When it was aired on a wet and windy November night in 1995, Prince William watched his mother’s Panorama interview in a master’s study at Eton.
Then aged 13, having joined the exclusive Berkshire boarding school just two months earlier, he reportedly wept as Diana, Princess of Wales poured her heart out to Martin Bashir.
Coming three years after Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s separation, the teenage prince’s hopes of a parental reconciliation were cruelly dashed as she admitted to being in love with James Hewitt and described Camilla Parker-Bowles as "the third person" in her marriage.
According to the royal author Penny Junor, William was left “devastated” by the revelations, which led to the couple’s divorce the following year.
She said: "He was deeply upset, as any child, watching one parent assassinate the integrity of the other, let alone talk about their infidelity, would be.”
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Among the most damaging was undoubtedly the claim that Diana was being spied on by her eldest son, via a bugging device fitted to a new Swatch watch given to him by his father.
Bashir levelled the appalling allegation at William during a meeting with Diana and her brother Earl Spencer in a bid to persuade the already vulnerable and paranoid princess to agree to the sensational sit-down.
Little wonder, then, that William not only believes “the deceitful way the interview was obtained substantially influenced what my mother said”, but also that: “the interview was a major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse.”