DIANA TAPES WILL HURT HER BOYS
Anger over plan to show explosive interview for first time
BY BEN ROSSINGTON
PLANS to screen footage of Diana at her most vulnerable will bring fresh heartache for William and Harry, friends say.
The 25-year-old film, to be shown by Channel 4, reveals her fears of a plot to take her children from her.
She also talks of her divorce battle – opening old wounds for her sons.
One source close to the royals said: “The boys now must feel very exploited and very angry.”
CHANNEL 4’s documentary on Princess Diana was blasted last night as deplorable for raking up painful memories about her divorce.
And one man featured in the show confirmed one of its most upsetting revelations – that Diana was in meltdown because she feared a plot to take her sons away from her.
Dr James Colthurst, 60, insisted: “That was a fear she had.”
It will be the first time the intimate videos, made while Diana was having voice coaching, will be aired on UK TV.
Extracts, in which Diana opens up about her failed marriage to Charles, his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles and her love for bodyguard Barry Mannakee were broadcast in the US in 2004.
But the claim she feared Palace officials were plotting to undermine her and take her sons away is the most damaging.
Author Penny Junor compared viewing the show to “stopping for a motorway pile-up, to look at the gory details”.
And Ingrid Seward, the biographer who last spoke to Diana just weeks before her death in 1997, said: It will upset her children, her ex-husband, Camilla, the Queen and Diana would simply not want this.
“The boys now must feel very exploited and very angry once again.”
In the documentary, Dr Colthurst, who knew Diana since was 17, says: “There was a great deal of jealousy from the grey men who sat behind Prince Charles, not wanting him to be living in her shadow. Her character was being written down – as she saw it, a campaign to sideline her and remove her from her boys. “That was her worry, that she was going to lose the boys – overriding, above everything else, that was the concern - and that they were using a character run-down as a means of making that happen, an understandable next step.” The claims back up comments Diana herself makes in the film. She says: “Friends on my husband’s side were indicating that I was unstable, sick, and should be put in a home of some sort in order to get better.
“There is no better way to dismantle a personality than to isolate it.”
At his home near Hungerford, Berks, Dr Colthurst added last night: “They asked me a few questions and I gave them a few answers and that was it.
“They’ve done two documentaries, and I’ve said my stuff on those and that’s a matter of public record anyway now.”
Ms Junor, who has written studies of the Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William and Prince Harry, said of the documentary: “It is just plain exploitation, it is ghoulish, immoral. This is just another way of exploiting Diana. It’s not what Charles would want and it’s clearly not what the boys would want. It will be deeply hurtful to them. “I think it will cause enormous upset.” Ms Seward, author of Diana The Last Words, added: “It is using Diana to make money and that is what killed her in the end. I don’t see how it helps anyone.”
Ms Seward said Diana was reportedly warned about being so open with Coronation Street actor-turned-voice coach Peter Settelen as he helped with her public speaking in 1992 and 1993.
The documentary, set to air on Sunday, as the 20-year anniversary of her death approaches on August 31 – contains
This is using Diana to make money and that’s what killed her in the end INGRID SEWARD AUTHOR OF DIANA: THE LAST WORDS
sessions thought to have been a practice for Diana’s 1995 Panorama interview, in which admitted that she had been unfaithful to Charles.
Ms Seward added: “I don’t think she would ever have thought they would get out like this. But I think one of her friends told her ‘you need to be a bit careful, one day this guy will make his pension out of this’.”
There was no sign of Mr Settelen at his four-bedroom detached home in South West London yesterday. Among the topics discussed, Diana mocked Charles’ courting technique, saying the future king was “like a rash, he was all over me”. When she confronted Charles over Camilla, Diana claimed she was told: “I refuse to be the Prince of Wales that never had a mistress.” And when Diana sought counsel from the Queen as the marriage fell apart, she says the response was “I don’t know what you should do...Charles is hopeless”. Viewers will see the sadness in her eyes when she speaks about her love for protection officer Mannakee, who died in a motorbike crash in 1987. Diana even makes the astonishing claim that he was bumped off.
Award-winning director Kevin Sim adapted the confessions, filmed inside Kensington Palace, for a planned 2007 BBC documentary.
But it was shelved amid concerns it would upset the royals, with the corporation saying it did not “add” to Diana’s story after she died 10 years earlier in a Paris car crash.
Ahead of the broadcast of Diana: In Her Own Words, Channel 4 said: “We carefully considered all the material used and the subjects covered are a matter of public record and provide a unique insight into the preparations Diana undertook to gain a public voice.”