Shocking Diana News
From Australian news website- news.com.au
Di tape tells of 'killing'
From correspondents in New York
November 27, 2004
A US television network will broadcast a never-before-seen video tape of Diana, Princess of Wales, next week in which she suggests a member of her staff was "bumped off" after she fell in love with him.
Happier days ... Charles and Diana on their engagement.
NBC said today the two-part program starting on Monday would include excerpts of interviews Diana recorded with communications consultant Peter Settelen in her living room, discussing her childhood, marriage and struggle with bulimia.
Earlier this year, NBC aired audio tapes Diana secretly recorded for a 1992 book that exposed the turmoil of her marriage to Prince Charles, whom she divorced in 1996.
The princess was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
NBC said Diana met Mr Settelen in September 1992, in the aftermath of the book by Andrew Morton, and had engaged him to train her in public speaking, a process that involved an on-camera interview to inspire confidence.
Excerpts of the program released in advance include comments by Diana on the lack of sympathy from her mother-in-law, the Queen, when Diana went to her having discovered that Prince Charles was having an affair.
NBC said one section of the interview was "on falling in love with a member of her palace staff, presumed to be Royal Policeman Barry Mannakee, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1987".
"It was all found out and he was chucked out," Diana is quoted as saying. "And then he was killed. And that was the biggest blow of my life, I must say.
"And I think he was bumped off. But, um, there we are. I don't ... we'll never know, he was the greatest fellow I've ever had."
The two-hour special, which also features an interview with Mr Settelen, is to be broadcast in two parts over two weeks. "This unusual tape, recorded in Diana's living room, hidden for years after her death, and fought over for months in the British courts, offers a view of the princess quite different from the formal public face she usually put forth," NBC said.
Reuters
(News.com.au