely for 21 years.

Outside of work at Highgrove, Sasha first met William at a comedy night with the late Cornish comedian Jethro at the Beaufort Hunt Kennels.

She then became friends with Harry at one of his favorite pubs, the Rattlebone Inn, in the nearby Wiltshire village of Sherston.

They bonded over tales of their antics on the horse, Beano.

‘He was like a Thelwell pony [the caricatures drawn by cartoonist Normal Thelwell for Punch magazine]. He was so naughty, he ate everything – even the light from his own trailer once,” she laughs.

What happened the night Harry lost his virginity?

Sasha, now a mother of two and digging for a living, had invited Harry, then a 16-year-old Eton student – not 17 as suggested in Spare – to the pub to celebrate her 19th birthday.

The two were so close that Harry brought her a stuffed Miss Piggy and a comedy birthday card with a joke about a bloated whale on the front. He also added a tray of ten shots – five of each – leaving the couple very drunk by the end of the day.

As the final orders were shouted, the young prince asked them, “Shall we go have a smoke?” and they snuck into an adjacent field to smoke a cigarette out of sight of his security detail.

The Miss Piggy Toy that Harry bought Sasha for her birthday. The Duke bought it at Thorpe Park and gave it to her at her party with a card

The Vine Tree Pub, Norton, Wiltshire, where Prince Harry had sex with Sasha in a field, which the Duke sensationally revealed in his bombastic memoir Spare

“He started kissing me,” she recalls. “It was passionate, intense. We both knew. It went from a kiss to the floor pretty quickly.

“It was instant, fiery, wham bam, between two friends. It was sparkling because we shouldn’t have. He wasn’t “Prince Harry” to me, that was Harry my friend and the situation had gotten a little out of hand. I suppose it felt naughty in the sense that it wasn’t supposed to happen.

“We didn’t intend to do that – it wasn’t intentional and I didn’t know he was a virgin. There were no virgin vibes – he seemed to know what he was doing. It was fast, wild, exciting. We were both drunk. It wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t.”

Unfortunately, the encounter marked the end of Sasha’s friendship with Harry. The two never wrote, spoke or saw each other again from regular drinking partners.

Sasha added what surprised her most about the anecdote’s inclusion in Spare was how accurate it was.

Where is she now?

Sasha is now a backhoe operator, digging foundations for patios and driveways to follow in her father’s footsteps.

It was husband Ian who bought her her first digger as a birthday present.

She said: “Now I drive a one-ton truck that goes through doors and a three-ton truck too. I also have two dumpers.”

Regarding Harry’s revelations, she says: “To be exposed in a book is surreal. I’m here at my home in Wiltshire with my husband Ian and my children and – 21 years later – this.”

“I don’t think people will be amazed that me and Harry are having sex in a field,” she says bluntly, “but they’re usually amazed when a woman drives a digger.”

It says a lot about the happily married mother of two – congratulations – that she’s kept her secret for so many years.

And it says a lot about teenage Harry – good, too – that he initiated a two-and-a-half-year friendship with a girl outside the so-called Glosse Posse of wealthy, blue-blooded youths who made up his social circle in rural Gloucestershire.