In her interview Diana exposed the inner reality of the royal family. The family is cold and uncaring. Her intense desire to see Prince William as a King, rather than his father. According to her Charles had been unfaithful was nothing new.
For the time being, the couple separated but they had not divorced.
“There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” Diana famously told Bashir, a line that made headlines around the world.
Diana also revealed that Charles had renewed his relationship with Camilla as far back as 1986, but that she “wasn’t in a position to do anything about it.”
She then blamed the affair on contributing to her low self-esteem and “rampant” bulimia.
“If you can have rampant bulimia, and just a feeling of being no good at anything and being useless and hopeless and failed in every direction.
“It was a symptom of what was going on in my marriage. I was crying out for help, but giving the wrong signals, and people were using my bulimia as a coat on a hanger. They decided that was the problem: Diana was unstable,” she said.
“The cause was the situation where my husband and I had to keep everything together because we didn’t want to disappoint the public, and yet obviously there was a lot of anxiety going on within our four walls.”
A brutally candid Di also revealed that following the birth of Prince William she suffered from post-natal depression and that neither Charles or the rest of the royal family were sympathetic, explaining maybe she was “the first person to ever be in this family who ever had depression or was ever openly tearful”.
The lack of compassion led to princess deliberately injuring herself, she revealed.
“When no one listens to you, or you feel no one’s listening to you, all sorts of things start to happen,” she said.
“For instance, you had so much pain inside yourself that you try and hurt yourself on the outside because you want help, it it’s the wrong help you’re asking for. People see it as a crying wolf or attention seeking, and they think because you’re in the media all the time you’ve got enough attention, inverted commas.
“But I was actually crying out because I wanted to get better in order to go forward and continue my duty and my role as a wife, mother, Prince of Wales. So yes, I did inflict upon myself. I didn’t like myself. I was ashamed because I couldn’t cope with the pressures.”
“I was at the end of my tether. I was desperate. I think I was so fed up with being seen as someone who was a basket-case, because I am a very strong person and I know that causes complication in the system that I live in.”
“I think [the royal family] where shocked and horrified and very disappointed.”
The interview was seen by the royal family as the ultimate betrayal, and as the final straw for the monarch. A month after it aired, Buckingham Palace confirmed that the Queen has sent Charles and Diana a letter ordering them to divorce.
As part of the divorce settlement, Diana was stripped of her HRH title. Several of Diana’s staff, including her press secretary Patrick Jephson also quit after the interview aired.
“The Queen finally lost patience. This public mud-slinging wasn’t just harming to the monarchy, it was damaging for the young princes,” says royal author Penny Junor of the aftermath.
absolutely horrendous.”