Camilla ‘barely left house after affair disclosed’
THE Duchess of Cornwall has admitted she barely left the house for a year because of public hostility after it emerged she was having an affair with Prince Charles.
In an interview ahead of her 70th birthday, the Duchess spoke for the first time about her life with the Prince and the struggle to rehabilitate her reputation after their relationship was revealed.
Though rumours of an affair had been rife during the Prince’s marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, it was not until Andrew Morton’s book Diana: Her True Story was published in 1992 that the relationship was confirmed.
The couple’s separation was announced later that year. But, in 1993, details of an intimate phone conversation between the Prince and the then Camilla Parker Bowles emerged from 1989.
Speaking of that time, the Duchess told The Mail on Sunday’s You magazine: “I couldn’t really go anywhere. It was horrid. It was a deeply unpleasant time and I wouldn’t put my worst enemy through it.”
The Duchess said that she could not have survived without the support of her children, Tom and Laura, and her sister Annabel and her late brother Mark Shand.
She said she used the time to read books and paint, while her children made a daily count of paparazzi hiding in the bushes of her garden using binoculars that she kept in her bathroom.
In 1994, Prince Charles admitted in an interview his marriage to Diana had broken down “irretrievably” in 1986 and said “Mrs Parker Bowles” was “a great friend”.
The next year, the Parker Bowleses announced they were divorcing. In 1996, Prince Charles divorced, at which point he described his relationship with Mrs Parker Bowles as “non-negotiable”. They married in 2005.
Speaking of her royal duties, the Duchess said: “I genuinely like people and I’m so curious about them. Other people’s lives are so much more interesting than one’s own.”