Sasha Walpole, the woman who claims to have Prince Harry’s virginity, is speaking out

Among the many OMGWTF revelations in Prince Harry’s book, Spare, the story about losing his virginity stuck out. To refresh your memory, Harry characterized his first meeting as an “inglorious episode with an older woman.” writing:

“She liked horses, quite a lot, and treated me, unlike a young stallion. Quick ride, after which she’d smacked my rump and sent me to grace,” he mused. “Among the many things about it that were wrong. It happened in a grassy field behind a busy pub.”

Following recent hints from actor Rupert EverettSpare The Sun on Daily Mail on Sunday that Harry’s version of his own damn virginity story was not true, a woman claiming to be Harry’s costar in the instantly-infamous “inglorious episode” has come forward to set the record straight (and, understandably, to just pull the metaphorical bandaid off and put an end to the “hunt” royal fans and media have been on to identify her since was published).

To that end, she has recently given many interviews, including major on-the-record conversations with and, allowing her to take control of her part of this story, according to Cosmopolitan reports. So, world, meet Sasha Walpole, who claims to be the woman about whom Harry wrote (and who says his account of their tryst is shockingly accurate, FWIW).

When her supposed royal deflowering occurred, Sasha was a royal groom at then-Prince Charles’ house, Highgrove. She’s 40 today, barely two years Harry’s age, so while she was technically an “older woman,” she’s definitely closer to his age than you’d think from reading the section in Spare.

In reality, she was publicly photographed with Harry and several of his other pals in June 2001 (Getty Images captions the photos “Playful Prince Harry & Friends At The Beaufort Polo Club, Near Tetbury, Gloucestershire”), and her vibe toward Harry ranges from Playful BFF energy:

To what is maybe the most exquisite and hilarious frustrated side-eye ever captured on film:

“At first I thought I could hide and that it would blow over. But as the names of different women, some of whom I know, became public I realized that to make the speculation stop, I needed to tell the truth,” Sasha, who now works as a digger driver and landscaper, explained (per The Daily Beast). “At least now I can tell my story, in my words, with the correct context and detail, and without panicking. I can stop looking over my shoulder.

I wanted to take control of the situation before it took control of me…I would never have spoken out if Harry hadn’t. I’m not that sort of person. If I was going to talk about it, I could have done so a long time ago. He has brought it to my door by writing about it.”

Sasha went on to say that she kept her experience with Harry a secret for 21 years (suggesting that their sex-behind-a-bar adventure occurred in 2002, the year after the photos above were taken), not because he was royalty, but because he was a friend (and, as everyone knows, polite friends don’t go around broadcasting the fact that they had drunken public sex with each other).

Sasha went on to say that she couldn’t understand why Harry went into such detail about his first time, which she said was “great if you’re not the other person involved,” but if you are, “then you suddenly feel as if your world is getting a little bit smaller.” Despite the fact that Harry’s decision to publicize the story has attracted notice to her, Sasha A) isn’t upset about it and B) agrees with his description of the encounter. In her own words:

“I don’t mind him saying that because it isn’t really very glorious, is it? We were drunk and having sex in a field. It’s his sense of humor. [We were part of] a massive horse scene and the slap happened in a horsey context, the book is a funny interpretation of that. His description is accurate—the real shock when I saw what he’d written was how true it was. That’s what took me back the most. I’m not offended. Afterward, I did grab his bum and give him a slap. I gave him a little squeeze as well. He had a peachy bum.”