Daily Mail:

"They were set up by mutual friends on a blind date when Koo was appearing in Who`s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? at the National Theatre and Andrew was in the Navy.

They hit it off immediately and she became a regular visitor at Buckingham Palace, where she got on famously with the Queen. But the romance reportedly flourished while it was still secret and was serious enough for them to talk of children.

All hell broke loose, however, when they went on holiday together to the Caribbean island of Mustique, after the Falklands War, and a photographer spotted them at the airport.

The paparazzi descended, and Koo, the daughter of an American TV presenter, found herself the subject of scrutiny, not least when it emerged she`d appeared in a film called Emily which, although tame by today`s standards, caused a scandal at the time.
It was the first time a serious royal girlfriend had been chosen from outside `the Firm`s` usual aristocratic circle and it caused a furore.

Her American nationality worked against her, with some palace insiders saying they didn`t want another Wallis Simpson. Andrew was re-branded the Playboy Prince and Koo was dubbed the `soft porn actress`, a label which still causes her to shudder.

`Nothing can prepare you for that level of interest in your private life,` says Koo, who in the Eighties famously turned down an offer of £1million to talk about her romance.

`I made the mistake of thinking that if I didn`t talk about it, it would go away. When you lose your reputation, you lose it for ever, even if what is said about you isn`t true. Seven years later I successfully sued for libel.`Today, Koo`s romance with Andrew is a closed book, but she values him as a friend."

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