British-Iraqi designer rumored to be Harry and Meghan’s mystery matchmaker

Bahrain-born fashion designer Misha Nonoo

LONDON: Britain’s newspapers were rife with speculation on Wednesday about the mystery matchmaker of Queen Elizabeth’s grandson Prince Harry and his fiancee American actress Meghan Markle who met on a blind date in London last year.
In a televised interview on Monday when they announced their engagement, the couple were coy about the identity of the “mutual friend” who had brought them together.
“We should protect her privacy and not reveal too much of that,” said Markle, with Harry adding: “We’ll protect her privacy yeah. But it was — it was literally — it was through her.”
On its front page, the Times newspaper declared that it was the fashion designer Misha Nonoo, who was born in Bahrain to an Iraqi father and English mother and raised in London.
The paper said her estranged husband is Alexander Gilkes, who went to the same exclusive school, Eton College, that Harry, 33, attended, while she is also a close friend of Markle and went on holiday with her in the summer of 2016.
However, the Daily Telegraph had a different solution. It said Violet Von Westenholz, who had been friends with Harry since he was a teenager, was behind the romance.
Westenholz, a PR director for fashion label Ralph Lauren, had helped organize a publicity day for “Suits” in London in June last year, the US TV legal drama in which Markle was one of the cast’s stars.
Harry and Markle, 36, began dating the following month.
“I might leave that for other people to say (who the matchmaker was),” she told the Telegraph. “It’s a great love story and I am sure they are going to be very happy together.”
News of the engagement has drawn huge global interest thanks to Harry’s royal status and the Hollywood sparkle added by his wife-to-be.
The couple announced on Tuesday they would wed in March next year at St. George’s Chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle, which has been the family home of British kings and queens for almost 1,000 years.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail newspaper’s front page was dedicated to a 21-year-old picture of Markle sitting on railings with friend Ninaki Priddy outside Buckingham Palace, one of her future in-laws’ London homes.