Why Princess trusted me to tell her story
TURNING on my tape recorder, i listened with mounting astonishment to the unmistakable voice of Princess Diana, pouring out a tale of woe in a rapid stream of consciousness. She was talking about her unhappiness, her sense of betrayal, her suicide attempts — and two things i’d never previously heard of: an eating disorder called bulimia nervosa and a woman called Camilla.
it was 1991. Diana was approaching 30, and the very idea that her ten-year marriage was in dire trouble seemed unthinkable. To most people, Charles and Diana were still a fairytale story.
Why did she trust me with the true story of her marriage? The key was Dr James Colthurst, whom i’d met in 1986 when the princess opened a new CT scanner in his X-ray department at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. Afterwards, over tea and biscuits, i questioned him about Diana’s visit and soon realised he had known her for years.
gradually, James and i became friendly, enjoying games of squash followed by large lunches and talking about everything but the princess.
As her friend, of course, James was well aware that her marriage had failed and that her husband was having an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.
Diana had a nagging fear that, at any moment, her enemies in the Palace would have her classified as mentally ill and locked away. Where to turn?
it had dawned on her that unless the full story of her life was told, the public would never understand the reasons behind anything she decided to do.
She knew i was researching a book about her and she had been reasonably pleased with an earlier work of mine, mainly because it irritated Prince Charles with its detailed description of the interior of Highgrove.
One day, she asked Colthurst: ‘ Does Andrew want an interview?’ i was keen to talk to her directly but this was out of the question. So i interviewed her by proxy, giving my questions to Colthurst, who then conducted six taped interviews with her at Kensington Palace.
Anxious to be believed, she passed him several letters and postcards from Camilla to Prince Charles to show me. Passionate, loving and full of suppressed longing, they left absolutely no doubt that Diana’s suspicions were correct.
While she raged about her husband’s infidelity, however, she hid the fact that she’d enjoyed a long love affair with Major James Hewitt from 1986 to1991, as well as a brief dalliance in 1989 with her old friend James gilbey (later exposed as the male voice on the notorious Squidgygate tapes).
nor did Colthurst and i have the faintest notion that the married art dealer Oliver Hoare had recently become the object of her love and devotion.
Looking back, Diana’s audacity was breathtaking. One is left wondering if she wanted to get her side of the story published first, so she would escape blame for the failure of the marriage.
She read my book in chunks as i wrote it, and on one occasion was so moved by the poignancy of her own story that she confessed to weeping tears of sorrow.
On June 7, 1992, the first extract from my book appeared in a newspaper — under the banner headline ‘Diana driven to five suicide bids by “uncaring” Charles’. i’d used a few quotes from the secret tapes but the vast majority of what she had said was disguised.
it is hard now to convey the shock, disgust and astonishment that greeted the first instalment. The Archbishop of Canterbury condemned it and the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, Lord Mcgregor, accused the media of ‘dabbling their fingers in the stuff of other people’s souls’.
The book was banned by numerous bookstores and supermarkets. ironically, a biography written and produced with Diana’s enthusiastic co-operation was being piously boycotted on the suspicion that it was a pack of lies.
But it soon became apparent that the book really was Diana’s true story — and the princess quickly began to receive the kind of support that always meant so much to her. Letters came flooding in, many from people who had suffered with eating disorders themselves.
She never regretted the taping sessions. And in the last five years of her life, the world witnessed the flowering of her humanitarian spirit.
The public’s verdict can be gauged by the outpouring of grief that convulsed the country when she died in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997.
Thankfully, Diana left her own searing testimony of what life was really like for her as Princess of Wales. Her words, drawn from transcripts of those tapes, are so raw and so powerful that as you read, you can hear her speak . . .
She raged at his infidelity but hid her own affairs