Princess Diana lived a notoriously tough life as a Royal. She was followed everywhere she went, as pictures of her became indispensable for the British tabloid press.
Not only was Diana hounded, but her marriage to King Charles was made all the more troublesome due to both love problems and affairs. In the end, the two divorced, and not long after, the beloved Princess passed away following that infamous car accident in Paris.
Looking back, it now seems like Princess Diana and Charles’ love story might have been smoke and mirrors from the very beginning. On the very eve of their wedding, Charles reportedly left his soon-to-be wife ‘devastated’ after sending her a secret note.
In that note, he also pretty much confirmed that he didn’t love her, according to Diana’s astrologer, Penny Thornton.
Princess Diana was loved all over the world. She was down-to-earth, funny, a caring mother, and a wonderful role model for many.
The tragic car accident in Paris that ended Diana’s life became a moment no one will ever forget. Diana was mourned all over the world, and her legacy will last forever.
For large parts of her royal life, she was hounded by the paparazzi press; it’s not a stretch to say that Diana became the most photographed person in the world.
Princess Diana – King Charles
Everybody wanted their own little piece of the princess. According to The Guardian, the paparazzi press were offering up to $500,000 for grainy pictures of her.
Her sons, William and Harry, saw both sides of how their mother was treated by the press. Only recently, Harry said that he actually wanted to leave the Royal Family in his early 20s, owing in large parts to how he witnessed his mother being treated before her death.
“Look what it did to my mum, how am I ever going to settle down and have a wife and a family when I know that it’s going to happen again,” Harry explained. “I don’t want to be part of this.”
Besides leading an extremely public life, Princess Diana also had many private problems. One of the biggest involved her husband, King Charles.
Just years after the wedding Diana, Charles engaged in an affair with Camilla, who would later become his new wife.
According to reports, Charles and Camilla’s love story can be traced back to 1972, when they met at a polo match. In the book ”Charles and Camilla Portrait of a Love Affair”, author Gyles Brandreth claims that Charles and Camilla were introduced by their mutual friend Lucia Santa Cruz, the daughter of the Chilean ambassador.
The couple also dated for a while, but it stopped when Charles disappeared to serve in the Royal Navy. When he returned, Camilla was involved and engaged to Andrew Parker Bowles.
Bowles and Camilla married in 1973, but Camilla continued to have a close and friendly relationship with Charles. Back then, Charles had begun dating 16-year-old Diana Spencer.
When Diana was introduced to the Bowles couple, Camilla thought that the young lady was ”sweet and cute” and approved her. At first, Diana and Camilla got along well. But then things got uncomfortable.
”I met [Camilla] very early on. I was introduced to the circle, but I was a threat. I was a very young girl, but I was a threat,” Diana explained in the book ”Diana: In Her Own Words”.
Lunch with Camilla
After Diana and Charles’ engagement, Camilla wrote a letter to the Princess.
”Such exciting news. Do let’s have lunch soon when the Prince of Wales goes to Australia and New Zealand. And love to see the ring. Lots of love, Camilla.”
Diana invited Camilla to lunch, but it turned out to be a humiliating event. Or, as Diana described it: “very tricky, very tricky indeed.”
Camilla asked strange questions during lunch, and the young and immature Diana did not really understand what she was going after.
Among other things, Camilla wanted to know if Diana planned to accompany Charles when he went hunting.
“[Camilla] said: ‘You are not going to hunt, are you?'” Diana explained to Morton. “I said, ‘On what?’ She said, ‘Horse. You are not going to hunt when you go and live at Highgrove are you? ‘ I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘I just wanted to know.’
After that lunch, Diana became suspicious. She realized that Camilla wanted to know about her routines and check if it was possible for her to visit Charles during hunting excursions.
Just before the wedding, Diana went for another lunch – this time with her sisters.
“I went upstairs, had lunch with my sisters who were there, and I said, ‘I can’t marry him. I can’t do this. This is absolutely unbelievable,’” Diana can be heard saying during an audio recording in the documentary Diana: In Her Own Words. “They were wonderful and said, ‘Well, bad luck, Duch. Your face is on the tea towel, so you’re too late to chicken out.’”
Confronting Camilla
According to Charles’ authorized biography, as quoted by Town & Country, Charles and Camilla’s love affair started in 1986. At that time, Charles was still married to Princess Diana, and she found out about it.
In 1989, Diana confronted Camilla over the affair, telling her to back off.
“I know what’s going on between you and Charles and I just want you to know that,” Camilla recalled Diana saying in a tape released by The Telegraph, as quoted by Town & Country.
“[Diana] said to me: ‘You’ve got everything you ever wanted. You’ve got all the men in the world falling in love with you and you’ve got two beautiful children, what more do you want?’”
“So I said, ‘I want my husband.’ And I said, ‘I’m sorry I’m in the way and it must be hell for both of you. But I do know what’s going on. Don’t treat me like an idiot,’” Camilla explained.
This obviously must have been a great shock for Diana, as her husband didn’t seem to want her anymore. However, the problems involving Charles didn’t begin then. It was made clear even before the wedding that Charles had other plans in mind. At least, that’s what Diana’s astrologer, Penny Thornton claims.
Charles and Diana met in 1980, and soon after started dating. Only one year went by before Charles proposed, and in 1981, the couple announced their engagement.
“She had planned to go to Australia quite a long time before anyway with her mother and I thought ‘well I’ll ask her then so that she’ll have a chance of thinking it over when she’s away and saying I can’t bear the whole idea—or not, as the case may be,'” Charles told BBC Radio after the announcement.
In reality, however, Princess Diana was said to have accepted his proposal right away.
Charles’ secret note to Diana before wedding
But prior to their engagement, Diana had her doubts about marrying Charles.
“We had this ghastly interview the day we announced our engagement,” she said in Diana: In Her Own Words “And this ridiculous [reporter] said, ‘Are you in love?’ I thought, what a thick question.
“So I said, ‘Yes, of course, we are,’ and Charles turned round and said, ‘Whatever love means’. And that threw me completely. I thought, what a strange answer. It traumatized me.”
The wedding of King Charles and Diana took place on 29 July, 1981 at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. It was a day of joy for all the people who gathered to watch the two tie the knot. But for Diana, something had happened the day before which left her immersed in panic.
As any other person would be, she was nervous the night before the wedding. Princess Diana stayed at Clarence House that evening, and, as per reports, she received a gift from Charles out of the blue. It contained a secret note – in which he allegedly made a shocking confession.
The note offered some advice to Diana. She was only 20 years of age at the time, whilst Charles was 12 years older.
Left Princess Diana ‘devastated’
Charles had sent her a signet ring bearing the Prince of Wales feathers. The note read: “I’m so proud of you and when you come up I’ll be there at the altar for you tomorrow. Just look ’em in the eye and knock ’em dead'”, as reported by the Express.
However, Charles was said to have left Diana absolutely devastated. He made an admission the evening before the wedding because he “did not want to go into the marriage on a false promise”.
According to Princess Diana’s astrologer Penny Thornton – who worked very closely with her – Charles claimed that he didn’t love her.
“One of the most shocking things that Diana told me was that the night before the wedding Charles told her that he didn’t love her,” she said on the ITV documentary The Diana Interview: Revenge Of A Princess, as reported by the Mirror.
“I think Charles didn’t want to go into the wedding on a false premise. He wanted to square it with her and it was devastating for Diana.
“She didn’t want to go through with the wedding at that point, she thought about not attending the wedding.”
It was said that about 750 million people around the world watched the wedding of Princess Diana and Charles.
‘Mistake’ marrying Princess Diana
But even though the couple looked happy, Charles wasn’t sure about it at all. According to royal author Penny Junor, he believed it was a mistake marrying Diana – only, it was too late to call it off.
“Charles was not convinced he was doing the right thing in marrying Diana but there was no way out and, bolstered by the hope that things would be different once they were married, he put a brave face on it,” she wrote.
Just a year after the wedding, Prince William was born. Later, Harry would also arrive.
In an old unearthed letter, Diana gave a very short, but beautiful glimpse of what William and Harry’s childhood was like. Not only that, but also the very special childhood bond between the two.
The letter from Diana was written in March of 1985, just six months after the birth of her youngest son, Harry.
“William adores his little brother and spends the entire time swamping Harry with an endless supply of hugs and kisses, hardly letting the parents near!” Diana’s handwritten letter states, as reported by The Sun.
Beautiful letters on Harry & William
In other letters, Princess Diana revealed how a then-older Prince Harry was “constantly in trouble” at school. She also wrote about the joy of being a mother, as well as describing the “difficult period” in her life that was to follow.
Princess Diana oftentimes took William and Harry to theme parks and other fun venues. But she also knew what royal life entailed, including the fact that they had meals served at all times.
She knew the importance of William and Harry being just as any other child, even though they were royals. With this in mind, she would sneak them out of the palace to go and get fast food on occasion.
“I remember the princess came into the kitchen one day and said, ‘Cancel lunch for the boys, I’m taking them out, we’re going to McDonald’s,” Diana’s former personal chef Darren McGrady told Marie Claire.
“And I said, ‘Oh my God – your Royal Highness, I can do that, I can do burgers.’ And she said, ‘No, it’s the toy they want’.”
Princess Diana and Charles separated in 1992 following the breakdown of their marriage. In 1996, they officially got divorced.
Just one year after, tragedy struck an entire nation when Princess Diana passed away following a car accident in Paris.
Passed away in 1997
Diana’s death was a shock to all, leaving her sons, William and Harry, without a mother. The terrible car crash and its potential cause of it have been discussed and debated many times.
However, one person who found himself in the middle of the tragedy has now stepped forward in an interview.
Surgeon MonSef Dahman was working at a hospital in Paris at the time – and it was he who was charged with trying to keep Diana alive.
At approximately 12.23am, the car that Diana was travelling in crashed in a Parisian tunnel. She received lengthy treatment by doctors at the scene, but suffered cardiac arrest while in the ambulance.
“We fought hard, we tried a lot, really an awful lot,” he told Daily Mail. “Frankly, when you are working in those conditions, you don’t notice the passage of time. The only thing that is important is that we do everything possible for this young woman.”
“We could not save her. And that affected us very much.”
After Diana’s tragic death, Charles reportedly realized how much he actually loved Diana. In 2020, Diana’s friend and healer, Simone Simmons, claimed that Charles realized that Diana was the first one to show him what true love looks like.
She said: “Charles only realised he loved her after she died.
“I don’t think he realised how much he loved Diana until she was gone.
“She was the first person who showed him real love.”
Princess Diana will be forever in our hearts. Rest in peace.
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