‘Hopeless’ Charles ‘allowed’ mistress
PRINCESS Diana claimed on camera that husband Charles asserted his right to have a “mistress”.
Using controversial video tapes of Diana speaking to her voice coach, a Channel 4 programme chronicles her relationship with those closest to her in her own words.
When she confronted Charles about why Camilla Parker Bowles – now his wife the Duchess of Cornwall – was a part of his life Diana said he replied: “Well, I refuse to be the only Prince of Wales who never had a mistress.”
Diana confessed she found solace with her married police protection officer Barry Mannakee, a relationship she suggested was not sexual, but in the tapes she reveals she considered fleeing the Royal Household to be with him.
She also claimed she had sex with her husband Charles “once every three weeks” but it fizzled out six or seven years before the tapes were made, a few years after Prince Harry was born in 1984.
The Princess claimed the Duke of Edinburgh had told his son he could have an affair with Camilla – if his marriage had failed after a set period.
In the video recordings, aired in a US documentary 13 years ago but never screened in the UK, a relaxed and candid Diana said: “My father-in-law said to my husband ‘if your marriage doesn’t work out, you can always go back to her after five years’.
“Which is exactly – I mean, for real I knew that it had happened after five (years) – I knew something was happening before that but the fifth year I had confirmation.” Diana described how she went to the Queen, or “the top lady” as she called her, for advice.
She said: “So I went to the top lady, sobbing, and I said ‘what do I do? And she said ‘I don’t know what you should do. Charles is hopeless’.”