How Princess Diana Confronted Camilla About the Affair

It was the head-to-head that had to happen, and as fans of The Crown saw in Season 4, Princess Diana finally confronted Camilla Parker Bowles at a party.

It was 1989, and Charles and Diana’s marriage was failing. The pair was still showing a united front in public, but in private, they were living separate lives. What nobody knew was that Diana had reached her breaking point with Charles’s relationship with Camilla, later famously saying in her 1995 BBC Panorama interview, “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” And she was going to do something about it.

Read on as we spill the tea on how Diana confronted Camilla Parker Bowles, with expert input from royal biographer Ingrid Seward.

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Were Princess Diana and Camilla ever friends?

When Diana dated Prince Charles, she was introduced into her future husband’s friendship circle, which included Andrew and Camilla Parker Bowles. At first, Diana got along with Charles’s ex-girlfriend. But when the engagement was announced in February 1981 and Diana moved into Clarence House, she was surprised to find a letter from Camilla on her bed. “Such exciting news,” it said. “Do let’s have lunch soon.”

Diana later described the lunch in secret tapes for biographer Andrew Morton as being “very tricky indeed.” Diana continued, “She said, ‘You are not going to hunt when you go and live at Highgrove, are you?’ I thought as far as she was concerned, that was her communication route.” According to biographer Tina Brown, in The Diana Chronicles, “Diana deduced, rightly, that Camilla was … working out what was going to be her territory,” as she lived not far away from Highgrove.

Did Camilla attend the wedding?

Camilla was invited to Charles and Diana’s wedding ceremony, but not the reception. When Diana found a bracelet Charles had bought for Camilla before the royal nuptials, it was clear that it had become Camilla vs. Diana. At the ceremony in St Paul’s Cathedral, on July 29, 1981, Diana said she was scanning the pews for Camilla. “Walking down the aisle, I spotted Camilla, pale gray, veiled pillbox hat, saw it all,” she told Morton, adding that the memory became seared into her mind.

When did Camilla and Charles start having an affair?

According to Charles’s biographer Jonathan Dimbleby, Charles and Camilla revived their relationship around 1986. They first met in 1970 and had an intense relationship, with Charles deciding to propose, but “it was not possible, as at that time, she was not accepted as a suitable bride for the heir to the throne and future queen,” says royal biographer Ingrid Seward.

Diana later told the BBC’s Martin Bashir that it was devastating having to cope with a husband who “loved someone else.” Today we’d call it gaslighting, but back then, she said she was framed as being irrational, “unstable, sick and should be put in a home of some sort in order to get better,” she said. “I was almost an embarrassment.”

Why did Diana decide to confront Camilla about the affair?

By 1989, Diana had reached her breaking point and decided to do something about it, explains Seward, author of My Mother and I: The Inside Story of the King and Our Late Queen. “I think Diana had a bit more fight in her and wanted to get the better of Charles,” she tells Reader’s Digest.

As Diana reveals on audiotapes secretly made for Andrew Morton’s book Diana: Her True Story, she decided to attend Camilla’s sister Annabel’s 40th birthday near Richmond, west London. “Nobody expected me to turn up, but … a voice inside me said: ‘Go for the hell of it,'” she said, revealing that she decided she wasn’t going to kiss Camilla hello any longer, but instead, shake her hand.

What happened at the party?

At the party, Diana realized Charles and Camilla were missing and found them sitting with a friend in another room. Approaching them, she said, “Camilla, I’d love to have a word with you if it’s possible,” before sending the men away. Diana told Morton she said, “Camilla, I would just like you to know that I know exactly what is going on. I obviously am in the way and it must be hell for both of you, but I do know what is going on. Don’t treat me like an idiot.”

What did Charles and Camilla say?

According to Diana, Camilla approached the denouement with calm. And Charles said nothing at all. According to Diana, Camilla replied, “You’ve got everything you ever wanted. You’ve got all the men in the world falling in love with you and you’ve got two beautiful children. What more do you want?” To which Diana told her, “I want my husband.”

The confrontation immensely upset Diana, says Seward. “I think the meeting was so traumatic, Diana couldn’t begin to think straight,” she says, adding, “she sobbed all the way home.” Diana’s personal protection officer, Ken Wharfe—a friend of Seward’s—was in the car with her and Charles, she says. According to him, “they didn’t say a word.”

What happened afterward?

A line had been drawn in the shifting sand of Charles and Diana’s marriage. As Diana said, in her secret tapes, “The next morning … I felt a tremendous shift. I’d done something, said what I felt, still the old jealousy and anger … but it wasn’t so deathly as before.”

When the story of the confrontation came out, in Diana: Her True Story, in June 1992, it caused a sensation worldwide. There was no going back—six months later, Diana and Charles officially separated.

When did Charles and Diana divorce?

Two years later, Charles sensationally admitted he had been adulterous, in his 1994 TV interview Charles: The Private Man, the Public Role, with Jonathan Dimbleby, saying that he had been faithful, “until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried.” Camilla divorced Parker Bowles in 1995, and a year later, Charles and Diana were finally divorced.

Did Diana and Camilla ever reconcile?

There would be no reconciliation between Princess Diana and Camilla, with Diana famously calling her rival “the Rottweiler.” However, following the divorce, Diana was finally looking forward to freedom and a happier future, before her tragic death on August 31, 1997, at age 36. “The finality of the divorce gave Diana permission to free herself,” writes Andrew Morton. “The days of betrayal, anguish and hurt lay in the past.”

Did Camilla go to Diana’s funeral?

Camilla did not attend Diana’s funeral on September 6, 1997. After Charles threw her a 50th birthday at Highgrove in July 1997, Camilla was planning to begin her public renaissance. But Diana’s death a month later meant the public was in no mood to embrace Charles’s new relationship, and Camilla once more had to go into hiding.

Would Diana have forgiven Camilla?

As to whether Diana and Camilla would have gotten along, had Diana lived, royal experts think that, like the public, Princess Diana would have eventually accepted Queen Camilla. Diana knew she would never be queen, telling Morton, “From day one, I always knew I would never be the next queen.”

The irony that Camilla would later be crowned would not have been lost on Diana, says Seward. “How ironic that eventually it was Camilla, not Diana, who became queen,” she says.

About the expert

Ingrid Seward is the editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine and one of the most prominent biographers of the British royal family. She has published numerous books on the royals, her most recent being My Mother and I: The Inside Story of the King and Our Late Queen.

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