Di’s part in secret tapes
Morton reveals truth behind book that shook palace to its foundations
ANDREW Morton knew, as he was writing his seminal book on Diana the Princess of Wales back in 1992, that he was crafting a piece of history.
The book Diana: Her True Story blew the lid off Diana’s unhappy marriage to Prince Charles, his closeness to Camilla Parker Bowles, Diana’s eating disorders and her suicide attempts.
It shook the royal household to its core.
But what nobody knew at the time was that the book was based on taped interviews with the Princess of Wales herself, conducted by a mutual friend who then smuggled the tapes out of Kensington Palace and into Morton’s hands.
That information only came to light after her death in a car crash in Paris, 20 years ago next month.
Now, 25 years after it was first published, Morton has revised his book, including more details from the taped interviews, and revealed the restrictions he was under as he wrote what turned out to be the closest thing ever published to Diana’s own biography.
“I realised it was a historic document I was producing,” Morton said this week from his home in London, where he has just completed his next book on another complex female character, Wallis Simpson, the divorcee for whom Edward VIII abdicated the throne.
“It was a piece of history. It was deemed to be unofficial but when you look at it, it’s actually an official biography.’’
Morton says if Diana was alive today, the extent of her involvement would still not be known. The book would forever have referred to information coming from those close to Diana – when in fact it came from the princess herself.
“It was a thin veil, even at the time,’’ Morton says of his efforts to keep Diana’s involvement under wraps. “But it gave her some wriggle room in terms of determining her future.’’
The book, and Diana’s bombshell Panorama BBC TV interview three years later, changed forever the public view of the royal family and damaged the reputations of Prince Charles and his now wife Camilla so badly they have never fully recovered.
The tapes were recorded throughout 1991 and 1992, when the marriage was in its death throes and Diana was desperate to break out of the grasp of “the Firm’’ – the royal family and its courtiers who she had never felt supported or welcomed her.
The book is not a perfect record of events at the time – libel lawyers refused to allow Morton to print that Charles, the heir to the throne, was having an extramarital affair with Camilla – so their relationship is referred to in the book as a “secret friendship’’.
And Diana never mentioned that she herself had embarked on secret affairs, and was in the throes of falling for wealthy art dealer Oliver Hoare at the time she was revealing damaging details about Charles and Camilla’s illicit affair.
But it gives a warts-and-all look at the dysfunctional state