Diana's TV tragedy
As Prince Harry and Earl Spencer claim the Panorama scandal directly led to Diana's death, we take a look at the sorry story that gets sadder the more it is told
It was the interview that shocked the world, but it has turned into a scandal of its own and part of one of the biggest tragedies of our time, writes Kerry.
This week, a long-awaited inquiry into how BBC journalist Martin Bashir secured his exclusive 1995 Panorama tell-all with Diana, Princess of Wales, revealed what her family always suspected – by lies. On Thursday, the Dyson Investigation concluded Bashir acted in a “deceitful” way and faked documents to get Diana to talk and the BBC’s internal investigation in 1996 was “woefully ineffective”.
The BBC has apologised and written to the Queen, Princes William and Harry, Prince Charles and Diana’s brother Earl Spencer, saying it showed “clear failings” and should have made more of an effort to get the truth at the time.
But a furious Earl Spencer says the interview can be linked directly to his sister’s death exactly two years later. “The irony is I met Martin Bashir on the 31st of August 1995, because exactly two years later she died. And I do draw a line between the two events,” he told the BBC. Prince Harry agrees. He issued a statement, saying, “The ripple effect of a culture of exploitation and unethical practices ultimately took her life. To those who have taken some form of accountability, thank you for owning it. That is the first step towards justice and truth. Yet what deeply concerns me is that practices like these – and even worse – are still widespread today. Our mother lost her life because of this, and nothing has changed.”
Prince William also made a video statement on Thursday saying it directly increased his mother’s paranoia. “It is my view that the deceitful way the interview was obtained substantially influenced what my mother said. The interview was a major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse and has since hurt countless others,” he said.
“But what saddens me most, is that if the BBC had properly investigated the complaints and concerns first raised in 1995, my mother would have known that she had been deceived. These failings, identified by investigative journalists, not only let my mother down, and my family down; they let the public down too.” The prince asked for the interview never to be shown again.
Certainly, the method Bashir used to get Diana to talk was wrong. He admitted to faking bank statements to show Earl Spencer, “showing” a former member of his staff was being paid by a newspaper group. But the earl’s notes from his and Diana’s secret meeting with Bashir appear to show lurid claims including Diana’s letters were being opened, her car tracked, phone tapped and friends betraying her, Charles was in love with nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke who had lost or aborted a child, Camilla was depressed, Prince William had a watch with a bug in it and Prince Edward had AIDS.
As to what effect this had on Diana, her former private secretary Patrick Jephson told the BBC that post-interview, Diana lost “the royal support structure that had guided and safeguarded her for so many years” which “inevitably made her vulnerable to people who didn’t have her best interests at heart, or were unable properly to look after her”. Certainly, she believed some of the stories – Tina Brown writes in her biography The Diana Chronicles that Diana shocked onlookers when she confronted Legge-Bourke in December 1995 at a staff Christmas party, saying, “Hello Tiggy, how are you? So sorry to hear about the baby.”
Without doubt, as William stated, it would have fed her paranoia and influenced her decision to speak so openly, although she had previously colluded with Andrew Morton for the book Diana: Her True Story in 1992. What the interview did, was hasten her divorce from Prince Charles the following year and finally cut her adrift from the Royal Family, with the ending we all know.
The Panorama interview is part of a sorry story that seems to get sadder the more it is told. In the year Diana should have turned 60, let’s hope this tragic tale is one that is never repeated again.
Harry drops more bombshells
Not a week goes by without Harry dropping a truth bomb on Buckingham Palace. This time, he seems to have pressed the ‘nuclear’ option as he unpacked his princely pain in his show The Me You Can’t See with co-creator Oprah Winfrey.
The duke’s revelations include accusing the Royal Family of “bullying”, of “total silence” and “total neglect” especially when Meghan was “struggling”, and trying to “stop” them from quitting their royal duties. He didn’t hold back on Meghan’s suicidal thoughts, Diana’s death, Charles’ parenting skills, his drink and drug binges and the “The Firm’s smears” against Meghan days before their Oprah interview aired in March. Harry also confessed to being “worried” and “afraid” about returning to London for Prince Philip’s funeral, as it was a “trigger” for his anxiety.
Recalling his mum’s funeral when he was 12, he said: “I didn’t want the [royal] life. Sharing the grief of my mother’s death with the world… It was like I was outside of my body and just walking along doing what was expected of me.” Later turning to drink and drugs to numb his grief, Harry admitted to drinking a week's worth of booze on a Friday or Saturday night to “feel less like I was feeling”.
Poignantly, in a clip which shows Harry and Archie playing on swings, he reveals keeping a photo of Diana in Archie’s nursery, and that one of Archie’s first words was “Grandma”. Diana eventually expressed regret over her seismic Panorama interview, realising its repercussions on her life, and how it affected her children. It would be a crying shame if Harry one day felt the same.
William reveals king-sized guns
Prince William rolled up his sleeve and had his first coronavirus jab this week, thanking “all those working on the rollout for everything they’ve done and do”. Hear, hear! But if we’re honest, we’re thanking his personal trainer/workout regime for sculpting those surprise royal guns. The athletic dad-of-three has always been fit, see him playing polo here, but it seems he’s lifting weights two to three times a week too.
How to get HRH arms: According to the experts at Women’s Health, a combination of bicep curl exercises, such as Zottman curl, hammer curl and (appropriately) curtsy lunge with biceps curl, works a treat. Choose six here and do three to four sets of 12 reps for a complete biceps workout.
Beatrice joins the royal baby boom
Newlyweds Princess Beatrice and husband, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi are expecting a baby this autumn. It will be the Queen’s 12th great-grandchild and, after Meghan delivers her daughter this summer, the fourth royal baby born this year. Beatrice’s younger sister, Princess Eugenie, gave birth to son, August, in February, followed in March by Zara Tindall’s third child, Lucas.
New mum-to be Beatrice is already a stepmum to Edoardo’s five-year-old son, Christopher Woolf (known as Wolfie), who he shares with ex- fiancée Dara Huang. Beatrice announced her pregnancy on Wednesday via a Buckingham Palace statement, which was also the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s third wedding anniversary. Did it have anything to do with Meghan revealing her pregnancy at sister Eugenie’s wedding in 2018? Some think so. Here’s what Eugenie had to say.
Charles launches the Queen’s Treebilee!
Finally, get on board for the Treebilee! The Prince of Wales launched his Treebilee this week, posting a photo of him planting an oak sapling at Windsor Castle, with the Queen (she has planted more than 1,500). Charles is encouraging everyone in the UK to “plant a tree for the Platinum Jubliee”, to mark his mother’s 70-year reign in 2022, as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy Scheme. “As we approach this most special year,” he said, “I invite you all to join me to plant a tree for the jubilee - in other words - a treebilee!” Three million saplings will be given away by the Woodland Trust on a first-come, first-served basis. Sign up here. Don’t miss out, or you may be committing treeson and Special Branch will arrest you.