Prince Harry's Ex Cressida Bonas Reveals the Secret to Surviving as a Royal Girlfriend

"It's really important to remember that all of it is noise," Bonas tells U.K.'s Sunday Times about all the media attention

Photo: Michael Kovac/Getty

It’s the ultimate dream of many a young girl: to live happily ever after with a dashing prince.

Yet for Cressida Bonas, the reality didn’t quite match up to the fairy tale.

Talking to U.K.’s The Sunday Times, the 26-year-old says that she only survived the press whirlwind surrounding her relationship with Prince Harry by keeping her feet on the ground and remaining true to who she is.

“It’s really important to remember that all of it is noise, noise that can be very loud at times,” Bonas tells the paper.

She adds: “I’m a lion. I’m not tough, but I am strong. I’m definitely not a wallflower.”

Since she split from Harry, 30, a year ago, Bonas has been far too busy concentrating on her career to worry about the press, anyway.

Along with scoring an enviable fashion gig with Mulberry and a role in the movie Tulip Fever alongside Judi Dench, Bonas has just finished playing Cecily in The Importance of Being Ernest onstage and scored her first Vogue cover shoot.

Despite her surging profile, Bonas says she tries to keep things in perspective.

“But if I ever feel like, ‘Oh, my life!’ or get upset by silly things like a photographer, or if someone has written something nasty that’s upset me, I just think, ‘Worse things happen at sea.’ ”

For the record, Bonas claims that the only details the British press have gotten right about her is that she is a qualified ski instructor and that she is now single.

“I’m a strong, independent woman,” she says, while debunking rumors that she’s spent long, cozy evenings with Harry in Kensington Palace watching The West Wing.

“Never seen it,” she says about the show.

As for the best advice anyone has given her? Well, that came from her mother.

“Be true to yourself and do whatever makes you happy,” says Cressida. “If you’re not happy, then stop. There’s no point in carrying on.”

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