Diana rejected “personally assisting” Andrew Morton with the writing of his dynamite 1992 bio Diana: Her True Story, however she did permit her good friends to speak with him, she stated, to assist set the record directly on her behalf while her life behind the scenes was spiraling.
“A lot of people saw the distress that my life was in, and they felt it was a supportive thing to help in the way that they did,” she informed Bashir. The princess had actually believed that perhaps a book would offer individuals “a better understanding” of her. “Maybe there’s a lot of women out there who suffer on the same level but in a different environment, who are unable to stand up for themselves because their self-esteem is cut into two.”
She neglected, nevertheless, that she sent to interviews by proxy, Morton asking concerns by means of her buddy Dr. James Colthurst, who taped her actions. Diana likewise offered Colthurst (who in turn revealed them to Morton) a couple of pieces of personal correspondence from Camilla to Charles, the author shared in the Mail on Sunday in 2017.
“However, due to Britain’s libel laws, I wasn’t at the time able to write that Prince Charles and Camilla were lovers, because it couldn’t be proved,” Morton remembered. “Instead, I had to allude to a ‘secret friendship.'”
Unlike with the BBC interview, Morton stated, “She never regretted the taping sessions. As her friend filmmaker Lord Puttnam recalled: ‘She owned what she had done. She knew what she was doing and took a calculated risk, even though she was scared sh–less. But I never heard one word of regret, I promise you.'” (After she passed away, the book was republished as Diana: Her True Story—In Her Own Words.)
Still, Diana informed Bashir, the book (which “shocked and horrified” the royal household) was definitely a turning point for her and Charles. “What had been hidden—or rather what we thought had been hidden—then became out in the open and was spoken about on a daily basis, and the pressure was for us to sort ourselves out in some way.”
The figuring out led to their separation being officially revealed in December 1992, topping off the Queen’s “annus horribilis.”
