Prince Phillip’s Showbiz Affair With Zsa Zsa Gabor

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip will mark their 70th wedding anniversary on Nov. 20, 2017 — but Merv Griffin reportedly claimed the royal marriage had to survive Phillip's affair with Zsa Zsa Gabor!

The bombshell revelation was first reported in Darwin Porter's 2013 book "Those Glamorous Gabors" — with Merv helpfully backing the shocking story! "For years," said Merv, "I'd heard rumors that [Zsa Zsa] and Prince Philip had had an ongoing affair, although that's not what she wrote in her memoirs. But I think she wanted to spare the feelings of Queen Elizabeth."

But, Merv admitted, Zsa Zsa herself told him: "I seriously considered, for a time, becoming the Royal Mistress of Buckingham Palace!" At the time, Merv kept the lovely Eva Gabor as a constant companion. After drinking too much one night, the author related, the famously blunt Zsa Zsa asked Merv: "Would you believe that in 1952, Prince Philip seduced me?"

As noted by Merv, other sources had also claimed that Zsa Zsa had her personal encounter with the famously unfaithful royals while in London to film the 1952 hit "Moulin Rouge." As Merv told the secondhand tale, Zsa Zsa had arrived for a lesson with her voice coach when she was informed that she was given a very special audience with the royal.

"His Majesty wants to arrange a private rendezvous," Zsa Zsa was told. "Just the two of you. You're to go alone to the address he will provide to you. The Queen will not be there. No one must know of this intimate meeting." And the showbiz legend kept the secret until spilling the beans to Merv!

Merv also related that Zsa Zsa claimed to have kept coupling with Philip through the 1950s — praising his "classic male beauty," his "great body," and insisting that Philip could go from "stiff and formal" to "a hell of a lot of fun!" But, insisted Zsa Zsa, the affair was over by the early 1960s.

Zsa Zsa herself would famously go on to several marriages and other secret loves — including Frank Sinatra and Richard Burton. But, added Porter, she wasn't done with royalty. Zsa Zsa was married to Prince Frederic von Anhalt when she died in 2016 — but also reportedly had a secret tryst with Philip's uncle, Lord Mountbatten!