When a “mystery blonde” was spotted having a cosy chat with Prince Harry at 3 am in ritzy London bar The Scotch, the British press thought they’d sniffed out a front page.
That was back in 2012 when Harry was dubbed the “Party Prince” by the tabloids, who played “Who’s that girl?” with endless photos of him falling out of clubs. This blonde in question was Kiwi woman Sarah Lewis, who, in her role as diplomatic and royal liaison at Heathrow Airport, was just politely reminding the prince he had a flight in three hours.
“I’d often see Harry out socially,” she says, speaking exclusively to Woman’s Day. “He was always super-warm and friendly. Very understated, often in a cap and jeans.”
One plane Harry might have wished he had missed was a flight to Las Vegas for a wild weekend, where he was photographed playing strip billiards with a squad of bikini-clad beauties. What happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas and naked photos of the then-third-in-line to the British throne spread all over the world.
It’s something that would never have happened on Sarah’s watch. She explains, “I kept clients protected as we had designed a system of privately ushering them into suites. It would only go wrong if someone, like Kanye West, insisted on entering the main terminal. Kayne was eager to be photographed.”
Sarah – now 43 and living in a sleepy beachside Bay of Plenty suburb with her partner Glenn and their six-year-old daughter Willow – is worlds away from her years in London, where she regularly hobnobbed with royals, politicians, sheikhs and pop stars.
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