‘I WAS OVER THE MOON CRYING ...’
Eugenie on the moment her ex-barman boyfriend surprised her with a ring — after seven years
Princess eugenie told last night how she burst into tears of happiness when her boyfriend ambushed her with a surprise proposal. she described how Jack Brooksbank got down on one knee by the side of a lake in front of a volcano during a new Year holiday to nicaragua.
Flashing an eye- catching pink sapphire engagement ring, eugenie, 27, told BBc1’s The One show she had been taken completely by surprise ‘even though we’d been together seven years’.
Drinks executive Mr Brooksbank, 29, described how he had proposed against a backdrop of the ‘beautiful volcano’ where ‘the sun was setting, birds were flying’.
His fiancee added: ‘The lake was so beautiful. The lake had a special light i’d never seen. i actually said, “This is an incredible moment” and then he popped the question. i was over the moon, crying.’
The couple, who announced their engagement via Buckingham Palace yesterday morning, will marry at st George’s chapel, Windsor, in the autumn.
eugenie said the Queen, her grandmother, was one of the first to know – she told her at sandringham at the weekend – but they had kept it a secret from everyone else except their parents until yesterday. ‘Granny actually knew right at the beginning. she was very happy, as was my grandfather,’ she said.
Mr Brooksbank added: ‘she said that she was incredibly happy and wished us well, it was amazing.’
He revealed that he had sourced the pink sapphire for eugenie’s ring but did not get it made until she had ‘signed off on it’. He added: ‘i love eugenie so much. We are just very, very happy and over the moon for what is to come.’
eugenie’s father Prince Andrew said he was ‘ thrilled and delighted’, while Mr Brooksbank’s parents nicola and George said they were ‘ over the moon’. His maternal grandmother Joanna newton, 91, told the Mail that she thought eugenie was a ‘nice, ordinary girl’ and joked that she never dreamed her ‘ ordinary, not very intelligent’ grandson would marry into the royal family.
‘ i’m thrilled about it,’ she added. ‘We had lunch in London a few weeks ago and i had no inkling. Jack has always had lovely manners and has always been a good egg.
‘ i would call him ordinary, i wouldn’t say there is anything special about him, he’s a good-looking, nice chap and i think it says a lot about eugenie that it’s him she wants and it’s lovely.
‘i have just met her the once and she was just a very nice, ordinary girl, nothing pompous about her or even royal about her.’
she added sweetly that the couple were made for each other, saying: ‘They have known each other for a long, long time and i don’t think there has ever been any rival to Jack, she’s always wanted him, and he’s always wanted her.
‘ He’s never had any other girlfriends, it’s always been her. They will make a lovely couple.’ Mrs newton added: ‘ Of course i shall be going to the wedding, i’m granny. it’s very exciting because i’m a massive fan of the royals and it will be lovely to meet them.’
eugenie and stowe-educated Mr Brooksbank met on a skiing holiday in Verbier, switzerland, seven years ago and say it was ‘love at first sight’ but had never discussed marriage until the proposal.
For their official engagement portraits at Buckingham Palace yesterday morning, after which they filmed the One show interview, eugenie wore a £1,288 floral erdem dress and Jimmy choo shoes.
The wedding may spark a royal dilemma. eugenie’s grandfather Prince Philip famously dislikes her mother the Duchess of York so much that he refuses to be under the same roof – believing that following her divorce from Prince Andrew she has bought shame on the royal Family.
eugenie has forged a successful career in the art world and is a director at leading London gallery Hauser & Wirth.
she and Mr Brooksbank live separately at present but later this year they will move into ivy cottage, in the grounds of Kensington Palace, making them neighbours of William and Kate and Harry and Meghan.
Palace sources insist they will pay ‘ market rent’ for the threebedroom property.