Row erupts over new revelations to be broadcast
LONDON: It’s early 20 years since Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris but her hold over popular imagination is as fresh as ever: a documentary to be shown on August 6 with previously unseen footage of her has sparked a row over privacy.
Famously called the “people’s princess” by then prime minister Tony Blair to reflect the public grief, Diana died on August 31, 1997, aged 36, throwing millions of her fans in the UK and around the world into gloom. The documentary Diana: In Her Own Words, to be broadcast on Channel 4, includes confessional videos shot by her with her public speaking coach Peter Settelen, during which she mentions problems with Prince Charles, her sex life, and how she sought Queen Elizabeth’s help.
Rosa Monckton, one of Diana’s closest friends, told The Guardian she is urging Channel 4 to scrap the documentary on the ground the confessional videos were made as part of a speech coaching that amounted to therapy, and that using them would be an “intrusion” and “outrage” that betrays Diana’s right to privacy. Earl Spencer, Diana’s brother, too has sought the dropping of the documentary as it would hurt her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. But the Channel 4 has so far defended its decision to air the film.
Diana says in the videos made in 1993 that sex with Prince Charles happened “once every three weeks” and that aged 24, when she was already married, she “fell deeply in love” with a member of the royal household, widely believed to be protection officer Barry Mannakee, who died in an accident.