DIANA AND CHARLES RELATIONSHIP MOMENTS THAT ARE ONLY NOW COMING TO LIGHT

In the 21st century, we all know a royal’s life isn’t exactly a fairytale. But back in the ’80s, before instantaneous communications and social media, everyone believed in storybook love. Nevertheless, then, as today, reality was far from “happily ever after.”

Even though their marriage ended more than 20 years ago, it seems like Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s whirlwind romance – and how it ended – has never been more relevant. Meghan Markle’s recent experiences aside, Netflix’s The Crown brought everything to the forefront again. The show, however, isn’t a documentary. This is the truth of what happened between Charles and Diana, and how it all went so wrong.

Doomed from the start

In 1992, Buckingham Palace wrote the final chapter in a storybook marriage that went horrifically wrong. With just seven sentences, the Palace announced that the Prince and Princess of Wales’s marriage was effectively coming to an end, 11 years after they tied the knot in front of the eyes of the world.

Though no one seemed to realize it at the time, we now know their relationship had no hope from the outset. So how did it all go so wrong? Well, Diana wasn’t actually the first Spencer girl Charles had his eye on…

Dating her sister

Charles and Diana’s relationship doesn’t actually begin with Charles and Diana. Instead, it begins with Charles and Lady Sarah Spencer, Diana’s older sister. The two dated, briefly, until Lady Sarah got a little too candid with the press. Besides laying bare her personal demons, she told reporters she wouldn’t marry Charles whether he was the garbage man or the King of England.

Suitably furious, Charles ended the relationship soon after. While they were still together, however, he visited Althorp House, the Spencers’ residence since 1508. There, he met 16-year-old Diana for the first time.

It began with the light switches

Everything began innocently, not only because Charles was dating her sister but also because in 1977 he was 29 and Diana was still a teenager. The future king arrived at the 1,500-acre Althorp House for a weekend of hunting, and would later recall “what fun” Diana was.

Diana, for her part, was smitten, telling her piano teacher, “I’ve met him at last!” She even gave Charles a tour of Althorp’s art gallery, because she knew where the obscured light switches were and Sarah didn’t, leaving her older sister incensed. It was a memory Charles would carry for years.

Charles wasn’t ‘very cool’

Despite clicking instantly – and their massive age gap – Charles and Diana would actually not really see each other for three years following that fateful guided tour. When they did next, it was in 1980. The timing wasn’t perfect – Charles’ great-uncle and confidant Lord Mountbatten had just been assassinated by Irish extremists.

Diana watched the funeral and felt so sorry, so she tried to offer the Prince comfort with some kind, heartfelt words. Charles, allegedly, responded by “leaping on her,” as Diana herself recalled. She’d never had a boyfriend before, but remembered thinking, “This isn’t very cool.”

A strange courtship

Uncool or not, this is where the pair’s relationship really began taking off. A short yet intense courting period ensued, but it seems Charles wasn’t exactly a pro. When Diana took public speaking lessons from voice coach Peter Settelen, he videotaped her speaking about her private life.

The full tapes have never been released, but excerpts show how the future Princess of Wales evaluated Charles’s courting abilities. There were periods when he’d call her every day, she claimed, and others where they wouldn’t speak for three weeks. It was odd, but she relished each and every phone call.

“Whatever ‘in love’ means”

When Prince Charles, the future king, announced his engagement to Diana Spencer in 1981, not just the country but the world rejoiced. Diana, then still 19, seemed like she’d be a breath of fresh air in the stodgy Royal Family. Everyone looked at her and saw the future Queen Consort. Everyone – except possibly Charles himself.

During the very interview announcing their engagement, the reporter asked them about being in love. “Of course,” Diana instantly replied. “Whatever ‘in love’ means,” Charles added with a chuckle. Awkward gaffe? Possibly, but it would prove a sign of things to come.

Their wildly different takes on their first meeting

In fact, that same engagement interview contained another tidbit, which may have seemed insignificant back then. After all, any avid royal watcher knows that engagement interviews are usually a bit awkward. Regardless, there was one exchange that in hindsight fully displayed the abyss between the two. Asked about their first meeting, Diana said Charles was “pretty amazing.”

He, meanwhile, found her “jolly and amusing.” Thinking about it more, Charles added she was “great fun, and bouncy, and full of life and everything.” It shouldn’t have been that hard to come up with good things to say about Diana…

Pushed into proposing?

If Prince Charles really was so ambivalent about Diana and their relationship, why on Earth did he propose? Well, the closest we may ever come to a conclusive answer came from royal expert Robert Jobson. Charles, according to Jobson, told a friend that to withdraw from the relationship would’ve been “cataclysmic.”

He was over 30, after all, and still single. There were also allegedly external pressures. Charles’s grandmother the Queen Mother reportedly saw the timid Diana as the ideal wife, while his father Prince Philip “pushed” him to either propose or break up with her.

Charles reportedly told Diana he didn’t love her on their wedding day’s eve

The night before a couple’s wedding is supposed to be magical. It’s the final moment of loving calm before the explosion of excitement and festivities. According to one close friend, for Charles and Diana it was the exact opposite.

Speaking in a 2020 documentary, Diana’s friend and personal astrologer Penny Thornton claimed that Charles told Diana he didn’t love her on the eve of their nuptials, which understandably devastated her. Charles also reportedly told his friends hours before the ceremony that Diana was “a child” who didn’t look old enough to be out of school, much less married.

Too late for Diana to back out now

Whether or not Charles truly confided his true feelings to Diana, it seems she had plenty to be worried about regardless. Camilla Parker Bowles, whose name will obviously be appearing here a lot, was a longtime flame of Charles’s. She and Diana were initially friends, it seems, until several incidents piqued her suspicion.

Two weeks before the big day, Charles reportedly gifted a bracelet to Camilla bearing the letter G and F – for Gladys and Fred, their nicknames for one another. Diana was distraught to the point she supposedly told her sisters she couldn’t go through with the wedding. Their reply? She had no choice.

Diana’s first brush with the paparazzi

In 1997, the obsession the paparazzi – and by extension the world – had with Princess Diana would lead to her untimely passing. In 1981, such magnitude of attention seemed a world away, but there were definitely early warning signs.

At the time Charles proposed to Diana, the two had only gone out 12 or so times. Still technically a teen, Diana found it difficult to cope with fame, reportedly bursting into tears at the wheel of her car. “I know it’s (their) job, but sometimes I do wish they wouldn’t,” she sadly commented.

Camilla won the final moment with Charles

As if being put under a magnifying glass by the press wasn’t difficult enough, there was another moment that Diana herself said “broke (her) heart.” Just a month after proposing, Charles was getting ready to leave on a five-week tour of Australia and New Zealand.

Diana was reportedly in tears at the prospect of bidding Charles farewell, when suddenly they were interrupted by a phone call. It was Camilla, and the conversation grew so tender that Diana felt obliged to leave the room. It was yet another moment in which she felt she could never compete for his love.

Overhearing Charles’s phone conversation

When Charles and Diana got engaged, Diana left her tiny apartment, which she shared with several roommates, and moved into Charles’s royal residence of Clarence House. Eventually, she left that place as well to move into Buckingham Palace. It was a place of “dead energy,” she recalled, and she felt desperately alone.

That loneliness was compounded when she happened to hear Charles speaking to Camilla on the phone while he was in the bath. “Whatever happens, I’ll always love you,” she claimed he told Camilla. In another instance, she saw a photo of Camilla falling out of his diary. Everything was not well.

Wedding day bliss?

On July 29, 1981, the big day had finally arrived. With 3,500 people in attendance and 750 million watching around the world, Diana Spencer became the Princess of Wales – and Charles’s wife.

The 600,000 or so people who gathered outside St. Paul’s Cathedral hoping to catch a glimpse of this fairytale couple were completely in the dark as to the cracks that had already started to appear in this seemingly perfect relationship. “He was going to look after me,” Diana added bitterly. “Well, was I wrong on that assumption.”

Can’t escape Camilla

Apparently, even their actual wedding ceremony wasn’t free of heartache. For whatever reason – feel free to speculate – Camilla was invited to attend the wedding. Diana, already aware that something wasn’t kosher in her soon-to-be husband’s relationship with the married woman, not only knew Camilla was there but actively sought her out.

Even speaking years later, she vividly recalled seeing Camilla sitting there ashen gray while she was walking down the aisle. Maybe it was seeing her rival that caused Diana to mix up Charles’s names, calling him Philip Charles Arthur George, instead of Charles Philip…

The fall while pregnant with William

Less than a year after tying the knot, Charles and Diana welcomed their first child, Prince William. The birth of a first child, and the pregnancy that precedes it, are supposed to be some of the happiest times in a couple’s life. Charles and Diana once again bucked the norm.

Diana’s butler Paul Burrell remembered hearing a racket one day while Diana was four months pregnant, and found the Princess halfway down a wooden staircase. He was sure she did it on purpose… and in 1992, we found out she had. Apparently, she’d thrown herself down the stairs in a desperate attempt to grab Charles’s attention.

Diana’s postpartum depression

Giving birth to William, it soon turned out, didn’t do much to improve Diana’s spirits. She’d suffered from something many go through, but few dare talk about – postpartum depression. Even the Princess of Wales herself couldn’t bring herself to talk about it in real-time, only revealing it 13 years later.

She remembered waking up in the morning and not wanting to get out of bed, and feeling misunderstood. Bitterly, she said people used this period to paint her as unbalanced. As for her new family, she felt they liked her much better as a guest than as a daughter-in-law.

‘A bit chubby, aren’t we?’

Heartbreakingly, postpartum depression wasn’t the only disorder Diana was suffering from. The week after they got engaged, she remembered Charles grabbing her waist and saying, “Oh, a bit chubby here, aren’t we?” Playful or not, she was devastated.

Coupled with the pressures of public scrutiny and her husband’s relationship with Camilla, she developed an eating disorder. It would take her nearly a decade to overcome it. Nevertheless, she claimed she lost five and a half inches in her waistline between the engagement and the wedding. “I had shrunk to nothing,” she said.

The Australian tour that changed everything

In 1983, at only 21, the Princess of Wales embarked on her first overseas tour as member of the Royal Family. In fact, it was the first time she’d ever been abroad, period. The 40-day tour of Australia and New Zealand was painstakingly recreated in season four of The Crown, and with good reason. It was a milestone for both the couple and the Royal Family.

It was the biggest royal trip Down Under since Queen Elizabeth’s visit in 1954, and as many as 40,000 people gathered to see them on each outing. Looking beneath the surface, however, showed a decidedly different picture…

A wedge forever driven between them

Before the tour was over, it was clear Diana had gotten her long-held wish – becoming a “queen of people’s hearts.” One expert estimated that she shook hands at least 6,000 times during the tour – and this wasn’t lost on Charles. Reportedly, when the crowds saw him coming to their side of the street during a walkabout, they complained.

In one formal dinner, Diana was caught making a funny face as Charles said how lucky he was to have married her. “Amazing what ladies do when your back’s turned,” he ad-libbed. In private, he reportedly wasn’t as amused. Diana herself defined the situation – “jealousy.”

Hope for the future of their relationship

When Diana became pregnant again in early 1984, it seemed like there was actually hope for her relationship – for once. In the weeks leading up to the birth, Charles and Diana reportedly became “very, very close” and had been working on their marriage.

Knowing Charles wanted a daughter after having a male heir, Diana chose to hide she was carrying a boy so as not to spoil their bonding. Plus, she was hoping that a healthy son would delight Charles so much that he’d forget his prior desire. Sadly, that’s not at all what happened.

Charles’s awful jokes during Harry’s birth

According to Diana herself, their newly-found marital bliss lasted exactly as far as the birth of the baby who would be Prince Harry. Upon seeing Harry for the very first time, Charles’s first comment was, “Oh God, it’s a boy.”

Then, seemingly to add insult to injury, he observed, “And he’s even got red hair.” Though he later claimed he was joking, his comments cut Diana to the core. Firstly, she had just delivered a healthy boy after an excruciating nine-hour natural birth. Secondly, her family was full of redheads, so she took that comment extra personally.

Their marriage ‘goes bang’

All things considered, Charles could probably had been a little more sensitive. Nine-hour labor aside, Diana also had a miscarriage before becoming pregnant with Harry. Unfortunately, Charles pressed on making rude remarks. At Prince Harry’s christening, he’s reported to have told Diana’s own mother, “We were so disappointed – we thought it would be a girl.”

Diana’s mother, Frances Kydd, found the remark objectionable and reported it to her daughter. This led something inside her to “close off,” Diana told her biographer. After Harry’s birth, their marriage “went bang. The whole thing went down the drain.”

Their simultaneous affairs

And so, in 1986, the wheels had finally come off the wagon, permanently – Charles and Diana both embarked on affairs. By Charles’s own admission to his biographer, his long-running romance with Camilla, which had only been simmering, was brought to a boil in 1986. On Diana’s side, it was army captain James Hewitt, who had given her riding lessons.

Their five-year affair lasted until 1991, and the redheaded Hewitt’s been persistently rumored to be Harry’s biological father – though the timelines don’t match. “It has all the ingredients of a Greek tragedy,” Charles wrote in a letter. “I never thought it would end up like this.”

‘Deeply in love’ with her married protection officer

To be completely fair to Charles, however, there’s little evidence to support him being physically unfaithful to Diana before 1986. The same cannot be said for the Princess of Wales. From 1984 to 1986, she was apparently involved with her protection officer, or bodyguard, Barry Mannakee. Diana said that she was “deeply in love” with Mannakee, who was himself married.

She was rich and famous beyond her wildest dreams, but claimed she was willing to give all of it up to be with him. When the rumor about the affair spread, however, Mannakee was reassigned to other duties – or “chucked out,” as Diana termed it.

Prince Philip’s disturbing conversation with Charles

So what was it that made Charles allegedly take his emotional relationship with Camilla to the next level in 1986? To hear Princess Diana tell it, the answer was his father – Prince Philip. In conversation with her voice coach Peter Settelen, which he recorded, a candid Diana shared a story about a talk the two royals had allegedly had.

According to the Princess of Wales, Prince Philip told Charles that if his marriage didn’t work out after five years, he could go back to Camilla. Considering they were married in 1981, 1986 was exactly five years later…

The mouse that roared

In truth, Diana was no longer the person she was when Charles married her at the tender age of 20. No longer the introverted, mousy teenager he first met at Althorp, Diana was a worldwide celebrity who rubbed elbows with Elton John and danced with John Travolta at the White House.

To be fair, though, Charles wasn’t exactly the same person either. When Diana fell in love with him, he was a debonaire James Bond-style man of the world. At the point their marriage broke down, one magazine profile quipped, he wanted to be a farmer.

Working up the nerve to confront Camilla

As time went on, Charles seemed unwilling, unable or both to break off his apparent relationship with Camilla. In 1989, things finally came to a head. During a birthday party for Camilla’s sister’s 40th, the typically shy and reserved Diana worked up the nerve to say something.

Showing up unannounced at the party, which was enough of a shock, Diana interrupted a conversation between Camilla, Charles, and a third unnamed man. In her secretly-recorded tapes, released later, Diana admitted to being “terrified” at asking to speak to Camilla privately. Nevertheless, she stayed “deathly calm” and did just that.

‘I know what’s going on between you and Charles’

“Just go for it,” a voice inside her told Diana – so she did. Not mincing words, she fired the first volley. “I know what’s going on between you and Charles,” she stated. Not one to be outdone, Camilla allegedly retorted Diana had “everything she ever wanted” – all the men in the world in love with her.

“What more do you want?” she accused. “I want my husband,” was the plain reply. After the party, Diana said, Charles demanded to know what she told Camilla. “That I love you,” she replied, “and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Diana’s alleged emotional abuse

Through the years, and especially since he’s the one who’s still alive, Charles has received an almost unprecedented shellacking in the press and in the court of public opinion for his relationship with Camilla. According to at least one royal expert, however, Diana was the abusive one in their relationship.

Author Sally Bedell Smith, who penned a best-selling and controversial book about the Princess of Wales, claimed that she repeatedly mocked Charles’s ideas and even taunted him, saying he’d never be king. Charles, she continued, never retaliated in kind – despite what The Crown would have us believe.

Charles and Diana alone at the Taj Mahal

In early 1992, the entire world got a signal that the Prince and Princess of Wales’s marriage may be on the rocks. While on a royal tour of India with Charles, Diana was snapped sitting alone on a bench on front of the Taj Mahal – one of the most famous symbols of romance.

It was a poignant, almost Hollywood-like reminder that romance was in short supply in her own union with Charles. Even more symbolic, Charles visited the same monument 12 years earlier. Sitting alone on the same bench, he vowed to one day return with the woman he loved. He never did.

The kiss that wasn’t

Later in the tour, Diana was asked by the press about the visit, and said it was a “healing experience.” When clarification was sought, she simply added, “Work it out for yourself.” The press, as you might imagine, had a field day. It seems symbolism wasn’t in short supply on that tour. After winning an exhibition polo match, Charles went to receive the prize from his wife.

Instead of leaning in for the traditional kiss, he turned and walked away. Quickly realizing his faux pas, he returned and tried kissing Diana on the cheek. She turned away. Diana later admitted to intentionally humiliating Charles, as he had her.

Diana’s secret involvement in the book that would end her marriage

Whether or not Diana was abusive, Charles was or to some extent they both were, one thing’s clear – if Diana truly wanted out of the marriage, speaking to Andrew Morton would’ve done the trick. There’s no downplaying the explosive Diana: Her True Story, the 1992 tell-all that left no bean unspilled about Diana’s life and relationships.

Originally, the book contained scandalous details attributed to anonymous royal sources. It was only after Diana’s passing in 1997 that Morton revealed the true source – Diana herself, who sat down for six covert taped interviews under the Palace’s nose.

Charles jokes about having two wives – again and again and again

Six months after the book’s release, Charles and Diana went on an official trip to South Korea. They looked so miserable that the British press rechristened them “the Glums.” Their discomfort was probably made worse by Charles repeating the same offensive jokes multiple times.

Speaking at an event, Charles “quipped” that it would’ve been easier if he had two wives to cover both sides of the street on walkabouts, while he walked in the middle “directing the operation.” The crowd laughed, but Diana visibly didn’t. Considering his ongoing affair with Camilla, public knowledge at that point, it was in extremely poor taste.

Breaking the news to the nation

A month removed from their ill-fated South Korean adventure, Prime Minister John Major took to the floor of British parliament to announce that the Prince and Princess of Wales would be separating.

An unusual hush fell over the House of Commons as Major tried softening the blow, knowing a national television audience was watching, by adding the two had no plans to divorce and would continue their royal duties separately as future King and Queen Consort. How that was supposed to work was anybody’s guess, but appropriately Charles and Diana were in different parts of Britain as the announcement was being made, and neither commented on it.

Trying, in vain, to save their marriage

The decision to separate was apparently not one made lightly. Speaking in a 1995 interview, Diana professed feeling “deep, profound sadness” about it all. They had struggled to keep it going, she revealed, but had eventually simply run out of steam.

Speaking in his own interview a year prior, Charles provided his own perspective. His affair with Camilla, he said, hadn’t begun until his marriage to Diana had “irretrievably broken down, us both having tried.” It was at least on that point that they could agree – as the near future held many on which they didn’t.

A three-person marriage was ‘a bit crowded’

Speaking of Camilla, Diana did just that in a one-on-one interview with the BBC’s Martin Bashir in November, 1995. It was truly unprecedented for a member of the Royal Family to speak so candidly about their trials and troubles.

Diana talked about everything, from her eating disorder – or “secret disease,” as she called it – to her estranged husband’s mistress. Asked point-blank whether Camilla was a factor in the breakdown of her marriage, Diana replied simply, “Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”

The divorce is finalized

Despite separating in 1992, Charles and Diana would not be formally and finally divorced until 1996. It certainly wasn’t for lack of trying, though – the two had been fighting over the precise details of the arrangement, which was no mean task when the future king is concerned.

On the money side, Charles declared he would no longer pay Diana’s bills. Instead, she received a lump sum divorce settlement worth at least $22.5 million. As such, 40 of Diana’s favorite stores were instructed to begin sending their bills to Diana, not Charles. But that wasn’t all.

The Royal Family takes one last swipe at Diana

Money matters aside, the true indignity of the divorce was to be found in titles. Insider accounts differ on who exacrly was to blame – Charles or Queen Elizabeth herself – but Diana was unceremoniously stripped of her “Her Royal Highness” title, which designated her an upper-level royal.

She was, however, allowed to keep the Princess of Wales title, as she was still the future king’s mother. In fact, William supposedly told her after learning the news, “Don’t worry, mummy, I’ll give (the HRH title) back to you one day when I am king.” Tragically, he never got the chance.

A queen of people’s hearts

In a sense, there was a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy at play here. While she was separated but still formally married to Charles, Diana was asked in the aforementioned Bashir interview whether she thought she would ever be queen. Diana replied plainly that she did not.

The establishment that she married into, she explained, deemed her a non-starter because of who she was. “I’d like to be a queen of people’s hearts, in people’s hearts, but I don’t see myself being Queen of this country,” she suggested. In the final tally, she was proven right on both accounts.

Charles finally gets what he always wanted

Diana, Princess of Wales and queen of so many people’s hearts, lost her life in a tragic – and apparently avoidable – car crash in Paris in 1997. Prince Charles traveled to the French capital along with her two sisters to bring her body home to Britain.

Shortly after the funeral, he stated he had no intention of remarrying, a position the Palace itself later adopted. Despite reiterating it several times, Charles did just that in 2005, marrying Camilla – herself a divorcée. In 1936, such an act nearly toppled the monarchy. In 2005, it was a Saturday.

Will The Crown send it all tumbling down?

It’s been 15 years since Charles and Camilla brought their decades’ long romance to its logical conclusion, and in that time both have underwent an intense public transformation. In the past, the two were public enemies number-one, reviled by the world for their supposed role in Diana’s short and somewhat sad life.

Of course, this wasn’t left to chance – the best spin doctors were employed to fix things. It seemed to work… until The Crown’s fourth season debuted in late 2020. Only time will tell if Charles and Camilla’s public image would withstand having old wounds dug up again – and placing the knife in their hands…

Princess Diana was a regular at Wimbledon

It seems that Charles and Diana also had very different interests and hobbies and Diana was no longer the timid girl Charles had fallen in love with. One month before her marriage to Charles in 1981, Diana attended Wimbledon for the first time. Over the years, she would be a regular fixture at the tennis tournament and would rarely be accompanied by Charles.

In fact, she was spotted most often with Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. The pair would always be laughing and joking, something that unfortunately wasn’t very common in this unfortunate royal marriage.

They had very different educational backgrounds

While Prince Charles would go on to become the first heir apparent to earn a university degree, Diana wasn’t exactly book smart. She was very candid during interviews about her education and even said that she had taken the O levels twice, failing in both instances.

When she was younger, she even left her boarding school in England to study in Switzerland before coming back in a month. However, Diana had lots of other interests and was described as being very bright. She was extremely interested in music, dance, sports and hospitality.

Charles chose her ring from a catalogue

Given the history and wealth that the Royal family has, you’d think that Prince Charles would have proposed to Diana with a family heirloom or something unique and special. In fact, the ring that Charles gave to Camilla belonged to one of his relatives and had been part of the family for several generations.

It shows just how much Charles really cared about his marriage to Diana because he picked their engagement ring out of a Garrard’s catalogue. In fact, many royal experts even call it a “commoner’s ring.”

Diana grew up around the royal family

One of the biggest drivers between Charles and Diana would be the constant concern of her being a “commoner.” While Diana certainly didn’t have royal blood, she grew up around the royal family.

Her grandmothers were ladies in waiting to the Queen, so she was influenced by the royal family and its mannerisms even as a child. In fact, she spent quite some time on the Queen’s estate as a child, even playing with Charles’ younger brothers, Prince Edwards and Prince Andrew.

Always ready for the camera

Diana knew she always had to look out for the paparazzi waiting to take embarrassing photos of her. In fact, she even came up with the concept of “cleavage bags” which were basically just handbags that she would keep close to her bosom when getting out of her car.

Diana wanted to be princess of the hearts, and she truly did end up earning that title through her presence and charm. Given just how much more glamorous and fashionable she was perceived as being, it’s no wonder Charles wasn’t exactly pleased.

Diana’s revenge dress

One of the biggest reasons why royal experts think Diana and Charles’ marriage was doomed from the start was just how different the two were from each other.

While Charles was no longer the debonair man she had fallen in love with, Diana continued to turn heads with her amazing sense of style. In fact, she even had two wardrobes and continues to be a style icon to this day. She would even take a dig at Charles after their divorce was finalized by wearing what’s now known as her “revenge dress.”

She didn’t enjoy vacationing at Sandringham

Adjusting to life as a princess is definitely not an easy task. Despite growing up around the royal family, Diana really struggled with adjusting to constantly having eyes on her. It was tradition for the family to holiday at Sandringham House in Norfolk, England.

Diana felt suffocated by the constant presence of guests and staff and would often go on walks to enjoy some alone time. She even complained about how compact the quarters were, a remark that definitely did not go down well with other members of the royal family.

Charles was not keen on confessing

One of the most unprecedented events in royal history was the explosive interviews that both Diana and Charles gave about their affairs. While it was evident that their marriage was on the rocks by 1994, Charles wasn’t very keen on confessing he had cheated on Diana with Camilla. In fact, he had to be convinced by his staff to open about the affair.

Interestingly, this would also motivate Diana to do her own tell-all interview, which was the final straw in their marriage. Her interview convinced the Queen that the two had to get divorced.

They barely knew each other before marriage

While there’s lots of different theories on whether Charles was under pressure to marry Diana, most people agree that the two barely knew each other before getting married.

According to Diana, the two had met only 13 times before tying the knot. While many believe their love was more like an infatuation based on attraction, the two didn’t even spend much alone time together during their courtship. In fact, royal experts have even described the first time Diana was introduced to Charle’s family as more of an audition for her role as a potential queen.

First British citizen to marry heir apparent

While the royal family saw Diana’s roots as an opportunity to mold her into the princess and queen they wanted her to be, the story is actually a lot more interesting. In fact, Diana was the first British citizen to marry the heir to the throne in over 300 years. Philip, for example, was a Greek and Danish royal when he married Queen Elizabeth.

Historically, royal marriages were reserved for economic agreements and peace treaties. However, Charles and Diana’s marriage shows that love was finally accepted as a reasonable reason for marriage.

750 million people saw their wedding

It’s no surprise that Diana took some time to get adjusted to her new life as Princess of Wales. The huge level of publicity and the high levels of expectations people had about their marriage added a lot of pressure to a marriage that was strained before it even started.

According to some estimates, 750 million people from 74 different countries tuned in to view what would be one of the most disastrous marriages in modern royal history.

They spared no expenses on the wedding

One of the most shocking revelations about Charles and Diana’s wedding was how he had proposed to her using a “commoner’s ring. When it came to the actual wedding however, no expenses were spared. In fact, their wedding is considered one of the most expensive in modern history and is estimated to have cost over $135 million, after adjusting for inflation from 1981.

Even though they were both aware of the implications of being part of the royal family, we can all sympathize with the huge amount of pressure they must have been under.

Charles forgot to kiss her

As one of the most newsworthy and expensive marriages, it’s no wonder that Charles and Diana were under incredible pressure. In fact, Charles was even so nervous that he forgot to kiss her at the altar. Many believe this is one of the many red flags that Diana would have to put up with for the rest of their marriage.

Fortunately, the two would finally announce their wedding to the public in their iconic post-wedding kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Royal weddings since have followed suit.

Divorce isn’t easy

Divorces are meant to be healing and the start of a new journey, but things aren’t so simple when you’re married to the Prince of Wales. According to insiders, Diana would have to spend Christmases alone after her divorce from Charles.

The kids would spend time with their dad at Sandringham House and Diana was left all by herself. Her former staff members mentioned how she was horrible at cooking, meaning they would always prepare her meals before leaving.

Diana really struggled with body image

On top of Camilla’s presence at their wedding, Diana was also put off after Charles joked about her needing to lose weight. According to many, this was the start of a very long struggle with bulimia.

She said she always felt very insecure about her nose and never considered herself beautiful. Under pressure from her husband and the media, she even went on a very strict diet. According to insiders, she would have her chef cook her healthier versions of her favorite meals. In fact, her favorite dish was tomato mousse.

Edited by Vishal Subramanian