Men don’t want all of the Charles baggage

Three Degrees’ Sheila can’t get date due to rumours of royal romance

THE Three Degrees star Sheila Ferguson has told how being linked with Prince Charles more than 40 years ago still affects her love life.

Sheila was the lead singer of the American soul trio when the Prince of Wales invited the group to perform at his 30th birthday party in 1978.

Charles danced with the band on stage, Sheila became his favourite singer and the pair went on to exchange letters.

Now a divorced mother of two, Sheila, 72, said she recently tried online dating but was thwarted by her links to Charles.

She said: “As soon as they found out who I was, they said, ‘I can’t date you, you’re Prince Charles’s favourite.’

“Men don’t want to take on all this baggage. I’m still single with no prospects of having a date with anybody at the rate I’m going but I’m not giving up.”

Sheila added: “I want to be happy and find the right guy to settle down with. But it takes a very strong man to be with a woman who is in demand with the public.”

Philadelphia-born Sheila, who now lives in Kent, spent 20 years with The Three Degrees – with hits including 1974’s When Will I See You Again – before going solo in 1986.

She married British businessman Chris Robinson in 1980. They had twin daughters, Alicia and Alexandria, but divorced in 2004, the same year she was on I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Sheila still performs live and will soon record her second solo album, 16 years after her first, A New Kind of Medicine. And she is set to star in Channel 5’s new Celebrity Murder Mystery.

She was due to reveal another mystery – about what happened between her and Charles – in her autobiography. But she said: “I’ve put that on hold as I’m not bitter any more. I’m not bitter about a lot of things that happened in my childhood or behind the scenes in The Three Degrees.

“Because I’m not bitter, the book will take a different tone. A lot of it will shock people but I’m not looking to hurt anybody. I’m looking to tell the truth.”

Discussing the #MeToo movement, Sheila said she plans to talk about her own experience. She said: “I will pick my time when I speak about that. I won’t talk about it now. The person is too well-known.”

Asked previously if she and Charles could have been an item, Sheila said: “There’s never going to be a black queen of England, so there was no future in it.”

Celebrity Murder Mystery, Channel 5, March 27 and 28, 9pm.

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