Princess Diana biographer speculates on why she chose him
Fox411: Andrew Morton penned the 1992 biography 'Diana: Her Story' and says she was reportedly at her wit’s end when she decided to tell her heart-wrenching story
Before the world anticipated the arrival of Meghan Markle’s royal baby, her late mother-in-law Princess Diana of Wales, privately struggled as a new mom.
The royal previously spoke to British journalist Andrew Morton for his 1992 book “Diana Her True Story,” where she candidly shared the struggles she experiences as she navigated life with a newborn who happened to be the future king of England.
PRINCESS DIANA HAD 'A LONELY MISERABLE LIFE INSIDE THE PALACE'
Morton would secretly pass his questions to Diana’s friend James Colthurst, who in turn would privately record the conversations and send the tapes back to him for his book. The three-way correspondence took place before Diana’s divorce from Prince Charles in 1996.
Prince Charles and then-wife Princess Diana of Wales. (Reuters)
“Came home and then postnatal depression hit me hard and it wasn’t so much the baby that had produced it, it was the baby that triggered off all else that was going on in my mind,” Diana once recalled after giving birth to her firstborn Prince William, as reported by People magazine Thursday. “Boy, I was troubled.”
Diana said she often worried about Charles, who was unaware she was faced with postpartum depression.
“If he didn’t come when he said he was coming home I thought something dreadful had happened to him," she said. "Tears, panic, all the rest of it. He didn’t see the panic because I would sit there quietly.”
PRINCESS DIANA'S NIECE TELLS ALL
Britain's Prince William, the 6-month old son of British Prince Charles and Princess Diana, during a special picture call at Kensington Palace in London. (Associated Press)
Diana claimed things only got worse during William’s christening. She described being shunned by the royal family.
“Endless pictures of the queen, queen mother, Charles and William,” said Diana. “I was excluded totally that day. I felt desperate because I had literally just given birth — William was only six weeks old. And it was all decided around me. Hence the ghastly pictures.”
“Everything was out of control, everything,” Diana continued. “I wasn’t very well and I just blubbed my eyes out. William started crying too. Well, he just sensed that I wasn’t exactly hunky-dory.”
But there was more occurring behind palace doors. Even before Diana married Charles in a televised wedding that attracted about 750 million viewers worldwide in 1981, she long suspected he was having an ongoing affair with his ex-girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles, now the Duchess of Cornwall.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana arrive with Prince William in Alice Springs, Australia. (Reuters)
PRINCESS DIANA REGRETTED SHOCKING INTERVIEW
“Here is Prince Charles telling Diana that he’s going to give a bracelet to his old lover just before the wedding,” Morton told Fox News back in 2017. “Just a few days before the wedding. And then keeps pictures of Camilla in his diary on their honeymoon. What woman is not going to be incensed by this crass and insensitive behavior? Diana was very suspicious of Charles’ relationship with Camilla right from the get-go. And who could blame her? He left her behind, but the fact that he’s been [currently] married for 12 years to Camilla shows that he still had plenty of love in his heart for his former mistress.”
When it came to Charles loving Diana, Morton seemed unsure.
“Diana said to me that when he asked her to marry him… she said, ‘Oh yes, yes I will. I love you so much.’ And Prince Charles, even in the privacy of that moment, said, ‘Whatever love means.’ And he gave that famous television interview, ‘whatever love means.’ So you have to ask yourself, did he really have any kind of genuine feeling for Diana or was she, as she felt herself, a sacrificial lamb…producing an heir and a spare and then being discarded?”
Princess Diana plays with Prince Harry by a stream. (Associated Press)
Morton added Diana quietly endured the collapsing marriage and constant attempts to fit in with the royal family because she was struggling with an eating disorder, as well as the pressures that came with a high-profile role, where every public engagement was scrutinized by the press. Somehow, he claimed, she continued to hope things would get better with time.
“[Diana] was hoping she would come to terms with this new life and move on,” he said. “But she realized she was living this lie… seemingly the wife of Prince Charles. And yet you got Prince Charles, who was effectively with another man’s wife at Highgrove, their country estate, while she languished alone at Kensington Palace.”
PRINCESS DIANA'S DEATH COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED?
There was also one memory in Morton’s book that he insisted left her in tears, which hinted she was also suffering from depression.
Young Prince Harry, 3, yawns as his mother Princess Diana holds him during a morning picture session at Marivent Palace. (Reuters)
“It was a chapter where she was talking about what she called the ‘dark ages’ and how worthless she felt,” he explained.
However, Diana found a sense of happiness in her marriage with the birth of her two sons. The former couple welcomed William in 1982, followed by Prince Harry in 1984. Morton claimed that while Diana was pregnant with Harry, she and Charles experienced an intimate connection, one that involved him reportedly writing love notes to his wife. But after Harry was born, the relationship soured until they finally divorced.
But even while Diana coped with the end of her marriage, she relied on her sons for support.
“As the boys got older and became like her counselors and friends as sons, she began to enjoy life a lot more,” said Morton. “Diana was very protective of William and Harry. [If] you ever criticized the boys... she would be on you like a tigress. She was the only one who could criticize those two. Of course, she indulged them… She wanted to be a full hands-on parent herself. And interestingly, Prince William recently said the same about his own children, George and Charlotte. He wants them to enjoy a relatively normal upbringing.”
This is a 1984 file photo shows Britain's Princess Diana with sons Prince William, foreground, and Prince Harry. Long dismissed as a party boy, Prince Harry has transformed himself in the public eye and enjoys widespread popularity as he prepares to marry Meghan Markle on May 19, 2018. Harry has become a forceful advocate for veterans and won admiration by speaking openly about his struggle with the pain caused by the early death of his mother, Princess Diana. (AP Photo, file) (AP Photo)
Diana passed away in 1997 at age 36 from injuries she sustained in a car crash in Paris.
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