Princess Diana’s infamous 1995 interview reportedly brought up a barrage of feelings for Prince William.
William, now 43, was 13 years old when his mother sat down for a tell-all on BBC’s Panorama, revealing the alleged details of her then-husband King Charles III’s years-long affair with the now-Queen Camilla.
Royal biographer Robert Lacey claimed in a resurfaced excerpt from his 2020 book, Battle of Brothers, that William watched the interview from his housemaster’s office at Eton College.
William was allegedly found “’slumped on the sofa” with his “eyes red with tears” after the interview aired. Elsewhere in the book, Lacey claimed that Diana hadn’t considered how the televised conversation would impact her sons, William and Prince Harry.
William specifically was apparently upset with “the idea of everything being on television.”
Diana and Charles, now 77, wed in 1981. Rumors of an affair swirled for years, but Diana appeared to confirm it during the Panorama interview, saying “There were three of us in this marriage.” Diana and Charles separated in 1992, finalizing their divorce in 1996.
Diana tragically died a year later, in August 1997, at age 36 after sustaining injuries in a car accident in Paris.
Years after the interview, BBC launched a formal investigation into reporter Martin Bashir, who allegedly used unethical tactics when convincing her to sit down for the interview.
It was alleged in 2020 that Bashir, now 62, created false bank statements which were shown to Diana’s brother as a way to apparently prove that someone was leaking information to the press about their family.
“The independent investigation is a step in the right direction,” William told Us Weekly in a November 2020 statement. “It should help establish the truth behind the actions that led to the Panorama interview and subsequent decisions taken by those in the BBC at the time.”
The People’s Princess always and forever. The British royal family has kept Princess Diana’s memory alive since her untimely death in August 1997. The mother of Prince William and Prince Harry died at the age of 36 after a car accident in Paris that resulted from her driver, Henri Paul, fleeing the paparazzi. Paul and […]
In May 2021, the BBC released its findings, revealing that the infamous interview “fell short of the high standards of integrity and transparency which are [the network’s] hallmark.”
The network also released an apology to William and Harry, now 41, saying that they were sorry “for the way in which Princess Diana was deceived and the subsequent impact on all their lives.” William later responded to the findings in a lengthy statement in defense of Diana.
“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 shared in May 2021. “It brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.”
He added, “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. She was failed not just by a rogue reporter, but by leaders at the BBC who looked the other way rather than asking the tough questions.”