Diana’s ‘deep regret’ over BBC ‘victim’ interview
Top aide reveals her horror as ‘scales fell from her eyes’ Secret papers expose plot to keep Palace in the dark
PRINCESS DIANA ‘deeply regretted’ her bombshell Panorama interview before it was even broadcast, according to one of her most senior aides.
Patrick Jephson, the Princess’s former private secretary, made the revelation after The Mail on Sunday uncovered documents that show how in 1995, senior BBC figures including Lord Hall, the director-general who at the time was head of news and current affairs, conspired with the Princess to keep Buckingham Palace in the dark about the programme.
Unusually, it was decided that Diana herself should be the one to tell the Queen about the programme, in which she talked candidly about her and her husband’s extra-marital affairs, and questioned Prince Charles’s suitability to be King.
The Princess chose to tell Mr Jephson just a week before the broadcast as they made an official visit to Broadmoor hospital, and almost immediately began to question the wisdom of her actions. He said: ‘I think the scales fell from her eyes and suddenly what had been rather a subversive or daring scheme – or however they [the BBC] had dressed it up for her – it suddenly in the cold light of day didn’t look like such a good idea.
‘I realised this was the first time that she had really thought about how the real world was going to react.
‘It triggered that part of her which was not rebellious or given to dangerous stunts, which was actually conventional and dutiful, and responsible and awake to her broader Royal responsibilities.
‘I knew from her general demeanour, her fidgeting, that she was not at all confident about what she had done and that the full implications were dawning on her. So you had this mixture of anxiety and defiance.
‘I think by the time of the broadcast, she deeply regretted it, not least because it did nothing to advance her cause.’
Mr Jephson recalled the Princess’s desperate attempts to justify the interview as they drove to the top-security hospital. He said: ‘That car journey was taken up by me just asking questions and her more reluctantly answering them until we came down to, “It’s really good, Patrick – don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right. Grown men have seen it and it moved them to tears.” I thought, “I am damn well near tears myself and I haven’t seen it yet.”’ In the interview, broadcast on November 20, 1995, Diana spoke to reporter Martin Bashir about her husband’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles – now the Duchess of Cornwall – and her own love for cavalry officer James Hewitt. Asked about Charles’s relationship with Camilla, she said: ‘There were three of us in this marriage. So it was a bit crowded.’
Diana went on to question her husband’s suitability for what she called the ‘top job’.
The interview was watched by 21million people and infuriated Buckingham Palace, which had been unable to control the fallout because it had no idea what the Princess was going to say.
Mr Jephson said: ‘I remember sitting in the back of the car with her and saying, “We have to tell the Queen… otherwise she will hear from someone else.”’
Mr Jephson, who then telephoned the Queen’s press secretary, Charles Anson, said: ‘The Princess could tell that I was very upset. She knew that I disapproved.’
Internal BBC documents obtained by this newspaper under Freedom of Information laws show that Bashir and Diana first met on September 1995 and had a series of meetings leading up to the recording of the programme on November 5. Minutes of a management board meeting held shortly after the broadcast said: ‘He [Hall] had agreed to the Princess’s sole condition – that she should tell the Palace herself.’
Although the interview won Diana a great deal of public sympathy, it also alienated her from senior figures in the Royal Household and played into the hands of her critics who thought she was ‘unhinged’.
The Royal couple began divorce proceedings within weeks of the interview, and Mr Jephson, who resented being kept in the dark about the programme, quit his job.
By contrast, the BBC was delighted with its scoop. One document said: ‘The Princess had added much to what she said by her sighs and expressions… she had clearly been well prepared.’ The BBC said last night: ‘We’ve got nothing new to add about a programme broadcast 21 years ago.’