A former girlfriend of Prince Edward is preparing to release a tell-all memoir, with the Royal Family reportedly bracing for “what could come out”.

West End star Ruthie Henshall, 58, dated the royal, 61, on and off for several years before he met Duchess Sophie (then-Sophie Rhys-Jones), who later became his wife.

The pair first met in 1988, when Henshall made her West End debut as a chorus girl in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats.

At the time, Edward, then aged 23, was working in theatre production.

Henshall recently revealed the upcoming book on social media, announcing that her memoir, titled ‘The Showgirl and the Prince’, will be published by Pan Macmillan on July 16.

“To realise another dream in my life is bonkers but here it is. My book. The Showgirl and the Prince,” Henshall captioned the post, which included a photograph of the cover.

“A deep love, brutally honest and a life beyond my wildest dreams.”

Henshall said the memoir was inspired by love letters the prince had once sent her.

“I found old diaries which I began writing in the 1980s and then found all my letters from Prince Edward, and I was struck by how precious this time in my life was,” she told The Telegraph.

“I was on the West End stage – my dream since I was a girl – and shared a love with a man very few people even know. If this was someone else’s story, I would think they had made it up.

“So here it is – a look behind the curtain of a crazy life in musical theatre and what happens next when a showgirl falls in love with a prince.”

According to the five-time Olivier Award nominee, the memoir promises to explore “the bittersweet joy of first love”.

However, the book has reportedly started to cause anxiety within royal circles, with the Telegraph reporting it’s “likely to create angst amid courtiers and the wider Royal family as it reels from the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.”

Meanwhile, a palace aide told New Idea that news of the memoir is “mortifying” for both the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, who have spent years cultivating a reputation for discretion.

“Edward and Sophie have built their entire lives around being discreet and drama-free,” the source said.

“They take enormous pride in keeping their heads down and doing the work without seeking publicity, so the idea of intimate details being dragged into the public domain is mortifying.”

The insider agreed that the book is the “last thing” the monarchy needs as it faces intense scrutiny following the spectacular fall from grace of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah ‘Fergie’ Ferguson.

“Even if Edward ends up being portrayed in a relatively flattering light, the exposure alone is humiliating, and it’s put him in a terrible mood,” they added.

Despite reportedly maintaining a cordial relationship with both Edward and Sophie over the years, this is not the first time Henshall has publicly spoken about her past romance with the youngest child of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

In 2020, while appearing on the UK’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, she joked that she had “shagged in the bedrooms” of Buckingham Palace.

Two years later, she told Hello! about a royal family gathering at Balmoral Castle in the summer of 1992, when she was encouraged by the late Princess Diana to sing for guests.

“I don’t think you ever forget who you’re in the presence of, but you’re looking at a family that is just hanging out together like any other family,” she said at the time.

“They were all so welcoming and so lovely- and they’re a laugh.”

It’s unknown whether the Firm has been given a preview of ‘The Showgirl and the Prince’.