Fans love a royal wedding, and while the nuptials of Peter Phillips, the son of Princess Anne, and Harriet Sperling may not be the flashy public affairs of some of Peter’s cousins, royal-watchers still have their eyes squarely on the couple’s big day. Peter and Harriet will be creating a blended family with their “I do”s, bringing together Peter’s two daughters, Savannah and Isla, from his first marriage to Autumn Kelly, and Harriet’s daughter Georgina from her previous marriage to Antonio St. John Sperling.
So, who is Harriet’s first husband?
Relatively little information is publicly available about Antonio St. John Sperling, beyond the fact that he has worked as a fitness instructor. According to a UK government directory of company filings, it appears that Sperling was born in 1981 and was the director of a Crossfit company in the early 2010s.
Beyond that, the fitness pro appears to prefer to keep his life private, though his estranged father Domenico Di Martino did give an interview to the Daily Mail in April 2026, in which he stated that Antonio and Harriet were only married for a few years before they divorced. He added that he felt his own choice to leave Antonio’s mother may have contributed tot he failure of the couple’s marriage, although he also admitted that he had not been in contact with his son for more than two decades and has never met his granddaughter, Georgina.
While divorce, and marrying a divorcee, were once forbidden amongst the royal family (King Edward VIII famously had to abdicate in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson) recent generations have relaxed that attitude somewhat. Of the late Queen Elizabeth’s four children, all but the youngest, Prince Edward, are divorced, including Peter’s mother, Princess Anne, who divorced Peter’s father, Captain Mark Phillips in 1992. Mark would go on to have another daughter during his second marriage, Stephanie Phillips, making Peter and his sister Zara step-siblings, just like Peter’s own daughters will now be.
Lauren Hubbard is a freelance writer and Town & Country contributor who covers beauty, shopping, entertainment, travel, home decor, wine, and cocktails.