Prince Harry’s former therapist worked with MI6, a royal insider has claimed.
Writing in her best-selling book The Palace Papers, royal biographer Tina Brown claims the Duke of Sussex’s then-girlfriend Cressida Bonas encouraged him to visit a mental health professional after she witnessed Harry’s ‘explosive temperament’.
Brown wrote: ‘Cressida began to have serious worries about his mental health. It is not widely known that it was she who first persuaded Harry to see a therapist.’
A family friend told Brown that Cressida forced the Duke to ‘accept he has problems and see a psychoanalyst’.
Harry then turned to Julia Samuel for support – a therapist who was Princess Diana’s friend and worked as an NHS bereavement counsellor.
But the reason Julia was so helpful to Harry was her connection to MI6, where she advised secret service staff – meaning she was capable of being ‘discreet’.
Brown claims a person close to Harry said: ‘There was a need for someone who could be incredibly discreet and who understood what it’s like to have a public version of your life and a private version.
Prince Harry at the 2022 Invictus Games. A therapist who was tasked with sorting out Prince Harry’s mental health worked with MI6, a royal insider has claimed
Harry and his wife Meghan in 2019. The Duchess of Sussex has also been candid about her mental health battles
According to royal biographer Tina Brown, Harry was convinced to seek help by his then-girlfriend Cressida Bonas
‘Therapists at MI6, that’s what they do.’
It was through therapy that Harry finally unpicked the trauma caused by Princess Diana’s death, which happened when the Duke was just 12 years old.
‘He at last understood his own evasion of sorrow in tactics that ranged from champagne hooliganism to “sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help?”,’ Brown wrote.
Cressida encouraged Harry to seek help after seeing this behaviour on several occasions, documented by Brown.
This included a pub lunch on New Year’s Day in Kidlington near Oxford, when Harry lashed out an elderly man who asked the Duke for a picture.
Brown was told by someone ‘privy to the incident’ that Harry told the gentleman to ‘get out of my why’ before he went ‘bright red in the face and stormed off in a huff’.
Prince Harry’s wife, the Duchess of Sussex, has also been candid about her mental health battles.
During a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, Meghan revealed the stress of royal life made her suicidal when she was five-months pregnant.
Cressida encouraged Harry to seek help after witnessing his poor behaviour several times
Princes Harry and William in 2021. Through therapy Harry was finally able to begin to unpick the years of trauma caused by Princess Diana’s death
Royal biographer Tina Brown, who documented how Prince Harry sought help from an MI6 therapist
The Duchess of Sussex revealed she ‘couldn’t be left alone’ and told her husband she ‘didn’t want to be alive anymore’ before claiming Buckingham Palace staff ignored her plea for help because she wasn’t a ‘paid employee’.
Describing how she considered ending her life, believing it ‘was better for everyone’, Meghan said: ‘I knew that if I didn’t say it, that I would do it. I just didn’t want to be alive anymore. And that was a very clear, real and frightening constant thought.
‘I remember how he just cradled me. I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. I said that “I’ve never felt this way before, and I need to go somewhere”. And I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution.’
She said that, after confiding in her husband, she was forced to go to the Royal Albert Hall for a charity event in January 2019 – claiming photos from that night ‘haunt’ her.
Harry and Cressida dated for two years before they split in 2014. Brown claims the model’s ‘serious qualms about sharing her life with Harry’ and his ‘frequent’ and ‘childlike’ outbursts contributed the break down in the relationship.
She was his last serious relationship before Meghan and Cressida was an almighty hit with the entire Royal Family.
Charles even labelled her as the ‘one that got away’, a source told Brown.
Cressida is the daughter of Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon – who once famously posed apparently topless, smeared in motor oil – and Old Harrovian Jeffrey Bonas (her mother’s third husband) who owns a fabric company called MacCulloch & Wallis.
Tina Brown’s best-selling book The Palace Papers
Harry and Cressida dated for two years before they split in 2014. Brown claims that the model’s ‘serious qualms about sharing her life with Harry’ and his ‘frequent’ and ‘childlike’ outbursts contributed to the break down in the relationship
Harry and Meghan at Westminster Abbey in 2020. During a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, Meghan revealed the stress of royal life made her suicidal
She was also athletic, winning a sports scholarship to Prior Park College in Bath before attending the co-ed boarding school Stowe.
After school she studied dance at Leeds University and later pursued acting as well as modelling for Mulberry.
Throughout her relationship with Harry, the couple went on trips to Switzerland, attended concerts and were even spotted on date nights at restaurants.
Brown wrote she was Harry’s guest at Sandringham for shooting weekends and blended easily with his friends.
Cressida also passed the Africa test on a successful holiday with the prince in Botswana’s Okavango Delta.
Today, the Hampshire-born ‘It-Girl’, who is expecting her second baby with husband Harry Wentworth-Stanley, 35, has moved into writing and podcasting – with her social media feed turning from artsy selfies to wholesome snaps with her two-year-old son.
She launched her podcast Lessons From Our Mothers, hosted with her half-sister, Isabella Branson, earlier this year.
The podcast is billed as a ‘conversations that celebrate motherhood and mothering in all its forms’.
The Royal Family were so sad to see Cressida leave that Charles labelled her the ‘one that got away’, a source told Brown
The series features cameos from a variety of A-listers, including the likes of Kate Winslet, Giovanna Fletcher and Mary Berry – who made the duo a tasty homemade cake and a cup of tea.
Cressida’s close friend Princess Eugenie, who was the brains behind her match with Harry, will also speak as a guest.
A sneak preview posted on the podcast’s Instagram account saw Eugenie, 35, speak touchingly about her own mother, Sarah Ferguson.
‘What is the most valuable thing you have learned from your mum?’ Cressida asked.
Eugenie said: ‘I think for me, it’s the fire inside, you know, the strength inside of you, and how to bring that out, and to pull it in when you most need it.’
