Heartbreaking Princess Diana interview reveals reason she almost called off wedding to Prince Charles at the last moment
In a newly unearthed interview, Diana recalls the moment she realised Prince Charles was having an affair
SPEAKING in a heart-wrenching interview before her death 21 years ago, Princess Diana revealed the moment she realised Prince Charles was having an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.
The princess also recalled the time she discovered her husband had bought Camilla a special gift, after stumbling across an unopened parcel.
The recordings have been released by to mark the 21st anniversary of her death (August 31, 1997).
One clip reveals Diana - then aged 19 - discovered her fiancé had been having an affair with Camilla just before Charles left the UK for a five-week tour.
"You may recall seeing a picture of me sobbing in a red coat when he went off on his aeroplane," she explained.
"That had nothing to do with him going. The most awful thing had happened before he went."
"I was in his study talking to him about his trip. The telephone rang, it was Camilla. Just before he was going for five weeks," she continued.
"So I thought, ‘Shall I be nice or shall I just sit here?’
"So I thought I’d be nice, so I left them to it and it just broke my heart."
In another recording, Diana explained how she discovered a secret present Charles had intended to give Camilla.
"I was still too immature to understand all the messages coming my way. And then someone in his office told me that my husband has had a bracelet made for her," she recalled.
"I walked into this man’s office one day and I said, ‘Ooh, what’s in that parcel?’
"And he said ‘Oh, you shouldn’t look at that’.
"So I opened it and there was the bracelet. I was devastated, and I said ‘Well, he’s going to give it to her tonight’.
"So rage, rage, rage. You know, ‘Why can’t you be honest with me?’
"But no, absolutely cut me dead."
The series of events almost led to Diana calling off the wedding altogether.
She revealed the moment she almost cancelled, explaining she went for lunch with her sisters and told them she "[couldn't] marry him".
"It was as if he’d made his decision, and if it wasn’t going to work, it wasn’t going to work," she explained.
"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, you never knew what mood it was going to be, up and down, up and down.
"I went upstairs, had lunch with my sisters who were there. And I said ‘I can’t marry him, I can’t do this, this is absolutely unbelievable.
"And they were wonderful and said, ‘Well, bad luck, Duch, your face is on the tea towel…so you are too late to chicken out’."
Charles and Diana later divorced, on August 28 1996.
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