At the end of this month, the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s untimely passing will come around.
Her legacy and memory has been the topic of conversation for some time.
Just last week, we saw Prince William and Prince Harry bravely bare their soul in the documentary, Diana Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy.
Now, audiences across the globe are being shocked to their core with a new film about the People’s Princess, titled Diana: In Her Own Words.
The 90-minute documentary was broadcast on Sunday, August 13 in the UK on Channel 4.
It has been two decades since the untimely passing of Princess Diana.
Princess Diana is filmed in a series of tapes and audio recordings, where she discusses a series of low points in her life including the breakdown of her marriage with Prince Charles, confronting his mistress Camilla Parker Bowles, her fight with bulimia and her love for Barry Mannakee.
The tapes were recorded by Diana’s close friend, Dr James Colthurst and her speech coach, ex-Coronation Street actor Peter Settelen.
While knowledge of the tapes have always been around and were first broadcast in the US on NBC in 2004, to hear and see Princess Diana speak so candidly about some of the most heart-wrenching experiences in her life is harrowing to the say the least.
Diana, pictured in the explosive tapes, addresses everything from her sex life to her relationship with the Royal Family.
In fact, many fans are haunted by the documentary.
One person voiced, “I’m a walking contradiction. I don’t agree with this being showing yet I’m so intrigued in watching it.”
Another penned, “Feel like I’m overhearing a conversation I shouldn’t be listening to.”
The Spencer family, lead by Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer tried exceptionally hard to have the tapes buried.
While there has been no official word from the British Royal Family on the recordings, Queen Elizabeth’s former press secretary Dickie Arbiter has said Diana had no idea the tapes would ever be made public.
“It is absolutely shameful that these tapes have been made available. It seems that there is sort of grubby blood money running around,” he told Sky News last week.
“Whether these tapes are revealing or not, they were recorded in private on the understanding they would remain private and … Settelen should have thought before giving them to Channel 4.”
But there are some who are defending the film.
Princess Diana’s former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, has described the footage as “legitimate additions to the historical record.”
Despite what’s been said of the documentary, there’s no denying that Diana voiced many astonishing new truths.
We look at the biggest revelations from Diana: In Her Own Words.
Who is Barry Mannakee
Barry and Diana, pictured in 1985.
The Princess hinted that she had loved someone who worked within the firm. Although she didn’t name him, it became clear she was referring to her personal protection officer, Barry Mannakee.
Just three weeks after the police guard was let go by the Royal Family, in light of rumours of a romance with Diana, Barry tragically passed away in a motorcycle accident in 1987.
“At 24, I fell deeply in love with someone who was part of all this, and that was all found out and he was chucked out and then he was killed.”
Diana mused, “And that was the deepest blow in my life, I must say. I don’t find it easy to discuss.”
“I was quite happy to give all of this up … just to go and live with him.”
While she did say that nothing sexual ever came of the relationship, she infamously was quoted saying, “I should never have played with fire and I did and I got very burned.”
Barry with Prince William in 1985.
Her views on Camilla Parker-Bowles
The battle between Diana and Camilla began even before the then-Lady Spencer was betrothed to Prince Charles.
Diana always knew that “somebody else around.”
“She knew so much about what he was doing privately. Eventually I worked it all out,” Diana confessed.
“I once heard him on the telephone saying ‘whatever happens I’ll always love you’. And I told him I’d listened at the door. We had a filthy row.”
Diana always knew that “somebody else around.”
Princess Diana once confronted Camilla over her affair with Charles: “Deathly calm and I said to her: ‘I’m sorry I’m in the way, I obviously am in the way and it must be hell for both of you but I do know what is going on.'”
In fact, Camilla became a constant cause of pain for the couple.
Before their 1981 wedding, Diana found a bracelet Prince Charles had made for his mistress.
“I was devastated. So rage, rage, rage. Why can’t you be honest with me?” she says.
“But no, (Charles) absolutely cut me dead. It was as if he’d made his decision and if it wasn’t going to work it wasn’t going to work.”
“He’d found the virgin, the sacrificial lamb and in a way he was obsessed with me but it was hot and cold, hot and cold.”
“Upstairs, she said to her sister ‘I can’t marry him. I can’t do this. This is absolutely unbelievable.’”
Sadly, her sister simply told her, “Bad luck Dutch. Your face is on the tea towel, so you’re too late to chicken out.”
Her battle with bulimia
The couple married on July 29, 1981.
“The bulimia started the week before we got engaged. My husband put his hand on my waistline and said ‘ooh bit chubby there, aren’t we?’And that triggered off something in me,” Diana recounts.
While the world watched on in awe during her wedding, the Princess of Wales recalls when she was first fitted in her dress her waist was 29 inches. By the time of the big day, she was 23.5 inches, musing, “I’d shrunk into nothing”.
“The public wanted a fairy princess. Little did they realise that the fairy princess was crucifying herself inside because she didn’t think she was good enough.”
The very different births of Prince William and Prince Harry
Diana was overjoyed when she first became pregnant with Prince William, but she admitted to have had crippling morning sickness.
During this time, her marriage was suffering.
“I threw myself down the stairs,” she recounted.
“Charles said I was crying wolf, and I just felt so desperate and I was crying my eyes out and he said ‘I’m not going to listen, you are always doing this to me… I’m going riding now’. So I threw myself down the stairs.”
“Queen comes out, horrified, shaking, so frightened. And Charles went out riding. And when he came back it was just dismissal.”
“William had to be induced because I couldn’t handle the press any longer. It was becoming unbearable.”
Diana also revealed she suffered Postnatal depression.
Diana held nothing back.
“Between William and Harry being born, it’s total darkness. I can’t remember. I’ve blotted it out. It was such pain.”
The experience with her second child was vastly different.
“Harry appeared by a miracle. Charles and I were very, very close to each other the six weeks before Harry was born. The closest we’ve ever, ever been and ever will have been,” she mused.
“And suddenly, as Harry was born (in September 1984), it just went ‘bang.’”
“Our marriage. The whole thing went down the drain,” she explains.
Prince Charles through Diana’s eyes
Diana revealed she said that when she confronted Charles about his relationship with Camilla, he replied: “I refuse to be the only Prince of Wales who never had a mistress.”
When she first met Prince Charles, Diana admitted she was “unimpressed”.
But the second time was different, “I am quite impressed this time round. He chatted me up, you know, he was like a bad rash, he was all over me, and I thought, you know, urgh.”
“He started kissing me and everything, and I thought, ‘Urgh this is not what people do’.’ She adds: ‘And he was all over me for the rest of the evening, followed me around, everything, like a puppy. I was flattered but I was very puzzled.”
The duo only met 13 times before becoming tying the knot.
Diana reveals she had met Charles only 13 times before their wedding.
Holding nothing back, Diana spoke of their sex life, describing it as, “Odd, very odd. But it was there, then it fizzled out about seven years ago, six years ago, well seven, because Harry was eight. Instinct told me, it was just so odd. I don’t know, there was no requirement for it from his case.”
The film also reveals she went to Queen Elizabeth for help regarding Charles and Camilla’s affair.
“I asked her, ‘What do I do? I’m coming to you, what do I do?’ to which she said the Queen replied: ‘I don’t know what you should do, Charles is hopeless.’ The princess adds: ‘And that was it. That was help. So I didn’t go back to her again for help.”
Tragically, Diana mused on the tapes that her hopes for the future: “[It’d be] quite nice to go and do things like a weekend in Paris”.
“I know one day if I play the game of life I will be able to have those things which I’ve always pined for. And they’ll be that much more special because I’ll be that much older and be able to appreciate them that much more.”
