We publish the full transcript of the bombshell Diana tapes as her former private secretary backs Channel 4 documentary
A TOP aide of Princess Diana has backed the broadcast of intimate secrets from her speech coach sessions — as The Sun publishes the transcripts.
Patrick Jephson entered the row engulfing Channel 4.
Her former private secretary said: “Though not intended for broadcast at the time, 20 years after her death Channel 4 is surely right to see them as legitimate additions to the historical record.
“Bewitchingly, they reveal a thoughtful and often funny Princess finding her voice as the teller of her own story.”
The tapes were recorded between September 1992 and December 1993.
Diana was at Kensington Palace with speech coach Peter Settelen.
In them she claimed Prince Charles was given permission to have a mistress by his father and the Queen failed to offer her advice.
On growing up
“My parents, they never said they loved me. No, no, no idea.
"There was no, there was always a kiss there (pointing at her cheek).
"There was no hugs or anything like that.”
On her dad's second marriage
“Sarah (Diana’s sister) rang me up and said have you seen the newspapers?
"So I said ‘What?’ and she said ‘Daddy’s married Raine’ and I said, ‘My God, how’d you know that?’
"‘It’s in the Express’.”
On confronting her father
“We were so angry but Sarah said ‘Right, Dutch’, my nickname was Dutch, ‘You go in and sort him out’.
“He said, ‘I want to explain to you why I’ve got married to Raine’ and I said, ‘Well, we don’t like her and he said, ‘I know that, but you will grow to love her as I have’ and I said, ‘Well, we won’t’ — I kept saying ‘We’, not ‘I’ because I was the littler crusader here.
“And I got really angry. And if I remember right, I slapped him across the face. And I said, ‘That’s from all of us for hurting us’ and walked out and slammed the door.
“He followed me and he got me by my wrist, turned me around and said, ‘Don’t you ever talk to me like that again,’ and I said, ‘Well, don’t you ever do that to us again,’ and walked off.”
On her life
“I knew that something profound was coming my way and I was just treading water waiting for it.
“I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t know where it was, I didn’t know if it was coming next year or next month but I knew I was different from my friends in where I was going.
“I used to be the one who sat happily at home, sitting in front of a television eating a bowl of cereal.
“That was my idea of bliss because I put all the energy into my work and I wasn’t interested in men as such, albeit there were a few who were interested in me but they got so far and then they were given the green light to push off always.”
On meeting Prince Charles
“I remember meeting him and feeling desperately sorry for him, a) that my sister was wrapped around his neck, because she’s quite a tough ol’ thing, if she had her blinkers on she’d get what she wanted. She wouldn’t look out there, she’d just (pointing straight ahead) like that.”
(Sarah offered to show Prince Charles the art gallery at their home).
“She said to me, ‘Do you know where the lights are’ and I did know where the light switches were, they were hidden. So she was livid that I knew and she didn’t.
“So Charles said to me, ‘Well, why don’t you take me up there?’ I was getting these looks from Sarah.
“I thought, you know, ‘Poor old thing’, but I wasn’t impressed with anything around him.
“And I turned the lights on and Sarah said, ‘Now you can go’.
“It was the fact that an older man who was in a prominent position liked me and wanted to have me around. Yes, yes, yes, I’m sure that was a lot of it (a man wanted to talk to her over a boy)."
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Three years later at funeral
“I said you must be so lonely. I said it’s pathetic watching you walk up the aisle at St Paul’s with Lord Mountbatten’s coffin in front. I said, you know, ‘Ghastly, you need someone beside you’. Oh. Wrong word.
“Whereupon he leapt upon (me), he started kissing me and everything and I thought, ‘Ahh, you know, this is not what people do,’ and he was all over me for the rest of the evening, followed me around, everything. A puppy. And, yeah, I was flattered, but it was very puzzling.
“He wasn’t consistent with his courting abilities. He’d ring me up every day for a week and then he wouldn’t speak to me for three weeks, very odd.
“And I’d accepted that and I thought fine, he knows where I am if he wants me.
“And then the thrill when he used to ring up was so immense and intense, drive the other three girls in my flat crazy. But no, it was all, it was odd.”
On the attention
“Yeah, my family thought it was great, and so did my friends and so did Charles’s family.
“They liked me. They were very good to me when I was a guest. It means it changed when I was a daughter-in-law. Positions changed.”
On her engagement
“I was brought up in the sense that you know, when you got engaged to someone, you loved them.
“The most extraordinary thing is we had this ghastly interview the day we announced our engagement and this ridiculous ITN man said, ‘Are you in love?’
"I thought what a thick question so I said, ‘Yes, of course we are,’ in the sort of Sloane Ranger I was, and Charles turned round and said, ‘Whatever in love means’.
"That threw me completely. I thought what a strange question and answer. God. Absolutely traumatised me.
"No, I didn’t dare (ask him about it). Must have been, yeah (frightened). We met 13 times before we got married (laughs).”
On Camilla
“I remember saying to my husband, you know, ‘Why, why is this lady around?’ and he said, ‘Well I refuse to be the only Prince of Wales who never had a mistress.”
On Prince Philip
“My father-in-law said to my husband, ‘Uh, if your marriage doesn’t work out you can always go back to her after five years’, which is exactly, I mean for real I know that it happened after five, I knew something was happening before that.”
On sex with Charles
“Well, there was. There was. There was. But it was 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.
“Sort of once every three weeks and I kept thinking.
"And then I followed a pattern, he used to see his lady once every three weeks before we got married.”
On seeking the Queen’s advice
“And I’m sobbing and I said, ‘I’m coming to you. What do I do?’
"And she said, ‘I don’t know what you should do, Charles is hopeless’. And that was it. That was help.
"So I didn’t go back to her again for help, because I don’t go back again if I don’t get it the first time.
"And so over the years, ‘Diana never talks. I never know what’s going on’."
Silly girl
“There’s just nobody to physically scream at. Or someone to put their arms around me — just listen when I cry.
"I can’t bear people saying it can’t be as bad as that, or we understand — nobody understands unless you’re the individual concerned.
";But I do feel, Peter, that I won them at their own game. Now.
“When it comes to a drama I can only sort myself, but I can’t get anybody else to sort me out.”
On her bulimia
“They all blamed the failure of the marriage on the bulimia and that’s taken some time to get them to think differently.
“Said I was rejected, I didn’t think I was good enough for the family so I took it out on myself.
"I said I could’ve gone to alcohol which would have been obvious.
“I could’ve been anorexic which should be even more obvious. I decided to do the more discreet thing which ultimately wasn’t discreet but I chose to hurt myself instead of hurting all of you.
“The odd thing was when I was bulimic I wasn’t angry because the anger, I thought, was coming out that way.
"And it always felt better after I’d been sick, to get rid of the anger and I’d be very passive afterwards. Very quiet.”
Important historical record of the royals
By Ralph Lee, Channel 4’s Deputy Chief Creative Officer
NONE of us will forget the moment on Panorama when Diana said: “There were three of us in this marriage.”
It wasn’t that it was breaking news, Camilla was hardly a secret, but the fact she said it in public was hugely significant.
Diana decided to make the story of her ill-fated marriage public.
She did it because she decided it was important.
In our documentary portrait, Diana: In Her Own Words, we show, for the first time on British TV, extracts of tapes she recorded with Peter Settelen.
The decision to show the tapes has proved controversial but they are an important part of the historical record.
We are confident the fleeting debate around the ethics of airing these tapes to mark this landmark anniversary of her death will be far outlived by the significant public interest in broadcasting the tapes and understanding both Diana and the Prince of Wales.
On boarding school
“When he (her father) left, he kissed me goodbye, that day I said to him, ‘If you leave me now, you don’t love me,’ which is a crippler, isn’t it? But I meant it.
“I was always told by my family that I was the thick one and that my brother was the clever one and I was always so conscious of that.”
On her bodyguard Barry Mannakee
“I’ll tell you one of the biggest crushes of my life, which I don’t find easy to discuss.
"When I was 24 or 25 I fell deeply in love with someone who worked in this environment. And he was the greatest friend I ever had.
“I was always wandering around trying to see him. I just, you know, wore my heart on my sleeve and was only happy when he was around and the rest of it.
“Yeah, I supposed you could say I did, yes (see him as father figure). I’m sure I did. I was like a little girl in front of him the whole time.
“I mean I was quite happy to give all of this up. At the moment, at the time it was quite something to have all this, just to go off and live with him. Can you believe it?
“He kept saying he thought it was a good idea too.
“It got so difficult. People got so jealous and bitchy in this house and eventually he had to go. It was all found out and he was chucked out.”
“Charles said to me, ‘He was killed in a motorbike accident’ and that was the biggest blow of my life I must say. It was a killer.
“And Charles, though he knew but he never had any proof, and he just jumped it on me like that and I wasn’t able to do anything.
“I just sat there all day going through this huge high-profile visit to Cannes, just devastated.
“I think he was bumped off. But, there we are. We’ll never know.
“I used to have really disturbing dreams about him. And he was very unhappy wherever he’s gone to, and so I went and found out where he was buried and I went to put some flowers on his grave.
“And the day I did that (laid flowers) the day the dreams stopped. It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s like a sort of recognition.
“I should never have played with fire and I did. I got very burned.”
— Diana: In Her Own Words is on Channel 4 this Sunday (8pm).