Lady Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles wasn’t a royal fairy tale. She lived in
a love triangle and struggled with eating disorders from the very start of her life
in the Buckingham Palace. What’s worse, Diana knew that Charles was having an affair.
How did she confront him about it? How did Diana confront the “third person” in her
marriage? What were the signs that Charles still had a close relationship with Camilla?
And how did she ruin their honeymoon? Stay with me to find out what really happened in
the Diana-Charles-Camilla love triangle! In the light of her divorce with Prince Charles,
Diana was entangled in tabloid lies and was under public scrutiny. So to shed light on
how her life in the royal family looked like and to talk about her side of the story and
her part in her husband’s affair, Diana recorded a series of audiotapes in May 1991
and left the information about it to her close friend Dr. James Colthurst who delivered the
recordings to a UK journalist Andrew Morton. The tapes included Diana’s darkest secrets
about the Charles and Camilla thing, her battle with bulimia and suicidal thoughts. Morton
turned Diana’s confessions into a book, Diana: Her True Story - In Her Own Words which
was published in 1992. Diana’s involvement in the publication was first kept a secret
but was revealed in 1997 after her death. In the tapes, Diana refers to Camilla Parker
Bowles as the “third person” in their marriage. That’s not really surprising because,
throughout their marriage, Prince Charles didn’t even try to hide his obvious affection
for Camilla. After all they were ex-lovers who first had a thing in 1972. So why didn’t
Charles just marry Camilla instead of ruining Diana’s life? She even said that the day
of her royal wedding was the worst day of her life! And didn’t Camilla seem like the
better match for Charles? She was his age, unlike Diana who was 13 years younger, and
has always treated him as an equal and not someone she worshipped. But that wasn’t
enough for the royal family to consider Camila as Charles’ future wife and they weren’t
interested in having her as a princess. And why?
Well, first of all, Camilla was viewed as an “experienced” woman. Yeah, they were
in the 20th century but this medieval-like standard was still a thing in the royal family
back then. Another thing is that Camilla wasn’t perceived as “aristocratic” enough to
be a princess and that’s why she wasn’t a suitable candidate for a spouse of the future
king. Even Prince Charles’ great uncle, Lord Mountbatten advised him that it was good
that he had a fling but it absolutely couldn’t end in marriage. Soon after that, Charles
was called on naval business abroad and this distanced him and Camilla. Then she reconnected
with her former lover, Andrew Parker Bowles and it’s rumored that her father planted
a fake Camilla-Andrew engagement notice in The Times. That’s how Prince Charles returned
home to the news Camilla and Andrew’s engagement. And because of the fake engagement news, Andrew
proposed for real! Do you think that if that hadn’t happened, Charles might have married
Camilla despite his family’s objections? So now that his lover was taken and Charles
was getting older, he started going on dates with “suitable” women until he met Diana
Spencer in 1980. But all that time, Camilla was still in his heart and even occasionally
in his plans! Did you know that at first Diana and Camilla
were friends?! It’s those you keep close that later turn out to be snakes. They met
very early on when Diana started dating Charles and was introduced to their circle. She said
that she was a threat even though she was a very young girl. Not long after Charles
and Diana’s engagement, when he went away to Australia, Camila sent Diana a letter inviting
her to lunch to “see the ring”. As Diana described it was “very tricky” and Diana
was then very immature. But then some incidents that kept repeating
started making Diana feel suspicious about a potential secret romance. Apparently, Charles
and Camilla had nicknames for each other, Fred and Gladys. The first thing that alarmed
the princess was when her future husband sent Camilla flowers when she was sick with a note
‘To Gladys from Fred’. And two weeks before the wedding, Charles had gifted a personalized
bracelet to Camilla with a blue disc with G and F on it. And if you think this is bad,
then wait for the next thing. Because Charles actually wore a gift from Camilla on his and
Diana’s honeymoon! So after their July wedding in 1981, Prince
Charles and Princess Diana had their honeymoon in Gibraltar and sailed on the Royal Yacht
Britannia. And you would think that maybe that amazing two week trip would bring the
couple closer, it wasn’t as great as everyone would have expected. Well, just like their
whole relationship. On the first day of their honeymoon, Diana noticed Charles wearing a
pair of cufflinks which had two letter C’s on them. She immediately knew that it had
to be a gift from Camilla, who was Charles’ ex-girlfriend. Because what other two people
with their names beginning in C were there? Diana wasn’t having any of that and confronted
Charles about it. In her tapes, She revealed that once, as they
were opening their diaries to discuss stuff, out of Charles’ diary there fell out two
pictures of Camilla! Who carries not one but two pictures of their ex-girlfriend in their
planner?! So I’m not surprised that Diana was so done when she noticed cufflinks on
his wrists with two C’s entwined like the Chanel C. That’s why after the divorce she
refused to wear Chanel clothes! Obviously she immediately asked if Camilla gave it to
him and what was Charles’ answer? He confirmed and asked what was wrong with that because
they were a gift from a friend. And then Diana said that after that they had a massive row.
That wasn’t the only argument the two had over Camilla. Diana also recalled that she
once overheard Charles talking to Camilla on the phone while he was in the bath. He
said that whatever happened, he would always love Camilla. All that stress caused by the
failing marriage massively influenced Diana’s health.
Lady Di also had an eating disorder which she developed a week after she and Charles
got engaged! In the part of the book based on her tapes which came out after her death,
she revealed the truth about her battle with bulimia. It took her nearly ten years to overcome
it but how did it start? Diana said that her husband put his hand on her waist and said:
“Oh, a bit chubby here, aren’t we?” and this triggered something in her. And it
wasn’t only that but also the Camilla thing. She could barely even function because of
it because her husband’s lover would even appear in her dreams!
Friends advised Diana to ignore the suspicions of an affair between her husband and his long-time
friend but she felt that she had to confront Camilla. Everyone knew what she was getting
herself into while approaching Camilla about the affair. Diana described in the tapes how
the whole thing played out. So how did the whole thing look like according to the recording?
Diana approached Camilla when she was chatting with Prince Charles and another friend in
a room downstairs. She asked if they could have a moment alone and Charles started frantically
running asking the friend what she was going to do. What was he so scared of if Camilla
was just an “old friend”? Lady Di actually admitted that she was terrified of Camilla
but she still told her boldly that she wanted her to know that she knew exactly what was
going on. Obviously Camilla tried to avoid the claim and said she had no idea what Diana
was talking about. She said that the princess had everything she could ever want. She had
two beautiful kids and all the men in the world were in love with her so what more she
would want. So Diana replied that she wanted her husband.
What’s weird and kinda sad is that Diana apologized for being in the way of Camila
and Charles but she was still angry. That’s why she told Camilla to not treat her like
an idiot because she did know what was going on. Diana couldn’t sleep the night following
the confrontation and even though she still felt a little bit jealous, she also felt a
“tremendous shift” afterward. Lady Di indeed wasn’t a fool because in 1994 Charles
publically admitted to being unfaithful and in 1996 the couple filed for divorce.
The divorce was finalized a year before Diana’s accident and Charles had rekindled his romance
with Camilla who was also recently divorced. According to a royal expert, Charles tried
to bring up the subject of Camila to his sons William and Harry two months before their
mother died. And how did they react? As you would expect! They were rather cold, especially
William. Charles sensed that his older son didn’t want to know about it, so he didn’t
bring it up again. He wanted to be sensitive to his sons’ feelings and didn’t want
to anger the public who absolutely adored the late Diana.
As we know, Prince Charles married Camilla in 2005. But what is the relationship between
her and Prince William and Prince Harry like now? After all, they were extremely close
to their mother, Princess Diana and they loved her more than words and to this day they make
sure that her legacy lives on. How do they feel about the woman their father cheated
on their mom with being their stepmother? Apparently, Camilla didn’t try to replace
Diana and William and Harry were aware of that. It seems that they get along with Camilla
and apparently they have a great relationship with her. She appears at all the official
events like weddings or christenings and she looks very happy. Do you think this is really
how it is? Or is it just a show for the media to stop the speculations about their bad relationship?
Why did Diana decide to record the tapes talking about her life and then give them to a journalist?
It’s because she felt so lonely knowing that Charles had a lover and whenever she
tried to talk about it with him or the Queen she’d always been dismissed. Then she started
to realize that if she didn’t take action, for the rest of her life she would be sentenced
to living an unhappy and dishonest life. Lady Di’s first thought was to pack her
bags and run away to Australia with her young sons. But the problem was that she wouldn’t
have been allowed to keep them there and people might have considered her behavior irrational
and hysterical. And she actually had a fear that the people in the royal family who were
against her, would have her classified as mentally ill and she would have been locked
away. So as she had no one to turn to she finally realized that before whatever she
decided to do she had to tell the whole story of her life, otherwise the public wouldn’t
understand the reasons behind it. So through her friend Dr. Colthurst she started to give
snippets of information to the journalist Andrew Morton. When she saw that she could
trust him, they arranged taping sessions where Diana talked about all her experiences which
later made the book Diana: Her True Story - In Her Own Words.
It was so brave of Diana to confront Camila. Do you think she did the right thing? Do you
think that William and Harry really get along well with their stepmother Camilla? Let's
talk about it in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel to become
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