She was the “People’s Princess” adored by the world. But behind palace doors, Princess Diana was riddled with paranoia and jealousy over her husband’s years-long affair with Duchess Camilla (née Parker Bowles), episode 2 of the “Fatal Voyage: Diana Case Solved” podcast revealed.
In the explosive new episode hosted by former detective Colin McLaren, Diana’s closest confidantes recalled how attacked the late princess felt by her own husband. Author and former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown, who first met newlywed Diana in 1981, said the princess’ knowledge of Prince Charles‘ affair shook Diana to her core.
“Diana felt the threat of Camilla very early,” Brown revealed. “She was so deeply jealous and became so deeply paranoid about Camilla that she, in a way, almost willed the truth to be as it was, which was that they became reinvolved.”
Diana was thrust into the royal spotlight at just 19 years old without any guidance of how to carry herself on the world stage. In turn, Prince Charles felt pressure from his family to rush into marriage and supply the heir and the spare. The marriage was prominently fake from the start, former Daily Mail royal correspondent Richard Kay explained in episode 2.
“They’d only met on a dozen occasions before they got engaged. In the early days of their relationship, she had to call him ‘sir,'” Kay said. “I mean, all of these things seem utterly laughable looking back now.”
Brown recalled Diana’s “devastation” as she discovered sentimental gifts Charles and Camilla exchanged behind her back — one in particular being a pair of cufflinks Charles wore on his honeymoon gifted by the Duchess of Cornwall.
“She always felt that Camilla was in their marriage and that she couldn’t somehow get her out,” Brown said.
Rejected by her own husband and further scorned by the royal family, Diana turned to self-harm and suffered from bulimia.
The late princess’ former personal bodyguard, Ken Wharfe, said the royals turned a blind eye to Charles’ infidelity and did nothing to stop him.
“There was nothing secret about the Prince of Wales’ relationship with Camilla. Everybody inside Buckingham Palace knew exactly what was happening — this was the problem.”
Episode 2 also revealed explosive details of the moment Diana confronted Camilla face-to-face at the Duchess’ sister Annabel‘s 40th birthday party.
“It was this sort of moment of silence until eventually Diana had a great deal of courage and confidence, went across to Camilla and said, ‘Listen, please don’t treat me like an idiot,'” Wharfe recalled.
As fans of the royal family know, Diana died in a horrific Paris car crash on August 31, 1997. She has since missed milestone moments in her sons Prince William and Prince Harry‘s lives, including their respective marriages to Duchess Kate (née) Middleton and Duchess Meghan (née Markle).
To read more about Diana: Case Solved, purchase the companion book by Colin McLaren and investigative journalist Dylan Howard at book stores or online.