Inside the private struggles of Diana, Princess of Wales | 7NEWS Spotlight

[Applause] now on sunday night it was if you like the stuff of fairy tales ah that's what everybody's been waiting for she seemed to fulfill all our romantic notions of what a princess should be [Music] behind the palace walls you can't do that i said what are we gonna tell the police the insiders reveal princess diana's most intimate secrets there would always mend 10 i think he was at the time 10. she was hunted she said i'm being hunted and she was the conspiracy my husband is planning an accident in my car a chilling letter never seen before that is odd that she should think that nine months before she died and the question everyone wants to ask are you harry's father diana was the jewel in the crown and at 36 has no age to die a sea of flowers and tributes covered kensington gardens a spontaneous expression of love for the people's princess it's been 20 years since diana's death and on this anniversary the central people in diana's life have agreed to step back into the spotlight her lover james hewitt her bodyguard ken wolfe the fleet street journal richard kaye her trusted butler paul barrow and her best friend rosa moncton the man who was by her side the longest was her trusted butler paul burrell during the 80s and 90s he was never far from the drama that surrounded the princess diana has been a blessing and a curse have a nice truth now it's a double-edged sword you can't have one without the other you have to weather the storm knowing that the good bits are worth it [Music] today paul runs a quaint florist shop in the north of england still surrounded by memories of the most exciting times of his life might start at the very beginning and ask you about when you first met diana it would be 1980 and the queen said to me a young lady is arriving this afternoon as a house guest and the car arrived and this very shy innocent girl stepped out and i said can i take your bag and she said yes i said one small bag how are you going to survive the weekend and she said oh my goodness i've not made a very good impression have i during the early days of her courtship with prince charles she kept working at a local kindergarten even as the media interest intensified she certainly ticked all the boxes i mean she was beautiful right background a virgin we're led to believe you know all the things that were absolute requirements for an heir to the throne for fleet street correspondents like richard k diana added spice to the royal round he reported extensively on diana and eventually became a trusted friend i remember that photo of her at the kindergarten she had her long skirt on and the sun shining behind it do you remember that picture i remember that picture extremely well because that was the day that everybody said oh wow and she's got legs too she had fantastic legs [Music] the royal family didn't do glamour suddenly that all changed diana was glamour on on sticks i mean she really was and she sprinkled this sort of fairy dust over the stuffy old house of windsor and transformed it almost overnight coldhearn court is very famous where did diana live this is where it all began darna's apartment was up there on the first floor she shared it with three friends she was dating charles while she lived here so we remember diana dashing out the front yup hopping into the mini running around the corner into the mini metro all the photographers crowding around some tripping over themselves she's got a head down that's where the shy died story began she sort of hit her eyes below her fringe i mean she was faintly embarrassed by it all she was 19. that's so young i know she was barely out of school herself how will you coping with all the press attention well as you can you can see you can tell are you bearing up with it quite well though because it must be quite a strain with all of us well it is naturally the air to the throne presented his beautiful bride-to-be on february 24 1981 prince charles announced diana would be his queen the pair looked anything but comfortable just delighted and unhappy and i i'm amazed that she's been brave enough to take me on and i suppose in love of course whatever in love means it was really doomed from the outset in in many ways and diana was not the pliant conventional daughter of an earl that um one might have expected she had an independent thought but she was great cunning she was very smart she was witty and fast [Music] on the 29th of july 1981 a crowd of more than 600 000 lined the streets for the royal wedding i diana francis hi diana francis take the charles philip arthur drawer to my wedded husband my little husband to have and a home to happen to hope from this day forward this day forward so happy she was so happy on that day something i'll never forget how are you enjoying married life highly recommended have you cooked a breakfast yet a year later diana gave birth to prince william and soon after brought him here to [Music] australia [Music] i'll never forget the prince of wales later complaining whenever he got out of the car on his side there'd be sighs and ooze oohs and arse from the crowd and he would apologize i'm sorry my wife's on the other side and that side of the road would get diana and there'd be lots of shrieks and crying with happiness was he jealous i think he was i think he was jealous of her popularity i'm about to be eclipsed by somebody well that somebody was his wife less than a day old he already sports four highly traditional names but he'll be known say his parents as harriet was there love and happiness in the marriage in the early years i think there was love there i think those two boys are born out of love i do royal bodyguard ken wharf had the role of keeping diana and her boys safe ken shared special family moments including william's first day at school prince william is in form one red with 19 other boys we arrived at the school of 60 to 70 photographers one wave and he was gone there's all these new boys there waiting to get into the school and eventually one sort of tiptoed across this floor sort of peered straight into william's face and said to him says excuse me he said is it true that you know the queen and william so cool he said don't be silly don't you mean granny and and that's how it was from that moment on right through to what eight nine years working within that household it wasn't actually a bad place to be i have to say that but it wasn't long before cracks started to appear in the royal marriage [Music] i'd firmly believe that dinah did love the prince of wars that she told me on a number of occasions whether he did is another matter rumors were building that charles was secretly seeing his former flame camilla parker bowles and diana was falling in love with her riding instructor captain james hewitt i think because she was quite easy to fall in love with really so i think i can be forgiven for that [Music] in just a few years diana had become more famous than any other royal in history she danced with john travolta on vip lists at the most glamorous events and for the most part she seemed to enjoy the trappings of her celebrity she sold magazines in their millions newspapers too she knew the pulling power she had and every time she appeared in public the princess made a fashion statement her dresses now sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars and i'm about to get a personal fitting from her former butler well i thought you'd like to see this beautiful this is one of the princess's favorite dresses that she gave my wife maria and actually you're about the same height well i was going to ask how tall was she yeah about about you so i think she's feeling tall yes boy did she carry this well she was very glamorous she was in public diana was confident but in private she was falling apart her marriage was crumbling years later she would admit to being in the grip of a devastating eating disorder i had bulimia for a number of years and that's like a secret disease you inflicted upon yourself because you're self-esteem mr loeb and you don't think you're worthy or valuable how badly did the bulimia group her life she never escaped from it ever never there's not a pill for bulimia it's a mental condition it's about lots of talking it's about being supportive being there for someone the private diana was a lot lonelier than i had imagined all i ever wanted she said was to somebody put their arms around me and tell me i was beautiful and they love me that's all i wanted and that's something which eluded her the most famous woman in the world trapped inside a palace lovely diana's own words she talks about bulimia a lot you came into her life when she was clearly very unhappy did you give her the confidence to blossom i hope so whenever she was at my home in devon or or with me she said she didn't suffer from that so i like to think i helped just about freezing a bit chillier than australia just a little in devon in the southwest of england i meet captain james hewitt the man diana turned to for comfort and love i suppose i was a good listener i suppose that's how it started not really intentional [Music] james hewitt was 28 tall handsome and charming they met at buckingham palace where james was an army officer in the queen's lifeguards regiment diana asked him for riding lessons she had an aura of there's something special around her do you remember when you realised you were falling in love for this gorgeous young woman yes um because it's ever a gradual period and then you know suddenly you can't you know get enough of each other or see each other as much as you want but did you want a whisker away from it all yes yes and she wanted that too [Music] what did you guys do together what what did the two of you do with your time away from london from paparazzi from spying eyes frivolity really is an escapism walk amazingly not far from where we're sitting now along the beach or on the moor a bit of cooking well i'd cook and she'd wash up just dinner and relaxing and laughing protecting diana on these secret rendezvous with james was her bodyguard ken wharf you're sleeping on a camp bed in a hallway while princess diana's behind closed doors with james hewitt were you embarrassed i no i didn't i wasn't embarrassed i didn't have a problem with it i mean i you know it's pretty obvious you know what was happening and but again it wasn't for me to moralize on this i was there for one specific reason i would never let her down as the affair became more serious james got to know william and harry even visiting them at their country home high grove the love and affection their help for their mother was tangible i had little uniforms made for them and shared around some vehicles at windsor military vehicles i suppose a lot of boys at that age are quite keen but they followed it through and joined up and served their country which is commendable i mean it really is at the height of their affair james was called up to serve in the gulf war the time apart put pressure on their relationship but the end came when it was exposed in the media did you in your heart think that you would be able to hold on to it well for a short period yes as someone who loved her what did you hope would happen with the two of you it's a very good question and it's quite difficult to answer because there wasn't really any hope and i was it was torn between duty and love really i mean it sounds a bit corny but it's true james returned to england forced out of the army and was maligned in the media for selling his story he's lived in virtual seclusion ever since what were the biggest misconceptions about you well you know love rat kiss and tell all these headlines and accusations the most damaging i think and i wouldn't wish on anyone because they're not true perhaps most hurtful of all the claims made about their affair was that james is prince harry's father a view some even still believe today are you harry's father no i'm not why does that keep being repeated sells papers that's heartbreaking for you for him it's worse for him probably poor chap so many people say to me do you think that harry was that james hewitt's child no not possible because that affair didn't start until harry was born it had become apparent to all that the marriage was over and publicly diana made no effort to hide it i think of that image of her sitting on the seat outside the taj mahal that was such a public declaration of there's really no going back from here yeah it spoke volumes about the state of of their marriage the queen and the duke of edinburgh ten months after that picture came this it is announced from buckingham palace that with regret the prince and princess of wales have decided to separate she was 19 when she became engaged incredibly young and at that age you romance is a fairy tale you know and when it turns out that actually life isn't like that i think that is difficult and it was very difficult for her rosa monkton was diana's best friend and became a shoulder to cry on as the royal marriage was coming to a dramatic end i remember her saying to me you know i go out into the streets and people wave at me and say they love me then i come home and nobody does [Music] in 1994 in an extraordinary television interview prince charles admitted to his affair with camilla parker-bowles did you try to be faithful and honorable to your wife when you took on the vow of marriage yes absolutely and you were yes until it became irretrievably broken down the princess was devastated that the prince should actually come out with this information and really ridicule her what was camilla like diana called her the rottweiler yeah it's a it's not exactly an encouraging phrase uh to be called but you know i can understand that because camilla didn't go away do you think mrs parker-bowles was a factor in the breakdown of your marriage well there were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded in a candid 1995 interview diana also detailed her affair with james hewitt did your relationship go beyond a close friendship yes it did yes were you unfaithful yes i adored him yes i was in love with him but i was very let down did you love her very much yes i did yeah that's why it's difficult to talk about it really but i did yeah yeah do you regret meeting diana no i don't regret that yeah i regret some of the things that have been caused by that but not that at all no way there had been years of scandals and sordid headlines but for the queen diana's public sledging of charles was the final straw do you think he would wish to be king there was always conflict on that subject with him when we discussed it and because i know the character i would think that the top job as i call it would bring enormous limitations to him and i don't know whether he could adapt to that she told me herself that she realized she shouldn't have questioned charles's suitability uh to be king because that was the critical thing as far as the monarchy was concerned as far as the queen was concerned that's where she overstepped the line when she started saying charles basically wasn't up to it the queen ordered a divorce and stripped diana of her royal title making her an outcast she was 35 more famous than ever and now searching for her place in the world uh the royal marriage over diana began the new chapter in her life immersing herself in the job of being a mum my first priority will continue to be our children william and harry who deserve as much love and care and attention as i am able to give [Music] diana wanted the boys to have as close to a normal upbringing as possible she encouraged them to do commonplace activities like going to a theme park these were great days because you could see the kids enjoying themselves it was something difficult the objectors were to say why would diana why do you want to take your kids to a theme park i mean the prince of wales i think this i what harry had left would rip it up why do you want to go to the theme park because that's what kids want they were great father because what a kids want to do they want to drench the security so you have to live with that because diana found that highly entertaining diana was also using her popularity to highlight causes that were close to her heart the carnage caused by abandoned landmines i'm only trying to highlight a problem that's going on all around the world [Music] changing the way the world viewed aids we thought it was a new plague and that merely touching the hands of an aid sufferer would pass this disease on so this one day in early 1987 she went to an age unit and donna shook hands with these people and she shook hands without gloves and immediately it sort of broke the taboo broke down a barrier and suddenly it made a huge difference to the way people engaged with aids and the notion of what it meant [Music] her humanity was absolutely extraordinary her way of cutting through race language you know she didn't need words very often it was a look or a touch diana's humanity was felt in a very personal way by her close friend rosa monkton when rosa gave birth to a stillborn baby diana made a surprising offer was it she who suggested burying your baby at kensington palace yes yes it was it was um and again you know what an extraordinary thing to do i said what are we going to tell the police how are we going to get it through security she said well i'm going to tell the chief inspector that we're going to bury a pet in the garden she says only you i and rosa will know it's a baby we had a very very moving ceremony and she gave me a key to the garden she said you come in whenever you want policemen in the gate will know um i still have the key do you mean sir very much the following year rosa had another daughter domenica who has down syndrome diana once again offered her support she just gave me the biggest hug and picked domenica up and said i'm going to be her godmother she's going to need all the help she can get like rosa those closest to diana got to see there were many sides to this intriguing woman she was a very complicated person and very emotionally insecure volatile moody petulant all of those things dressed up in a beautiful way she had some real depth she was amusing she did great impressions [Music] she looked quite different away uh when she wasn't on show for example her hair was was much flatter and she would deliberately try and dress down she would always inevitably wear a baseball cap to cover her head and she had a very good line at sort of disarming people who would come up to us as as they often did here are you diana she said no but i'm told i look like her oh yeah you do and and we would walk on she craved an ordinariness that's what i would say about her [Applause] she also craved love and there was no shortage of potential suitors there were always men they were like flies the boss and i had this system of like a horse race we put everybody into a trap into a pen with all their names one to ten i think it was at the time ten and they were all vying for the princess's attention and they'd ring constantly there was a famous movie star there was a politician in the united states who promised her if you marry me i will make you the first lady of the united states of america most were kept secret a few were scandalous the leaked phone calls with james gilby known as squidgygate i love it i love it it was just a very short fling i i think well let's say that it was a friendship there's no doubt about that in terms of a fling that that there was some throwing around for certain but i it was not on the scale that that hewitt was ken wolfe had the unenviable task of keeping her private life private which led to a few tricky situations oliver [ __ ] tell me about him he was a a friend of the the prince of the prince of wales so this was playing pretty close at home i heard about this the famous cigar scene in the hallway in the fire well that happened i mean he was rather keen on his uh his kahiba cigars but unfortunately he set the alarm off one night in his departure um semi-naked trying to get out of the front of kensington palace in 1995 diana met a man she called mr wonderful the pakistani heart surgeon dr hasn't it khan did you meet him i did yes may i just ask you if he was a nice man he was lovely really lovely man yes and did he love her he did the secret relationship with the conservative doctor ended after two years and her next boyfriend couldn't have been more different dodi fayed was the womanizing playboy son of egyptian billionaire and harrod's owner muhammad al fayed she fell for dirty fired very quickly totally head over heels in a very short space of time diana and dodie's mediterranean romance in the summer of 1997 played out in front of the long lenses of the world's paparazzi among the media pack covering the sensational story was french photographer pierre su was there big money in it were people making a lot from them yes the money was flying the package loads of money fleet street were signing blank checks to everybody no limit uh it was absolutely amazing diana's butler paul spoke on the phone to her about the holiday she was having with her reportedly recreational drug-taking boyfriend dodie she said i just want to come home i miss my boys so much she says do you know what he doesn't spend any time with me he's constantly locking himself in the bathroom what's he doing in there i said oh come on you know what he's doing in there well it's so frustrating i don't like it she would not have married dodea alfred the unlikely couple had been together for seven weeks when diana traveled to paris with dodie on august 30 1997 with the paparazzi in hot pursuit i still to this day find the interest daunting and phenomenal because i actually don't like being the center of attention a normal day would be followed by four cars a normal day would come back to my car and find six freelance photographers jumping around me [Music] did you get that the whole time it's quite difficult she was hunted she said i'm being hunted and she was [Music] [Applause] [Music] it was a hot august night in paris diana and dodie had dinner here at the ritz the hotel owned by his billionaire father muhammad al-fayed and just like everywhere the couple went crowds of paparazzi followed french photographer pierre su had been pursuing the couple since their arrival in paris that afternoon so these are upon the arrival at the ritz hotel they were just ready to get getting ready to come out [Music] we we can't even see diana's face no but you can recognize her for sure that's how famous she was even from the back of her head you could tell who it was diana no longer had scotland yard protection her safety was in the hands of dodie's security team all the cctv shows one man running this show a man called henry paul he's not a policeman he's a civilian that works in the hotel he just so happens to have been an employer fired for many many years henry paul is seen talking to dodie talk to the princess he gets into the car they were leaving in a car parked at the back of the hotel most of the paparazzi were waiting at the front henry paul who was driving had been drinking all afternoon just after midnight and i learned that they had left they left through the back door they were heading towards dodie's apartment the paparazzi in hot pursuit on motorbikes up ahead the alma tunnel their mercedes traveling at nearly three times the speed limit i've got to say it's giving me chills knowing this is just nine minutes after leaving the ritz hotel henry paul lost control of the car and crashed into the 13th pillar in the tunnel both he and dodi fayed died instantly security officer trevor reese jones survived but diana suffered devastating internal injuries three and a half hours after the accident came the news the world feared the queen and the prince of wales and the prime minister have been informed of the accident and of the death of the princess of wales no that's not true that's not happened why are you telling me this and it took literally three four minutes for the truth to actually sink in picked up a message of voicemail on my mobile and um was told about it yeah so it was quite a shock [Music] paul barrell flew immediately to paris to be with diana and make the arrangements to bring her back to london the princess was lying on her bed she was covered by a white sheet to the neck and to the ankles and i approached the bed with [Music] and i held her hand and she was warm so i thought she's sleeping she's not dead this isn't a dead person in front of me so i keep telling her to wake up and i started to shake her hand wake up come on wake up and i realized that she wasn't going to wake up and then the floodgates opened because i realized that i'd lost my friend within hours the loss of diana was felt around the world the response was on a level never seen before she could have had no idea what an impact she had on people i found that really profoundly moving may those who died rest in peace and may we each and every one of us thank god for someone who made many many people happy more than two billion people watched diana's funeral on television the most poignant image of all her sons fifteen-year-old william and twelve-year-old harry marching stoically behind their mother's coffin nothing else mattered but those two boys without their mother i know that was my abiding memory really of that day it's the um envelope yes mummy we should have looked after her better it's shame shame on us for not appreciating what we had diana was the jewel in the crown we didn't appreciate her while we had her and at 36 there's no age to die [Music] diana's life was filled with drama and controversy as it turns out so was her death princess diana at the age of 36 has died of massive internal injuries [Music] there have been so many conspiracy theories it's as though none of us believed a princess could die the way she did none more so than dodi's father muhammad al fayette he was convinced it was murder the murder is definitely a matter the whole plot being executed from the head of the royal household who is prince philip [Music] the most extraordinary suggestion of foul play came from diana herself i do have a lot of letters and i've never shown them before you know i'm a bit reluctant to show them you now this particular letter is rather poignant because it's rather spooky thinking that she sat and prophesied her own death diana wrote this letter to paul burrell months before the fatal accident this particular phase in my life is the most dangerous my husband is planning an accident in my car brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry [Applause] [Music] were these thoughts that she had come up with or were they ideas that had been put into her mind from psychics and mystics yes you're right some of these thoughts did come from mystics and psychics but you can't get away from the fact that she actually wrote it she actually took time and bothered to write down what her fears and feelings were in the end the most investigated car crash in history came down to a speeding drunk driver and passengers not wearing seat belts it was as simple as that and as stark as that and as final as that and people find it very hard to accept that this star in the firmament should suddenly be wiped out in such an ordinary thing as a car crash 20 years on our fascination with diana remains as strong as ever [Music] you

Channel: 7NEWS Spotlight

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Keywords: News, Channel 7, documentary, interview, 7news, spotlight, feature, story, royal, diana, princess of wales, prince charles, prince william, prince harry, the queen, paris, diana's death, melissa doyle, paul burrell

Id: Y2X9_oFTsh4

Length: 42min 28sec (2548 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 01 2021