The Panorama Interview: November 20, 1995

[Roslyn]

Yes, the seeing Morton for the book and the setting up of the Panorama interview were two main quite irrational episodes in Diana's life. I've always wondered if she liked the flirting with danger aspect of it, or whether, with the Morton business, the Royals would just accept her denials that she had anything to do with the book and she would be left sitting pretty.

It's clear she had a real blind spot with regard to Panorama. At the time she was in negotiations with the BBC she told Lord Wakeham, the new Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, at a dinner party that she favoured a privacy law to protect people from media intrusions. (Even though she was persecuted by paps it's an extraordinary piece of hypocrisy.)

I certainly don't think she realised the consequences of her Panorama interview. At that time though, I think Diana was just burning up with misery and resentment and dislike of BP and all it stood for and that overrode everything. It was only later she awoke to the cold light of reality, that she really had burned her bridges.

I think it is clear that Diana had been burning up with misery and resentment and dislike of BP since at least New Year's Eve 1989 when the Squidgy tape was recorded. In her conversation with James Gilbey she stated her opinion of the BRF in very clear and unambiguous - and colourful - words.

 

[Pranter]

To me the Morton book was done by a desperate woman...I think she still had some intention of making a go of things if she could shake things up enough to force change.

The interview was done by a woman wanting to get her pound of flesh...and some sympathy.




LaRae

 

[Dman]

To me the Morton book was done by a desperate woman...I think she still had some intention of making a go of things if she could shake things up enough to force change.

The interview was done by a woman wanting to get her pound of flesh...and some sympathy.

LaRae

Also, the interview was done out of hurt, anger and sadness. No matter who the couple is, going through a bad separation and divorce isn't easy and the people involved can end up doing something crazy.

 

[Pranter]

Also, the interview was done out of hurt, anger and sadness. No matter who the couple is, going through a bad separation and divorce isn't easy and the people involved can end up doing something crazy.

Yes I think that was part of the mix as well. Also, the situation must of been rather humiliating for her. I realize she has fault in the marriage...however I have always held Charles more culpable in some areas due to their ages and status when their relationship began and into the early years of their marriage.


LaRae

 

[Dman]

Yes I think that was part of the mix as well. Also, the situation must of been rather humiliating for her. I realize she has fault in the marriage...however I have always held Charles more culpable in some areas due to their ages and status when their relationship began and into the early years of their marriage.


LaRae

I'm just glad a lot of all that drama went away before her passing.

 

[Queen Camilla]

I think it is clear that Diana had been burning up with misery and resentment and dislike of BP since at least New Year's Eve 1989 when the Squidgy tape was recorded. In her conversation with James Gilbey she stated her opinion of the BRF in very clear and unambiguous - and colourful - words.

Yes her words were worthy of an award.

To me the Morton book was done by a desperate woman...I think she still had some intention of making a go of things if she could shake things up enough to force change.

The interview was done by a woman wanting to get her pound of flesh...and some sympathy.

The Morton book was done because she wanted a divorce and wanted to trash Charles.

She went searching for a writer and approached Colin Campbell but Colin Campbell refused to do her bidding. She saw that Diana's public image was not the same as her private image and wrote her book. Diana found Morton.

Lucia Flecha de Lima also confirmed that Diana wanted a divorce. She and Rosa Monckton wrote or helped Diana write her letters to Prince Philip. Prince Philip was trying to appease Diana by offering her another apartment in KP. (Lucia has copies of these letters.)

 

[Pranter]

I'm just glad a lot of all that drama went away before her passing.

Me too...I think she and Charles had 'reconciled' prior to her death..I remember seeing one event they were at with the boys and they seemed very relaxed and friendly to one another.

LaRae

 

[MARG]

To me the Morton book was done by a desperate woman...I think she still had some intention of making a go of things if she could shake things up enough to force change.

The interview was done by a woman wanting to get her pound of flesh...and some sympathy.

LaRae

There was no desperation about the Morton book. We tend to forget that Diana had no intention of ever being known as having contributed in any way to "Diana: Her True Story. She could say what she liked abd did with little regard to the truth. However there was too much "nobody but Charles or Diana could have known' for many people to strongly suspect collusion. Safe in her anonymity she exagerated greatly (throwing herself down the stairs while own pregnant was the act of someone not in their right mind) and she played down that and other such shocking "revelations" that made people wonder. But people wanted to believe her.

She didn't ever come clean about it, even in the Panorama interview (the best peice of amateur theatrics in years). It only came out after her death when Morton revised his book and using her tapes and galley proofs that had her handwritten edits on them. Proof positive that in fact Morton was little more than her ghost writer.

 

[Denville]

Yes
It's clear she had a real blind spot with regard to Panorama. At the time she was in negotiations with the BBC she told Lord Wakeham, the new Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, at a dinner party that she favoured a privacy law to protect people from media intrusions. (Even though she was persecuted by paps it's an extraordinary piece of hypocrisy.)

I certainly don't think she realised the consequences of her Panorama interview. At that time though, I think Diana was just burning up with misery and resentment and dislike of BP and all it stood for and that overrode everything. It was only later she awoke to the cold light of reality, that she really had burned her bridges.

I think she wasn't thinking clearly. She half wanted out of the RF and to get a divorce, find a new man and remarry.. maybe have another baby. But she knew the RF woudln't be happy with that. and I think she did want to hit out at Charles, make ti clear that her marriage was miserable and that a lot of it was due to there being "3 people in it". but she didn't really want a divorce, per se. I think what maybe in her heart of hearts she longed for, was to get back with Charles, to win his attention if not his love and maybe try again.. but she really didn't know what she wanted. and she probably did reason that if Charles was forced out of the line of succession because of a divorce, she was still the mother of the heir to the throne, and she liked the idea of that...
But even tho' she probably knew that a divorce was inevitable eventually, it wasn't what she really at her deepest level wanted... and she didn't want to be the one who called time on the marriage. So when the queen ordered to her to get a divorce in one way that freed her from being the one who finally ended the marriage. And I think also by the time of Panorama, and the "being ordered to divorce" she realised that being outside the RF was not going to be as easy or fun as she had half hoped. She was going to be treated politely by the RF in public but cold shouldered in private. Her own class of people would problably side with Charles and the RF.. She was maybe going to have to go outside her own kind to find a new man, to go for the company of people like actors and celebs and so on, for a social life...

 

[Denville]

Me too...I think she and Charles had 'reconciled' prior to her death..I remember seeing one event they were at with the boys and they seemed very relaxed and friendly to one another.

LaRae

I don't think they were all that much reconciled. I think that Diana knew it would look bad if she was seen to be continually snarky with him, and to please the boys they both tired to seem friendly in public.. but I think ti would have taken longer to get over their differences...and I think tat the more Charles was seen out with Camilla, the harder it ws for Diana to look like she was Ok with him..

 

[Denville]

Thanks for the clarification Mo

But although Tina Brown is generally a reliable source of information, I am skeptical of her assertion that Camilla was the one who talked Charles out of a reconciliation. First, I doubt if either would have confided to a third party.

Moreover, I doubt Charles was seriously considering a reconciliation at that point. I c
.

I certainly find it hard to believe that Charles considered reconciliation. I think that in doing Bashir, Diana really wasn't sure WHAT she wanted. she said she did not want a divorce, but she was upset when, after the interview, the queen more or less ordered a divorce.
I think that Panorama really was the last straw for Charles as well as for the queen.. he probalby felt guilty about the break up of his marriage but still must have felt that he just didn't know what to expect from Diana and, there was no way he could stay married to her, even technically because he could not trust her..So why would he think of giving the marriage another try?
As for her it really is hard to know what she was hoping to achieve. Perhaps although she said she didnt want a divorce, and was afraid of leaving the RF, in some ways...she was subconsciously trying to push them towards telling her that there must be a divorce and that saved her face. She could say that she didn't want a divorce, but that the queen insisted on it.
Yet I think that when she gott the letter insisting on divorce, she got very panicky and realised that she was now at the end of the game, that she was now going to HAVE to leave the marriage and the position that had been hers almost all her adult life.
She began to dimly realise perhaps that the "invisible cloak of royalty" which had protected her, was now gone, and she was going to be more isolated, treated with less respect and dignity from now on, and going to have to make her own life..

 

[Pranter]

Charles went public with an interview first...what did he expect Diana would do?


LaRae

 

[Denville]

And Diana went public with a book first. If one is going to play tit for tat, there comes a time when the game has to stop...Charles was having an interview anyway for his biography, he should not have admitted his affar with Cam, but given that Diana had started the fight with her book, it was possible that he'd hit back....

 

[Mermaid1962]

Agreed. The War of Waleses was dividing the country. Even within the Commonwealth, people were taking sides in the debate. Feelings were so much more intense than they are now. The monarchy, which for so long had been a symbol of unity, was becoming the opposite. The whole nasty business had to end.

In all my reading, I'd not run across this tidbit. Why would she need another apartment? Her husband had already moved out.

Prince Philip was trying to appease Diana by offering her another apartment in KP. (Lucia has copies of these letters.)

 

[Denville]

In all my reading, I'd not run across this tidbit. Why would she need another apartment? Her husband had already moved out.

I dont know either, She didn't move out of that apartment as far as i know atfer her separation and divorce. And I'm surprised to think of Philip trying to "appease" her, I think he meant well to her, but he grew increasingly annoyed by her behaviour...

Agreed. The War of Waleses was dividing the country. Even within the Commonwealth, people were taking sides in the debate. .

Yes, it was very bad of Diana. I sympathised with her at the time, because I felt sorry for her and was more inclined to blame Charles for the failure of the marriage. But even at the time, even sympathising, I was beginning to see that things had gotten out of hand and she was the one who started it and seemed to be keeping it going. Chas should have refused ot get into the fight, stopped his friends from putting out stories in the press and refusing to discuss his marriage or speak about Cam in that interview, so he is to blame as well. but if they did botht feel the divorce was the only thing that they could do, that they just could not live as a couple any more, I think they would have been better to keep on nagging at the queen, maybe reveal a bit of the friciton in the press so that she might have feared more bad stories coming out, and kept up the pressure.
but the fact remains that Diana did start the fight and fought the hardest. I think that C reached a point of positiveily hating her for a while and I doubt very much if he would have considered reconciliation..

 

[XeniaCasaraghi]

Denville may I ask why you think Diana panicked when the letter saying they must divorce was sent? I haven't read Diana books in years and I don't know of any indication that she was in panic mode when she realized it was over.

On another note, do you guys think the Queen would have gone the divorce route if Diana had questioned Charles ability to be king?

 

[Curryong]

I just think the Panorama interview was the last straw for the Queen. It wasnt the specific remark made by Diana about Charles's abilities IMO (as far as I remember Diana hinted at all that obliquely; didn't come right out and state that he would be a bad King and William would be better) just the fact that it had all come out in this interview, Charles's adultery with Camilla, the infidelity on Diana's part with Hewitt, the outright misery and resentment felt by her daughter in law, etc, etc.

The Queen never interferes in her children and grandchildren's lives unless she is absolutely driven to it. We've seen this pattern all her adult life, really. She may have felt that Charles would have been compelled to do a tit for tat interview defending Camilla at some stage in the future (I don't mean a full revelation about their affair but a general rebuttal) and then Diana might have retaliated with more revelations. I just think the Queen felt enough was enough. It just couldn't continue. It was all so damaging to the fabric of the monarchy, of how people felt about the Royal family.

So no, I don't think the Queen would have gone the divorce route if Panorama hadn't happened. The separation would have gone on IMO if Diana hadnt died until she met someone else in the fullness of time and had asked for a divorce.

 

[royal rob]

I think Charles would have wanted a divorce within a couple of years anyway he wanted Camilla in his life and wouldn't be happy if she was just the "girl friend"


Sent from my iPhone using The Royals Community

 

[Lee-Z]

I think genuinly wanted to make his marriage work in the beginning, but after a while found out there was so little they had in common and he would have to change himself so completely and give up everything *he* liked to suit Diana's needs that he couldn't do it...
And I think Diana didn't want to settle with anything *but* total commitment from him

and that just didn't fit, the interviews just quickened, or rather, HM quickened it for them to protect "the firm"

 

[Duchessmary]

Diana's best friend, Rosa Mockton, called the interview "Diana at her worst,"
And what did Diana expect the reaction would be from the Queen anyway? By that time, enough was enough.

 

[Denville]

Denville may I ask why you think Diana panicked when the letter saying they must divorce was sent? I haven't read Diana books in years and I don't know of any indication that she was in panic mode when she realized it was over.

On another note, do you guys think the Queen would have gone the divorce route if Diana had questioned Charles ability to be king?

I haven't got exact quotes but(AFAICR) she wrote back to say that she didn't understand the letter from the queen, and I think she was partly trying to stall to get a better financial deal, but i think that it was also that seh realised now she was getting out of the RF, but it problaby didn't feel like "freedom".
She must have realised by then that the queen was thoroughly fed up with her, so were most of the RF and a lot of her own class of people would disapprove. She told Pat J that he would be proud of her when he saw the TV programme but of course he was horrified because he had been trying to keep Diana as "in a friendly relationship" with the RF, still working with the queen's backing and the interview completely ruined hopes of that policy working... so I think she was beginning to realise that she was getting what she thought she wanted, a divorce, but Charles was not likely really to lose HIS place in the succession, and that her in laws esp the queen were now really going to be hostile to her..
I think that even without questioning C's being King, the queen knew that they had to divorce. The very fact that Di had managed to do the interview, behind her back, showed that in Royal terms they simply coudl not trust her, that she was a loose cannon and I think taht as Curry says, while the queen is very reluctant to intervene, she had reached the realisation that now she HAD to do something because the situation was out of control..

 

[Mermaid1962]

The Panorama interview was puzzling and full of mixed messages. Diana talked about how she was bulimic because of her environment and she talked about her unfaithful marriage (on both sides). She talked about how she was misunderstood and how members of the Royal Family were envious of her and how she was stronger than the other royal women, etc. etc.; and then she said that she didn't want a divorce. In other words, she was saying that her life was miserable but she didn't want to leave it. It was all very confusing.

 

[Pranter]

I think she didn't want a divorce because she wanted to keep her position (and I don't think she really cared about being the Queen, it was more about the 'job' she was doing) and sense of security.

That said, she wanted the freedom to move on in her personal life and I don't think that was possible as long as she was married. I think it likely she was pretty torn about what she wanted.


LaRae

 

[Curryong]

I think you are right, Pranter. I think Diana was extremely torn about what she wanted. Her mood probably changed from day to day, even hour to hour. She wanted her freedom and yet she still wanted the structure of the life that she had known since she was twenty, the life as Princess of Wales.

She was probably full of all sorts of emotions following the interview, a mixture of pride, excitement and anxiety about what she had done, a realisation that things would never be the same again and that perhaps a move might be made to separate her from her boys, a 'damn them all' attitude followed by lots of 'Oh God, what have I done!'

I think that interview was the gravest mistake of Diana's life and I still don't know why she did it, but at least it was the means of finally ending a terrible marriage.

 

[COUNTESS]

Yes, the interview was a very big mistake. She put herself in the firing line. She3 didn't get good advice on this.

 

[Pranter]

I think when Charles gave an interview and made the statements he did she couldn't bear to not respond. It wasn't well done of either of them...neither one should of happened.

They weren't thinking of how this would effect the BRF or their children (forever) when they did it. I think they were so caught up in the 'battle' they couldn't see the forrest for the trees.



LaRae

 

[Denville]

The Panorama interview was puzzling and full of mixed messages. other royal women, etc. etc.; and then she said that she didn't want a divorce. In other words, she was saying that her life was miserable but she didn't want to leave it. It was all very confusing.

well yes and No. I think like anyone with a bad marriage, she had mixed feelings. yes she wanted to end it, in some ways, but in other ways, she didn't want to. I think given her background, having believed that this marriage was for life, believed very deeply that she wanted a loving marriage with kids and that that was her way of fulfilling herself, its hardly surprising that she didn't want to end it. She didn't want to be the one who said "I want a divorce" when she knew that her sons would be unhappy with the formal ending of the marriage.
And I can understand that she did not want to give up her position. She had worked to do a good job as Princess, (in spite of what some people seem to think) and she did not want to give up that work.. or that position. She probably felt that her marriage would have worked had she not had the misfortune to meet a man who was in love with another woman.. (not entirely fair to Charles but from her POV, I can see why she felt like that). She knew she would not be queen, but she was trying to sort out some position where she kept SOME bits of her job and the status that went with it...
And I think that she was scared fo the unknown. SHe hoped if she got a divorce, she would be happier but I think by the time of Panorama, she was half afraid that things would not work out so well.. she would perhaps be alienated from her sons' family, and from many of her class of people.. She might not meet a nice man, or have another marriage...and she had lived all her adult life, nearly in the RF, it ws goig to be hard to leave all that...

Yes, the interview was a very big mistake. She put herself in the firing line. She3 didn't get good advice on this.

I believe she did get advice. But didn't listen. Friends told her not to do anythting so explosive because they knew it would be "endgame", that she'd cheese of the RF so badly that there would be "nothing left". But I think she was determined to make a response to Chas...I think esp perhaps she wanted to hit out about his admitting to his affair with Camilla.. perhaps she felt that she wanted to make it clear to him and the public that she had not gone unloved and unconsoled, while he was with Cam...

 

[Roslyn]

I believe she did get advice. But didn't listen. Friends told her not to do anythting so explosive because they knew it would be "endgame", that she'd cheese of the RF so badly that there would be "nothing left". But I think she was determined to make a response to Chas...I think esp perhaps she wanted to hit out about his admitting to his affair with Camilla.. perhaps she felt that she wanted to make it clear to him and the public that she had not gone unloved and unconsoled, while he was with Cam...

Sarah Bradford, in "Diana", at page 292 of the paperback version, records that Diana consulted David Puttnam, Clive James and David Attenborough about doing the Panorama interview. Each of them told her not to do it, and she gave each of them the impression that she would take their advice on the matter. Clive James told her that she'd be mad to do it. "I counselled her against it. I said that if that happened the two camps thing would go nuclear, and continue until there was nothing left. She would be on the run forever and there would be nowhere to go ... She seemed convinced, but of course she was pretending. She had already decided."

Bradford said (page 293), "Several things moved Diana to take the fatal step of the Panorama interview: her longing to put her case to the people over the heads of her 'enemies' in the Establishment; her love of publicity on her own terms; her intrinsic belief in the rightness of her own instinct even over all the wise opinions she had been given by people who had only her interests at heart; her determination to counter allegations of Borderline Personality Disorder; and lastly, and, least attractively if understandably, the desire for vengeance. This was evident in her instructions to the BBC over when to release the news of the broadcast. On Diana's specific instruction the BBC released their press announcement on 14 November, an unwelcome forty-seventh birthday surprise for Charles, on an official visit to Tokyo."

The night before the interview aired, Diana phoned "one of her mother figures" (whose name Bradford does not disclose) and said to her, "I've done the most wonderful interview, I've put everything right". She asked her to watch it and tell her what she thought in the morning. She watched it, and 'it was so frightful I - literally - was thinking I"m never going to be able to stand up for her again because it's so frightful, the Panorama thing." She told Diana that she wasn't mad about it "and Diana was furious ... I said it was a frightful mistake, and she didn't like that at all, she hated being criticized. But it was appalling, it was like a total error of judgement."

 

[Denville]

Exactly. All the advice she had was against doing it. And while it wasn't a good idea I thought at the time that she did it very well and that if she had a game plan for getting out of the RF, she did at least achieve that, and she still had a lot of support from people, esp women.
But I think in the long term, it didn't do her any good. It made the RF, and the upper classes mostly, think she was a crazy person.. and it did drive her out of the RF. It didn't affect Charles' position, I think that maybe she hoped it would... that people would press for him to give up his place marry Cam and leave the job.. But that didn't happen.. Diana was the one who ended up leaving and I'm not suer that she was able to cope with life outside the protected cage fo the RF..

 

[Denville]

Yes,
I certainly don't think she realised the consequences of her Panorama interview. At that time though, I think Diana was just burning up with misery and resentment and dislike of BP and all it stood for and that overrode everything. It was only later she awoke to the cold light of reality, that she really had burned her bridges.

I AGree. I dont think she did anything very consciously in the War.. She was eitherr hurt or angry and hit out. I used to beleive that she had a game plan for the whole thing, that she had Oked the Morton book and then the Interview, as a way of pushing for a divorce..That perhaps the Morton book had not worked.. it had gotten her a separation but not full freedom.. so she went further. But now I think it was all done on instinct and that the instinctive hitting out was foolish and did her no favours.
I think that seh DID want to say she'd had an affair, because she was hurt at Charles' admittng that HE had had an affair...She felt angry that she,as a beautiful woman, had her husband saying in effect that he had never really been in love with her and that he had been seeing another woman for years, whom he preferred. IMO that was one reason for her wanting to go further than the book and do a TV interview and actually say "I had an affair too, Even if C doesn't care for me -there are men who did...."
and I think on an unconscious level she just felt that she had to do something more dramatic, to get the RF to let her go... but she didn't want to say formally that she wanted a divorce..She wanted THEM to ask her for a divorce and I think that's what happened.. She had cheesed them off so much that they were positively eager to get rid of her, and so she could ask for more money etc.