Princess Diana Part 1: The Royal Romance That Was Over Before It Began

[00:00:01] She is still probably one of the most photographed people in human history. And honestly, this whole story plays out like an episode of Shameless, except everyone is in tiaras and ball gowns. Expensive outfits. Expensive, messy outfits. She pushes an old lady down the stairs. For me, it makes her more relatable. The next day, Adam, it's all over the press and it's a tabloid scandal. It's because she can see a silhouette of her legs through her dress.

[00:00:31] Woman has legs! Oh, the humanity! What a harlot, showing off those legs. On February the 6th, 1981, Charles proposes. There was no embrace, there was no quiet celebration between them. Instead, he runs upstairs to tell the bloody queen. Well, you probably do need to let her know. So, this is the kind of moment where everything clicks for her.

[00:00:57] This is when she realises that there are going to be three people in this marriage. So she knows that she's almost like a pawn.

[00:01:28] We're back! Season three, baby! Yeah, bitches. Adam! Oh, what? Where did that come from? That was very abrupt and very aggressive. Is that not okay? No! Okay. I think that's going to be shocking for our listeners. For our bitches. This is not the best start for season three. Listen, should we just run the intro? Yeah, okay. Welcome to the Compendium, an assembly of fascinating things.

[00:01:54] A weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering. We explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history, and the jaw-dropping deeds of extraordinary people. I'm your host for this week's episode, Kyle Reesie. And I'm Adam Cox, the secret circus shopper of the week. Oh yeah! So you're going around all the different circuses, exploring the experience. That's right, and then feeding back to head office. Are you doing the Compendium circus? Yeah. Oh God. So far it's not good.

[00:02:24] Well, you're the one who started off with bitch! Yeah, I'm a little concerned I'm gonna have to come up with another 51 random jobs for the circus. Yeah, you need to get your work going. I've been doing this for two years. I don't know if I can think of any more. Soon you'll just be like, I don't know, checkout lady of the circus. To be fair, that's probably next week. So Adam, season three, how do you feel? I know we haven't been taken off the air at all. No, in fact, our listeners love us. Who would have ever thought? Yeah, not me.

[00:02:54] I am genuinely totally humbled by the fact that we managed to last three seasons. Yeah, and the podcast is still growing. We get some really nice reviews, nice suggestions. We can't always do the episodes that people suggest, but we do note them down. And when we think we can like do the story justice, then we definitely come back to them. So by the time we finish this season in a year's time, that's another 60 to add. So like 180 episodes. That's right. That's crazy. So we're gonna kick off with a bang today.

[00:03:20] And I'm gonna be telling you a story that I've wanted to tell you for a hell of a long time. But before we get there, Adam, should we do some housekeeping? Okay. Guys, if you are new to the show and you want to support us, then the absolute best way to support the show and enjoy exclusive perks is to join us over at Patreon. Signing up for free gets you access to next week's episode in the entire seven days before anyone else. For as little as $3 a month, you'll become a fellow freak of the show, unlocking our entire back catalogue,

[00:03:50] including classic episodes about the Beanie Baby Bubble and the truth behind the Jonestown Massacre. And of course, as a special thank you, our certified freak team members receive an exclusive compendium keychain. All you need to do is just DM us with your address and we will send one straight to your door. So we can always be dangling there near your crotch. And lastly, guys, please follow us on your favourite podcast app and leave us a review. Your support helps others find us and keeps these amazing stories coming.

[00:04:19] Absolutely. Guys, if only 10% of the people that actually followed our show left us a review, it would just skyrocket the number of reviews and ratings that we have and will just bring new listens to the show. And it costs you absolutely nothing. So if you get a chance, just hit that follow button and give us a star review. If you can, a five star review. And if you have a one star review for us, don't. I was going to say, I know a couple of podcasts where you could leave those reviews. We also have the website as well.

[00:04:49] So if you do fancy like leaving us a slightly longer review, then you can do it there. That's right. Yeah, they go on straight away. So Adam, today on the compendium, we're diving into an assembly of childhood ghosts, royal rituals and a girl who thought she'd found love. Okay. I think I've got an idea. What are you thinking, boy? Boy? Boy? I'm thinking of a princess. I'm thinking of a princess we all know and love.

[00:05:18] Princess Diana. Yes, Adam. Today we're actually kicking off season three of the compendium with a story that I've wanted to do for so long. And it's such a massive one that for the first time ever, we are doing a three-parter episode. We are diving into the life of Princess Diana. A three-parter. Three episodes. It goes against the grain, I know. The whole point of this episode is one hour.

[00:05:47] Listen, the way that we've split this out is we have segmented them into kind of the three key areas of her life. So depending on what you're interested in the most, you can just dive into that particular episode. So you can kind of be treated as a standalone episode. And also, to keep in the spirit of things, we may not necessarily release them back to back. We might split them up over maybe six weeks or so. Okay. To give you a bit of a breather. But yeah, Adam, it's a big topic.

[00:06:15] And listen, it has always been, when it comes to the story of Diana, a massive contentious subject, especially in the Risi household. I've always loved Diana ever since I can remember. It's the glamour. It's the charisma. And of course, you can't deny the incredible work that she's done for all of her different charities. And the warmth and the utter presence that she has. Like, she's the original drag queen. She oozes charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent all in one. I mean, I don't know if she's the original drag queen.

[00:06:44] People will be fact-checking you, Kyle. But she would be on RuPaul's Drag Race as a judge if she was still alive today. Guaranteed. Maybe. I don't know if they'd allow it. What do they call the company? Is it the company? She used to refer to the royal family, like COG, but the people behind the scenes. The institution. The institution, yeah. Yeah, that's it. And the thing is, though, when it comes to Diana, the biggest part of her entire story is that very slow motion tragedy of her marriage to Prince King Charles.

[00:07:12] As well as, of course, the isolation. And just the way that she was swallowed up by the entire institution. I love how even after two years on the throne, he's still Prince King Charles. He'll never not be a prince. No, he's always going to be Prince Charles to me. And I think a lot of people picked up on that very early on. The sense of this young woman who was chewed up by the crown, which is maybe why she was embraced so fiercely as a people's princess in the eyes of the public.

[00:07:37] Not because she asked for it, but it's because we could sense that she had been disavowed by the very people that were supposed to have protected her, the institution. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And every time Diana came up in our household growing up, my mom would always give the world's most theatric eye roll. And it's because my mom always saw her as this kind of master manipulator of the press. And she just didn't trust her. And honestly, it used to cause massive fights, especially like in my early 20s when every time we would bring it up, my mom would just, ah, Princess Diana, what a joke or whatever.

[00:08:08] But what I didn't expect while researching this episode is that my mom wasn't actually totally wrong about that. What do you mean? Well, don't get me wrong. I don't see that press savviness as some kind of nefarious Machiavellian thing. I see it as someone who has been hounded and used and violated by the media for so many years, who just finally learned how to flip that dynamic and how to work the circus to her own advantage. She wasn't making the waves. It was more of a case that she learned how to ride the waves.

[00:08:37] Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I guess if you've been at times probably mistreated by the press, then yeah, you're going to try and weave in your own story or yeah. Why wouldn't you do that if you could sort of bend the press a little bit? So, I mean, I have a massive apology to make my mom because after reading some of the shocking things that Princess Diana did. A scandalo. Absolutely scandalous, but also, Adam, utterly, utterly embarrassing. Oh no. I can't wait to get to that in episode two.

[00:09:06] Now, I probably don't need to explain who Princess Diana is. She is still probably one of the most famous women in the world. One of the most photographed people in human history. And that last part has a kind of bitter irony to it because those photos, those flashes are kind of what ended up killing her in the end. And it's because her image just became this commodity. It was a currency. There were literal millions of dollars on the line for a single shot of just her walking to a car, eating lunch, holding hands with someone.

[00:09:33] Most of those photos were just complete trash. They were really grainy. They were taken from a mile away from the bushes or whatever. But they sold because there were pictures of Diana. Diana, that's how in demand she was. She sold newspapers and magazines, everything. I read this article that the paparazzi used to negotiate kind of syndication rights for her photographs. Like they would sell the same image to three different publications in like a three-day window.

[00:09:58] And on day one, the tabloid might pay like $2 million for exclusive rights to print her pictures on day one. And then day two, another one would pay like $600,000. And then day three, someone might pay like $100,000. And what's really hilarious is no one cared what the picture was. They just cared that it was just a picture of her. Now, if you're Gen Z or you just never really heard the full story, the simplest way to frame the life of Princess Diana is as a tragedy.

[00:10:27] It is a story of a love triangle between three of the most privileged people on this planet. That is Princess Diana, Prince Charles, and of course his mistress, Camilla Pachelbelz. Well, yeah. I mean, she's now the queen. Can we call her a mistress now? The other woman. Yeah, she was the other woman. And I say people very deliberately because in the story, they weren't really people. They were gilded animals in a cage on display, watched by the entire world.

[00:10:55] And that tragedy, of course, this love triangle, ends with the death of one of the most beloved royals in human history. Do you remember where you were when the news broke that she was killed? Yeah, I remember I turned on the TV to watch either Saturday morning or Sunday morning cartoons and they weren't on. And I remember calling to my parents. Oh, Princess Diana's dead. Did you even know what that meant at the time? Yeah, it was about 10, so I knew what it meant.

[00:11:23] But yeah, I just remember that's how I learned about it. And it was just a bit like I didn't really understand it, I think, at the time. It's definitely one of those moments where like 9-11 or the 7-7 bombings where it's like, where were you when X happened? Do you know what I mean? And this is definitely one of them. Where were you? Well, when the news broke, I remember waking up around about 7 a.m. and we were actually watching Toy Story on VHS for the very first time. And the news suddenly just cut in and just everyone in the house just froze.

[00:11:53] We were just all glued to the television pretty much all day. And in the weeks that followed, what I remember the most vividly was just the sea of flowers and cards outside Buckingham Palace. Yeah, and I remember in our local town hall, and I assume just town halls, across the country, there were books of condolences which you could go in and sort of write and the public could go. So I remember doing that with my mum. So yeah, it was a big, big thing. I read somewhere that underneath all the bouquets was just more flowers.

[00:12:21] So it turned into this kind of thick layer of just mulch. So like they were just putting flowers on top of flowers on top of flowers, which is, yeah, quite eerie in a way. But emotionally, what hit me the hardest was watching Prince Harry walk behind his mother's coffin. Because we were roughly around about the same age. And I always thought growing up that my mum looked like Princess Diana. Like they had the same blonde hair, blue eyes. They would wear the same iconic 1990s kind of blue eyeliner. And when I saw him walking behind a coffin, I felt like I was watching myself.

[00:12:50] So for this very rare three-part series, we are drawing on two major biographies. The first is going to be Diana in her own words by a guy called Andrew Morton. And this is actually a book that's based on secretly recorded tapes made about her own life. And when the book came out in 1991, she, of course, denied having any involvement in it. But then the tapes leaked and, yeah, there was just no denying it.

[00:13:20] And honestly, you could tell anyway because the book is really flattering about her. It kind of skims over some more messier moments, which, trust me, there are many. And, of course, the second book we're going to be drawing upon is The Diana Chronicles by a woman called Tina Brown. And, Adam, it is the complete opposite of Andrew Morton's book. Because it's bold, it's unflinching and sometimes really sensational, but it paints like a more fuller picture.

[00:13:46] And if you read both together, they give you a really well-balanced view of her actual life. And what I love about Tina's book is just how much she leans into kind of the weirdness and the rituals and the absurdities of royal life. Like she doesn't sugarcoat anything. It's less sugar. It's more salt. 100%. There is a line in her book that really sets the tone of how she's delivering Diana's life story. And it goes,

[00:14:11] There is no other rival for her heart but 28-year-old Charles Philip Arthur George, His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, or Arthur, as he liked to be called when he climaxed. Oh, really? So that's the tone that we are working through. It really cuts through all the kind of pomp and the ceremony and the respects, I guess, and just skewers in on the ridiculousness of it all. Yeah, I wasn't ready for that.

[00:14:35] So the first book by Andrew Morton with these tapes, did she know she was being recorded then? Oh, no. She recorded the tapes and she funneled them to Andrew Morton. So it's essentially Diana from Diana. It's a memoir, basically, not written by Diana because she had to detach herself from it. But there was a very good reason why she decided to write this book. And it's because she could sense that her marriage has come to an end.

[00:15:00] And she could sense that if she went through a separation or she went through a divorce, that part of those divorce proceedings would probably enact a gag order against her. So she wanted to write her own side of the story and get it out there before kind of that was a possibility. I see. So she basically hired Andrew Morton in order to do that. And also, Princess Diana is a queen when it comes to PR. Like, she knows how to work the media.

[00:15:27] She knows how to work that public kind of persona of hers in the best way. And I'm not saying that in a negative way. She's just very good at this. And honestly, this whole story plays out like an episode of Shameless, except everyone is in tiaras and ball gowns. And somehow that contrast between the fantasy and the dysfunctional makes it all so much more relatable because it drives home the one thing we all forget. And that is they're all just people in different outfits to us.

[00:15:57] They're just really messy. Expensive outfits. Expensive, messy outfits. They've got gravy dripping down them. Yeah. So here's how these three episodes are going to be split out. The first episode is going to be all about Princess Diana's childhood, her family and her courtship with Prince King Charles and the cracks as they start to emerge in their early marriage. Episode two is going to be all about the collapse and, of course, the affairs that kind of come to light. The implosion, if you will, leading up to the divorce.

[00:16:26] And then episode three is going to be spread across a single year of her life. And that is the final year because we're going to leave off at the point that she gets divorced. And it's almost exactly one year before she will then be killed in a car accident in Paris. And so these three episodes, they are a lot. We don't normally do three passes, but I've kept each episode pretty much self-contained so you can jump in wherever you like. So you ready for this? Let's do it.

[00:16:54] So what part of Princess Diana's story intrigues you most? You don't have to necessarily say this one because this is what we're doing. I mean, I've watched The Crown. And so I think all of her life is interesting, especially as she gets pulled into this almost like arranged marriage, isn't it? Yeah. That's what it is. And I guess it's not like the bit I enjoy the most, but it's her trouble within the family, her bulimia, all that sort of stuff that was hidden for such a long period of time. And it's kind of like keeping up appearances, essentially.

[00:17:24] The bit that I am intrigued by the most, and we'll cover a lot of that in episode two, is when she finally decides to separate from Prince Charles because she just blooms. She becomes more confident. She starts taking life into her own hands. She's way more in control and she becomes nasty and vindictive. And she also becomes really sexual. And I just live for that. I love it. Yeah, you don't expect that in a princess. No, you don't. You don't see that in a Disney movie.

[00:17:52] No, you definitely don't. So, Adam, the whole Princess Diana being the people's princess kind of image has nothing to do with her upbringing. Yes, her father was kind of Earl Spencer, but the real money in her family actually comes from her mother's side. Their marriage was 100% a financial kind of alliance rather than any sort of romance, if you will.

[00:18:15] When Diana is very little, before her dad inherits his title, they actually live in a 10-bedroom modest house. They have six... Hang on. 10-bedroom modest house. They're not living in Aelthorpe, which is kind of the family estate, which is that big, massive, giant castle type thing. Okay, but fine. But no house that is modest as 10-bedroom. Fair point. Fair point. I mean, they also had six members of staff as well. Yeah, it's definitely not modest. Which sounds posh, obviously.

[00:18:44] But Morton describes her childhood as one where she lacked for nothing materially, but everything emotionally. And hopefully that kind of sums up what her childhood was like. Because her parents' marriage was dysfunctional at best. It existed solely to preserve the estate and also to produce a male heir, which is a massive problem when Frances gives birth to two daughters. And then in 1960, she finally does have a son, but he dies just two hours after his birth.

[00:19:12] And Frances never even gets a chance to even hold him. She only finds out what happens to him on his birth certificate, where it lists that he died from extensive malformation. So I don't realise even as, well, the 1960s for an Earl needed to have a male heir. Oh yeah, because at that time, the title can only get passed down by the male, right? And if they don't have a son, then that title goes nowhere. And of course, when the baby died, that was treated as her failure. So she ends up getting sent to a whole bunch of clinics.

[00:19:42] And a year later, she finally gives birth again. And it's a girl. And because it was considered bad luck to pick girl names when you were trying for a boy, the baby didn't even have a name for the first few weeks of its life. But eventually, they ended up calling it Diana Frances Spencer. Oh, okay. And that's Princess Diana. And from the very beginning, Diana was very acutely aware that she was a disappointment. One of her earliest memories was being told that she should have been a boy.

[00:20:11] And this is one of the recurring themes that we'll see about Diana, is that when you say something to her, especially when you're a kid who is very observant and they really pick up on things. If it's anything negative, especially about her or her inadequacies in terms of her intellect or whatever, she really holds onto that. And she doesn't let go of it. And it really affects her right into adulthood. It's really sad. And so that throwaway line, the ones that adults barely even remember saying, they stay with her for life.

[00:20:39] Eventually, in 1964, Frances does give birth to a son. And his name is Charles. But by then, the damage in their relationship was already done. She's 28 years old. She's done her duty. And now she is just ready to leave John. She starts spending more and more time in London. She's going to plays and dinner parties. She's basically carving out a life of her own. And honestly, good for her.

[00:21:02] Like, they were absolutely miserable because, like, the entire marriage was built on this really stupid basis that, A, we need money to fund the estate. And also, we need a male heir. So just like friction and resentment, especially after two failed daughters, just caused an issue and caused a chism. Two failed daughters? That feels unfair. You know what I mean. Failed twice at producing a male heir. Two children failures. It's not what I meant. That's not how. Please don't cancel me.

[00:21:32] This is why you're not a parent. Thank God. One of Diana's earliest memories is watching her dad slap her mum while she's hiding behind a door. So many of her childhood memories are just of her mum crying. So eventually, Frances, she does meet someone else. His name is Peter Shan Kidd, and he's a wealthy sheep farmer. They end up having an affair, and she moves to London. She takes the kids with her. And for a while, Diana experiences something almost normal. Like, they don't have any staff.

[00:22:01] She's riding the tube into London. Her mum is doing kind of the school drop-offs. And meanwhile, while this very brief moment of normality is taking place, there is a big, massive custody battle raging between her dad and her mum. And in the end, John wins custody. And it's purely because he has a title and he has an estate. So he wins custody of Diana and her sisters? Diana, his sisters, and of course, their brother Charles. Yeah.

[00:22:26] But also, it doesn't help the fact that Frances' own mother, so that's Diana's grandmother, she testifies against Frances in the custody hearing because she doesn't want the kids to stay with her daughter. Really? Isn't that just awful? And it's because she was obsessed with elevating the family status. Like, they grew up in Sandringham, the royal's Christmas estate. And she'd spent her whole life trying to get the family closer to the crown. So in her mind, siding with John just made more sense than siding with the daughter. And it's just brutal, dude.

[00:22:55] And so now, John has custody. And he is totally emotionally inequipped. He's completely absent. He's super cold. He's in the house, but he's not really there. I think he's really acutely aware of the fact that he has these inadequacies as a dad. Because he tries to compensate with these really massive gestures like renting kind of animals from the local zoo for their birthday parties. But then the thing is, though, after the party ends, the house just goes back to being cold and silent and empty.

[00:23:23] And even Diana's brother once said that he didn't even eat a meal with his dad until he was seven years old. And even then, it was like he was eating across the room from a stranger. That seems so bizarre. It does feel like there's any regular parenting. No. Care. Fun. But that's the thing, though. Because he grew up just exactly the same, he doesn't know any better. And I think that's part of the problem. Of course, to help with the kids, John cycles through a series of nannies. They're all young. They're all glamorous.

[00:23:52] And Diana becomes convinced that they're all trying to marry him. And so her and her brother, they just terrorize them all. They put like pins on their chairs. They lock them out the house. It's just total chaos. Like no one sticks around long enough to build kind of any trust or routine. So their lives have no real maternal kind of presence around them at all, other than when they're going off to go see their mum. They sound like nightmare children. I mean, she probably was a nightmare child.

[00:24:19] It's like they need Mary Poppins to come in and sort them out. If Mary Poppins is going to go anywhere, it's going to be to the Spencer household, right? Yeah. That'd be an interesting twist on Mary Poppins. It turns out to be Princess Diana. Yeah. Like Mary Poppins 3. Could be. I think you should write to someone. And of course, like even though they're not together, throughout all of this, John and Francis, they are still using their kids as weapons to test their loyalty, to see which side they're on.

[00:24:47] So, for example, Diana gets an invite to be a bridesmaid at a family wedding. Her mum gives her a green dress. Her dad gives her a white one. And they're both expected to wear their dress that they've given her. So like how do you even make their choice, right? Whichever one she picks, like someone is going to be let down. So it's absolutely devastating position to be in. Or is it just an excuse for a costume change like mid-party? I don't think like nine-year-old Princess Diana is thinking like that. She should be. Yeah.

[00:25:16] So when Diana turns 12, she finally is sent off to boarding school. And this is her chance to escape this weird sense of cold and loneliness she's suffering through at home. But she's the only one in her class with divorced parents. And so she's acutely aware of this. And so throughout school, she just feels like an outsider amongst everyone else. It must have been a lot less common. She's growing up today. Yeah. That'd be pretty much the norm in terms of co-parenting. What, your parents are together? And different types of families. It's just, that's what it is now.

[00:25:46] But back then, and especially from someone with money, that must have been like, yeah, she's a bit like an outcast. Yeah. But the thing is, though, even though she feels like an outsider, what's interesting is that her classmates don't really see it that way. Like in interviews, they describe her as actually popular. They describe her as funny. They describe her as athletic. Like she swam. She played netball. She acted in place. She seemed fine. So there's this really interesting contrast between how she felt and how others saw her. And that never really went away throughout her entire life.

[00:26:15] You can definitely have that disconnect between how you feel and how you present to the world. That's what I mean. Like she must have felt like not normal or, you know, not the norm. And so therefore felt different. But actually, yeah, on the surface of things, she's fine. She's doing okay. That clearly affected her quite a lot. So she's joining clubs, things like that. What kind of student was she like? Was she good at home school? To be honest, she wasn't really the top of a class at all. Like she was just okay. In fact, in Tina Brown's book, honestly, she's actually really cruel about how she talks about Diana's education.

[00:26:45] She focuses a lot on how she failed her O-levels. But to me, that doesn't say that she's stupid. It just says to me that she doesn't test well. You know what I mean? Yeah. Or doesn't perhaps, I don't know, do well in class or whatever, but actually can still be smart. But the thing is, though, Diana believes that she is really dumb as well. And it's probably low confidence that's been passed down from someone who's probably comparing her to the wrong people or comparing her to her brother or whatever it might be.

[00:27:10] But she gets this deep sense that she is just completely inadequate when it comes to her intellect. And you can see this little moment, even in adulthood, if you go back to actually the crown, there is this little moment. You might have missed it if you weren't looking for it. But basically, when Charles proposes and they agree to get married, the queen asked Diana to choose her own engagement ring from the royal collection or whatever. And one of the jewels that she picks up is a jewel from Burma. And the queen asked her, like, do you know where Burma is?

[00:27:39] And instead of saying, no, I don't know where that is, where is it? Diana just says, I've always been really thick when it comes to geography. And so it's really tiny, but that is totally her. That sums her up perfectly. That's how she talks about herself, like in this constant self-deprecating way. That's what she believed about herself, that she wasn't smart, that she didn't know enough. And it's probably because someone, probably more than someone, told her that over and over until it just ended up sticking.

[00:28:09] Yeah, that's cruel. That's sad. It's awful. I feel so awful for her. Yet she's so extraordinary in her life. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I think everyone looks past that. Everyone's, she just seems normal. It's also around about this time as a schoolgirl that people start noticing that Diana has this real incredible gift for empathy. There is this school trip that they all go on to like a mental institution somewhere. And most of the students are kind of like really awkward. They're avoiding eye contact with the patients. But Diana does the complete opposite. She walks straight up to them. She drops to her knees.

[00:28:39] She meets them at eye level. And she just connects to them. And then suddenly, in that instance, the entire room just shifts. The tensions break. The other kids see that there's nothing to be afraid of. Patients realize, oh, these are just kids. They're not going to rip out my IV bag. And it's just all good. And within minutes, the whole place is just buzzing with voices echoing through the halls. Kids and patients are laughing and talking. And it all starts with Diana. That's what she was like as a human being.

[00:29:04] So we know Diana for being in the media and obviously helping kids, whatever it might be, in hospitals. There's the whole famous scene where she goes and sees an AIDS patient. But you always wonder, was that for kind of show? Was it for the press or whatever? But it seems like this was ingrained into her. It's built into her. And that's 100%. You see all these celebrities that get really involved in this philanthropic world, right? They do a lot of charity work like Bono, for example. While the cameras are rolling, they're really attentive and they're caring.

[00:29:33] But when the cameras are turned off, that's it. But with Diana, it's completely opposite. There are so many examples when there are no cameras around where she will go to people's homes privately to check in on them. And they're just ordinary members of the public. So it is something that is completely ingrained in her. And this, to her, becomes this superpower, this ability to really connect with the most vulnerable, the most overlooked people in society. That's something that stays there for the rest of her life.

[00:30:01] Her mother says that she has this real knack for spotting the most vulnerable person in the room and making them feel comfortable. I mean, what a gift. Yeah. And this is essentially what it is that makes her the people's princess, right? People can see this just by seeing how warm she is. Seeing the fact that she wants to take some flowers from you and she doesn't want to give them to an aide. She'd rather hold 40 bunches of flowers, not be able to see where she's going. People pick up on those types of cues, right?

[00:30:31] Tina Brown puts it perfectly. She writes, Yeah. Yeah. When people start recognising Diana's empathy, like really seeing it, it sparks something inside of her because for most of her life, she's always felt like she's second best. She's always kind of comparing herself to her siblings. Like her sisters all seem really brilliant at everything. Her brother went off to Eton and then Oxford.

[00:31:00] She literally thinks that he is a genius. So over time, that anxiety kind of calcifies itself. That self-deprecating voice just becomes her default setting. So she would say things like, oh, I'm too thick to know anything about that. But that wasn't just her modesty. That's a defence mechanism. Like if she can say it first, then you can't say it to her. But yeah, yeah, it sounds like it. And this is all come from her childhood into her school, into her early adulthood.

[00:31:28] That's really sad just to have that because imagine if she had that confidence or someone like raised her up. She could still do all those things, but just I don't know. She may be able to like excel at them more than she did already. Yeah, 100%. It's so sad. And just to be clear, I'm not saying in any way that she's thick, not even close. I'm talking about how she saw herself like she could play piano. She danced ballet. She wasn't bad at anything, really.

[00:31:53] She just didn't feel exceptional, especially compared to the other people that she was orbiting around. And so when she finds this ability to connect with other people, something shifts inside her. And for the very first time in her entire life, she does not feel second best, which I just think is really special. She's found her superpower. She's number one at that. Exactly. So three years after the divorce, Diana's dad meets a woman called Rain Legs. I cannot wait to talk to you about Rain Legs. We're only going to touch upon her a little bit here.

[00:32:23] But Rain Legs is my icon. Rain Legs. What a name. Yeah, it is. So basically they meet at some kind of architectural heritage event. And at the time, she's still married to like the Earl of Dartmouth or someone equally titled. And within a few years, they get divorced and she just marries John and Diana and all the kids. They absolutely hate her. They barely get any time with their dad as it is.

[00:32:48] So when Rain gets on the scene, they just are scrapping for any kind of little bit of attention that they can get from their dad as it is. Is she a younger woman? Not really. No. I wonder if she was like Little Miss New Boobs. No, she's not. But I honestly, I feel so awful for Rain because like she's just as damaged as all of them. And from the moment that she arrives, they just give her absolute hell. Rain comes from money, but it's not the world of the aristocracy kind of money.

[00:33:17] Like she's seen as nouveau riche or kind of like new money. And people just think she's really tacky. She's like a little bit of a try too hard, if you will. Is she wearing like leopard print? She'll do things like she'll shop at a kid's party at 11am on a Saturday. It's a swimming pool party. Everyone's wearing swimsuits, flip flops. Rain rolls up wearing a literal emerald green ball gown. And people are like, what the fuck's happening then? This is a kid's party. She'll also just invent really weird rules as well just for the sake of it.

[00:33:46] And they just don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. She just does this because the world of aristocracy is just filled with rituals and protocols. And this is what she thinks she has to do. So Christmas, for example, she'll like stack everyone's presents up in these neat little piles. And no one's allowed to open up their presents until she checks the watch. She waits for the hand to get to the 12 o'clock hour. And then she'll give you like the little finger wag. And then you can go ahead and rip open your presents.

[00:34:12] And she just does these things that are just pointless and meanness because she thinks that's what dictates being part of the aristocracy. Really? By like telling people like on the minute when to open their presents? It's just weird. I imagine I feel like, I don't know, almost like a conductor of an orchestra going, you go. Okay, wait, wait, now you. Now you. Yeah. And the thing is, though, the kids absolutely hate her. But John, he's completely besotted with her. Their wedding is just this massive society event.

[00:34:42] And they invite like a thousand guests. Get this, Diana only finds out because she reads about it in the newspapers. What? She's absolutely furious. It's a huge society event. Her brother, he's at boarding school when he finds out because the teacher goes up to him and he's like, congratulations on your new stepmom. And he's like, what the fuck? She's completely humiliated. Dad hasn't bothered to tell him. And it's not like they've gone and eloped. A thousand people at their wedding. That's a planned party.

[00:35:11] Six months out. You planned that. And you don't tell the kids. Wow. It's just one of those classic things where kind of kids are seen and not heard. Are they invited? No, they weren't invited. At all. No, the wedding's happened. That's happened. I thought they were like planning it and they didn't tell them they were going to plan it. No, the wedding's happened. No. That's terrible. It's awful. So they've hidden it for that much amount of time and got married. Isn't that awful?

[00:35:43] Totally misdirected. It's not rain that they should be angry at. It's their dad. But the kids just don't see it that way because it's their dad. Yeah. The dad's a douche. And we're going to come back to Diana's relationship with Rain Legs because, Adam, it gets explosive. Like, Diana, as a human being, hits an all-time low when it comes to what she does to rain. Oh, she puts like laxative in something, right? It's worse, Adam.

[00:36:11] A lot of people say that this, the thing that she does to rain, changes their view of her as a human being. Pushes her down some steps? Yeah. Yeah. She pushes an old lady down the stairs. Wow. I know. For me, it makes her more relatable. I mean, if pushing... Pushed a lot of people down the stairs. It genuinely does. She's just a hot mess just like all of us. Do you know what I mean? And I love her. So it was actually around about the age 16 that Diana officially meets Prince Charles.

[00:36:40] Technically, her grandmother swears that they first crossed paths when Diana was just five and Charles was 17 at Sandringham, right? When she was trying to get in the Royal Circle's orbit. So that doesn't really count. The real first official meeting happens in 1977. Diana's 16, Charles is 29. And at the time, he's actually dating Diana's older sister. Really? Yeah. Did you know that? I did not know that. Yeah. At the time, Sarah is struggling with an eating disorder.

[00:37:08] And instead of them getting her proper help, the family decides that they're going to handle it themselves. So they tell her, like, you're not allowed to speak to Charles on the phone unless you first gain like two pounds. So it's really dark. Fuck. So she clearly gains the two pounds. And at some point after this, Charles comes to the Spencer Estate. He's spending the day shooting and riding. And at some point, he has this moment with Diana where he says, do you care to show me like the galleries upstairs or whatever? And before she can even say a word, Sarah just swoops in and she's like, no, I'll do it.

[00:37:38] Push off. Pipsqueak. And like, she just ushers Diana off. She felt threatened by her sister. Yeah. I guess she's just put on this two pounds. And Sarah's just like, you're not taking my man. Yeah, exactly. Diana tells Andrew Morton that her first impressions of Charles was that she thought that he was a deeply sad man. This is really interesting because she doesn't mean sad as in like pathetic. She means sad as in like, I pitied him. Like he seems fragile.

[00:38:05] And that's telling because Diana is drawn to wounded people, right? It's a pattern that we'll see just time and time again throughout all of her personal relationships. And in Tina's Brown book, she actually says that this is the moment that the actual crush on Prince Charles begins. Because Morton's version is more cynical. Like he's framing it as if she said, he's a sad man. What a sad loser, right? In the context of when that book was written, the Andrew Morton book, it was at the end of her marriage.

[00:38:33] So when he receives that information, he sees it as more cynical. Oh, he's a pathetic man, right? Yeah, but she would have... It's not one of her sight. So it's interesting. But either way, Charles and Sarah's relationship, it just doesn't last. And the reason it ends tells you everything that you need to know about the royal family. Basically, Sarah is off on a ski trip and she ends up chatting to a couple of journalists and she ends up admitting to drinking.

[00:38:58] But most importantly, she says that she wouldn't marry a man that she didn't love, whether or not he was dustman or the king of England. If you ask me, I'd just turn him down. Right. So she's saying to the press, like, I'm not that into him. Yeah, it's the problem is, right? Two mistakes that she's made. She's spoken to the press as a potential eligible kind of suitor to the king. But also she's publicly denting Charles's image as one of the most eligible bachelors in Britain.

[00:39:26] How dare you say that the future king asked you to marry him that you would say no? So when the palace reads this, they're obviously furious. So they start driving in the nails in that coffin almost immediately to just cut those ties. So they're like forcing the end of that relationship. Essentially, yes. And Charles probably might not necessarily want to end the relationship, but he has a very much an understanding that his duty comes first and that's just part of the parcel.

[00:39:52] And of course, before she knows this, she has a sense that she might have made a mistake. She calls Charles to explain. And by then, of course, it's too late. And he just says to her, you've just done something extremely stupid. And he cuts her off and he doesn't speak to her again. And Tina Brown puts her best. The royal family have a knack of just cutting people off. Wow. What a way to end their relationship. Yeah. Although how serious was it? How long have they been dating? Probably not very long.

[00:40:21] I don't know how long they've been dating for. Yeah. It's like you could have been queen. Yeah. You ruined it. She's probably kicking herself. I don't know. And they really do. They have this knack for just cutting people off. Whenever there's like a leak within the palace, if someone's suspected of gossiping, that drawbridge just comes up and there's just no second chances. And I get it. They're just protecting their image. It's harsh. And what's sad is, like I said, it's not always what Charles wants to do.

[00:40:47] But to protect the institution, he has to do these things in order to protect them. Right. So there could be someone that he really likes, maybe even loves. But if they go against the institution, then that's just it. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'm sure Diana called it something else. Did she not say that? The company. The firm. The firm. That's it. Yeah. She referred to it. And it sounds very corporate. It doesn't sound nice, does it? No. It's supposed to be a family. Yeah. But actually, it's like legal, finance is all I can think of. Mm.

[00:41:17] That's it. So the palace, the institution, the firm, they can be all used interchangeably. If I'm wrong at that, please correct me. They will. Yeah, I know they will. But while all of this is going on, Diana is away at a Swiss finishing school. She absolutely hates it. And eventually she just ends up dropping out. So she comes back to the UK and the bitch moves to London. And that's where she goes to live like literally her best life. She moves in with her mum in her little flat in London. She's got no qualifications. She's got no money. She's got no plan mapped out.

[00:41:46] She just has a vague idea that maybe she wants to work with kids. So she picks up a few odd jobs here. She's kind of nannying. She's waitressing on the side. At one point, I think she's cleaning for her sister in her apartment. She's getting paid like £1 an hour. So she's done some really mundane, everyday jobs, really. Like we've all done like a filler job for a few summers. Or some of us, that's our career. Like, you know, nothing wrong with that. But she's done some gritty, you know, hands dirty. Exactly. And her life, Adam, honestly, is quite simple.

[00:42:16] And it's really quiet. She's not partying. She's not going to clubs. She just cozies up on a windowsill. She reads a lot. She watches the world go by on the street below. One of my favourite details about this period of her life is that she is completely and utterly obsessed with soap operas. What do you think her favourite soap opera is? It's got to be EastEnders. It's EastEnders, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she also likes Brookside. She watches Dynasty with Joan Collins. Anything that she can get her hands on. And her favourite thing to do is just have a night in

[00:42:46] watching trash TV and eating beans on toast. I love her. There was a period in time where you used to enjoy some EastEnders. Yeah, I haven't watched it in about 10 years, man. Yeah. Yeah. It was mine and Miguel's thing to do. It was, wasn't it? And the crazy thing is, that never changes throughout the rest of her life. She tends to kind of pick up these things that she establishes early on in her childhood and she holds onto them for the rest of her life. And it's just really endearing. Like even at the height of her fame, this is how she recharges between royal engagements.

[00:43:14] I wouldn't be surprised if one of her favourite things to do would be to just kind of like just randomly scream. Get out my pop! Do you know what I mean? At her staff. She's definitely quote EastEnders to people. 100%. If she hasn't, I'd be really disappointed. I wonder if any of that's on the record. She's done like the duff duffs. No doubt. Yes! She's like singing along at the end. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So eventually during this period, her parents finally agreed to buy her a flat. They buy her a flat, Adam, in Sloan fucking Square,

[00:43:42] which is like the crossover point between Belgravia and Chelsea. So it's very, very posh. She moves in with two of her friends. She's now 19. She has no responsibilities. And she says to Andrew Morton, this period of her life is the happiest that she's ever been in her entire life. Isn't that just heartbreaking? I think a lot of people, yes, it is heartbreaking. That's not me like playing it down. But I think a lot of people would probably say like their 18s to their early 20s is probably one of the fun times because you don't have responsibility.

[00:44:12] You're just starting out. Everything is still new and everything is... Sure, for the regular person. But Adam, she is just about to become a princess. And there's not even like, oh, the early days of being a princess was just like the happiest time of my life. Not even that. Yeah, okay. She doesn't even count that. This, when she's on her own, independent, no responsibilities for her is the happiest point in her life. That is sad. Yeah. And her friendship group, they become known as the Sloan Rangers.

[00:44:39] They're like a super posh subset of the kind of Chelsea crowd. They're all privately educated. They're all expected to marry within their social circle. They wear tweed blazers and tweed skirts. They wear riding boots. Their signature thing that they wear are these kind of velvet hairbands. People recognise them around the village as the velvet hairband brigade. And honestly, Adam, it's just adorable. Yeah, because there's no like horses in Sloan Square. No, there isn't. And so they're like wearing equestrian gear. Yeah. They kind of stood out.

[00:45:09] They did. They just look really posh. And they're all goody two shoes in literally every way. So this is where we're actually going to leave Diana. She's 19 years old. She's teaching at a nursery school. And for the very first time and maybe only time in her entire life, she's completely at peace within herself. Meanwhile, across London, Prince Charles is living a very different reality. Like both him and Diana, they grow up with that pressure, that sense of duty,

[00:45:36] that overwhelming amount of kind of emotional repression. But for Charles, you just dial that up to 100 because it's dysfunctional. A really good example that gives you a sense of this is this really incredible footage from 1954 when the Queen arrives back from a month tour away like in New Zealand and Australia. And waiting on the tarmac as the plane lands is six-year-old Prince Charles, right? The Queen walks over to him. Instead of like grabbing him and hugging him and embracing him and saying,

[00:46:05] I've missed you so much, King Prince Charles. What does she do? Does she push him over? She just shakes his fucking hand. How do you do? How's it been? Yeah. Yeah. That says everything, doesn't it? No, it's cold. It's cold. I think we've heard stories about his childhood. I think he is the oldest, isn't he? Of course. Yeah. And so therefore probably had a slightly stricter, slightly more, I don't know, further removed upbringing maybe. And then I think as the other children came along, I don't know, she perhaps got more maternal.

[00:46:35] I don't know. But then also remember you've got Prince Philip as well, right? He's famously ex-military. So with that comes very cold, very tough exterior. Prince Charles is completely the opposite. Like he doesn't like sports. He doesn't like horses. Like he's very intellectual. Like he's completely opposite. And Prince Philip refers to him as really weak and weedy. And he says that he needs to harden him up a bit. Adam, bear in mind, at this moment in time, Prince Charles is eight years old, right?

[00:47:03] And so Philip ships him off to a school called Gordeston, which is a boarding school up in Scotland that is famous for what they call turning boys into men by basically breaking them. Now remember, he's eight years old. So they are literally shipping him off. And the problem is when he gets it, he absolutely hates it. He's really sensitive. He's artistic. He doesn't like sports. And so he's bullied mercilessly for it.

[00:47:29] And it's because nobody wants to be seen to be sucking up to the future king of the UK. And so throughout his entire time at Gordeston, like eight and nine and 10 years old, he does not make a single friend. And when he leaves, he has no real connection with anyone, including his parents, because they've shipped him off at this really crucial, informative kind of year. You know what I mean? Yeah, like I feel strange. I feel like if I was a kid there, you'd want to be friends with the king. Not to like suck up,

[00:47:59] but so, I don't know, he doesn't kill you. And behead you. Yeah. Yeah. No, he doesn't. And it's really sad. Like every person he meets either bows down to him or wants something from him. Like he is literally being raised to think of himself as a literal show pony. That everyone is there just to watch him or to support him or to orbit around him. One of his exes says that their first date was just her watching him fish for six hours. That's not a date.

[00:48:28] I don't know what that is. Like I could have done this on TV. Yeah. Yeah. So when he gets into his 20s, he starts dating around. And Adam, he's just a complete disappointment. Every person or suitor that he's dated, their comments are all the same. He's just really awkward. He's really shy. He's actually a really disappointing lover. And the reality is, it's because he's probably never learned how to build that human connection that wasn't just about himself. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean,

[00:48:57] it's sad really, which I guess is why Princess Diana said that, oh, he's a sad man really, because you do feel sorry that he probably has had a really shitty upbringing. Yeah. Not the loving upbringing that a lot of regular folk would have. But this is a big thing for the palace as well. Because these women are describing him as a disappointing lover, the palace see this as a problem. And so they start spinning this whole Casanova prince myth around him. They even claim that his uncle, Lord Mountbatten,

[00:49:27] was forced to set up a secret hush fund to pay off some of the women that he seduced and send them off on their way. But it's total bullshit. It's just a complete PR move to make him seem like a Casanova when he's not. Imagine the queen going up to him. You suck in bed. You need to get better at this. Yeah, that's it. And so at some point, he meets Camilla. So she's like two years old. She trains him.

[00:49:56] Yeah, probably. She's two years older than him. She's way more confident than him. She's really way more relaxed than he is. And experienced. And experienced, yeah. She is part of the aristocracy world, but not the palace kind. She's more of the country house kind of aristocracy kind of part of it all. They go hunting all the time. She's driving around in her Range Rover. Her hair is constantly windswept. She's wearing muddy boots. It's not even windy today.

[00:50:24] How does that even happen? And she's, yeah, she just doesn't wear any makeup. Like you get this sense that she has this kind of carefree attitude about her. And just like Diana, she doesn't test well in school. But unlike Diana, it's because Camilla, all she wants to do is just smoke cigarettes on the roof. So she's a bit more of a rebel. She's a massive rebel. Because to her, doing well in school just doesn't matter. By this point, she's already inherited like half a million pounds from like a relative, right?

[00:50:53] She's likely to marry into a wealthy family or she's able to bring wealth to another family, right? So she has huge amount of options. Like her options are vast. And so her entire vibe is I literally do not need to impress anyone. I'm going to be fine. I see. And you can feel this in how she moves through the world. That confidence is sort of kind of magnetic. Even if she's a bit rough around the edges and not considered traditionally beautiful,

[00:51:22] she's confident in herself, basically. It's so strange to hear you say that because like you see her now and obviously she's the queen but like she's always immaculate, you know what I mean? She's not, she's never, I don't know, windswept or anything disheveled or something like that. She looks great. It's just a bit carefreeness, right? Do you know what I mean? And people recognize that and they don't judge her for it. They admire her for it because she's like, oh, she's so carefree. She's so beautiful. She's so natural, whatever. Is she so carefree that she doesn't wear deodorant? I'm sure she's presentable. I know, carefree. I don't know. Or natural.

[00:51:53] And that's also another thing about Camilla as well. Like she's always been compared or contrasted against her beauty, especially in comparison to Princess Diana, which is a little bit rough, I guess. People like to put women together or head to head, don't they? The press do. They do. And Tina Brown describes Camilla as grubby knickers aristocracy. Grubby knickers? Has she seen her knickers? I don't know. To like verify that? I think it just means like she likes to be outdoors. She goes hunting.

[00:52:23] She works on the farm. She's a bit carefree. That type of thing. Not like her knickers have like literally got grunge in them. Oh God, that's not what I was going to say. I just, I thought she might flip them the other way and wear them two days running. Probably. Okay. We're talking about the royalty here, Kyle. Respect, Kyle. Yeah. But the things that what Charles sees in her is authenticity and he falls really hard for her. The official story of how they met is that she walked up to him one day at a polo match and said, my great grandmother

[00:52:53] was your great grandfather's mistress. So how about it? Oh, what a chat up line. Yeah. It's most certainly made up, right? Oh, grubby knickers didn't say that? It gives you a sense of kind of the energy that she gave off. She was like that. It's something she would have said. So the reality is that they probably met through some kind of mutual friends. Around the back of the bike sheds. Around the back of the bike sheds while she's kind of having a fag and he's down on his knees rummaging around in a grubby knickers. God. And so,

[00:53:23] it was not love at first sight when they first meet and that's because she was on and off again with her boyfriend who was a guy called Andrew Parker Bowles and so, in Charles, all she saw was just a friend. But in 1972, during one of her and Andrew's off periods, she and Charles, they decide to give it a go. It only lasts like six months because he ends up getting shipped off on like an eight-month naval tour somewhere. And while he's away, he has this realisation

[00:53:53] that actually he really loves her. When he gets back, he finds out that Camilla has married Andrew. Well, that's it. He was only gone for eight months. Yeah. Do you want to know how they got married? Because it's insane. Yeah, go on then. So, her parents apparently got fed up with how slow their relationship was moving. So, like, will they, won't they? So, when they resumed things while Charles was away, her parents just published kind of an engagement notice in the Times. Neither of them know about it, but when they find out, they're just like, well,

[00:54:22] I guess we're getting married then. I guess this is happening. What is up with rich people and getting married and not telling people? We're married. So, Charles comes home, he's utterly devastated, but even though she's now married, they stay extremely close. He ends up becoming kind of the godfather to their son, and when Lord Mountbatten, that's his favourite uncle, when he is assassinated by the IRA in 1979, it's Camilla and Andrew who help him through that and slowly, their friendship just turned into something more. Not Andrew's,

[00:54:52] just Camilla. And so, they start doing it and the thing is though, they're not discreet about it either. At a party, they are literally seen making out on the dance floor. Andrew is there. He sees the whole thing and he just shrugs and he says to his mate, she seems like she's fond of him and he seems like he's fond of her and so Camilla and Andrew are now in this open marriage where on the side, Camilla is having sex with the future king of England. I guess the thing is though, they probably both went into it like not in love with each other so they're probably, it doesn't sound like

[00:55:22] he's hurt by this. No, it doesn't. Yeah, okay. That's a good way to frame it because I forgot about that element. They were on and off again, they were forced into this so yeah, that makes perfect sense. And of course, the palace, they assume that Charles will eventually move on but he doesn't. He gets to the age of 32 he is still not moving on from Camilla. Everyone knows that they're sleeping together so the queen is forced to get involved and she instructs the palace to start looking for a wife for him and the wreath is clear. She has to be young, she has to be fertile,

[00:55:51] ideally from an aristocratic background but crucially, she needs to be a virgin. Okay, so how do you, how are they going to verify that? I mean one that, yeah, how are they going to verify that? I don't know. Maybe do they do a hymen check? I don't know. How do they know they're going to be fertile without obviously not having a child already? I don't know. I guess maybe just young. Okay, but I just wonder how they're going to verify this. There's a test, Adam. Everyone knows this. I don't know it because we're gay so I don't know it.

[00:56:21] So they go looking for a virgin essentially. Adam, there are so many scandals in the world of the aristocracy that they manage to whittle down to like 12 potential women. I was going to say. They're all sleeping around. Yeah, they're doing coke, they're doing this, that and the other. They've already had, I don't know, three marriages. Yeah, so they can barely find anyone. They find a handful and then eventually the queen mother, she suggests the granddaughter of an old friend of hers from Sandringham and it's Diana Francis Spencer.

[00:56:50] Did anyone think, oh but he's already dated her sister? Is that a bit weird? No, it's fine. I don't see any problem with that. I don't know. She's not the one who betrayed them, right? Yeah, but it's connected to the family. They think like, well, one sister's done. What is this? No fucking career. Like one person does something wrong, wipe out the whole family. What do you want to cut their heads off? I just thought they're being very selective. I thought they'd be even more selective. Adam, they've whittled her down to 12 women in all of fucking England because all of the women that exist are not virgins. I don't think

[00:57:20] they can be picky at this moment in time. You're telling me there's only 12 versions? There's only 12 versions from the aristocracy in the whole world. There's only eight now. So Adam, it's July 1980 and Diana is invited to spend the weekend with the royal family at one of their country estates, right? It's a kind of sort of classic posh summer setup. The men will be playing polo, the women will be watching from the sidelines and then at the end there'll be like a barbecue and they'll just slum it, right? With like bangers and mash or whatever. And after the match,

[00:57:49] Diana finds herself sitting on a hay barrel next to Prince Charles. Some say this is a coincidence, others say this is very deliberately staged. In fact, Tina Brown says like Diana was there to make a good impression. So they get to talking and somewhere in the conversation, Diana brings up the death of Charles' great uncle, Lord Mountbatten, who obviously, like I said, recently was killed in a boat explosion by the RIA. And she says, you looked so sad walking up the aisle and my heart just

[00:58:19] bled for you. You should be with someone to look after you. And according to Tina Brown, that was it. She'd managed to tap into Charles' favourite emotion, self-pity. That's me. Me? Yeah. Basically, there was this 19-year-old beautiful girl telling the future king of England that she felt sorry for him and that just sparked something in him and he is just sold. Like, they end up talking right through the night the next morning. He offers to drive her back to London. She outright says no,

[00:58:48] which is probably something like he doesn't hear very often. Basically, she says that this wouldn't be polite to our hosts. So he just ends up pursuing her because I guess maybe it's a little bit hard to get, maybe he sees something in her. But the point is they're now dating and Adam, dating Charles is fucking ridiculous. Every single message that he wants to send has to go through the palace, right? He wants to invite Diana out to the opera on their very first date. That request goes to like eight different people across the palace.

[00:59:17] By the time it reaches Princess Diana, she's got 20 minutes to get ready before the car arrives. What? She's not gonna, like, need to stay ready. They need to sort out their logistics of that company. Yeah, it's all paper-based as well. And also every date has to be chaperoned and is usually by her grandmother. So their first date is at the opera with granny literally hovering over them with her musty sardine breath and she's just incredibly awkward. What's she gonna be doing? She's like, you know, peering in whilst they're like talking,

[00:59:47] like getting some popcorn. They're probably like sitting in between them and they have to talk around her. But the thing is though, this is the first date you're supposed to be kind of sneaking kisses in the back row of the cinema trying to cop a feel, maybe even rummaging around in a pair of knickers. I don't think they can do that. Not with granny sitting next to them. Well, definitely not because of that. No, I imagine they've got to be, they're not going to do that on the first date in public. Of course they're not. But with granny there, it's just didn't even get a chance. Incredibly awkward. Their second date, Adam, is even worse. He invites her

[01:00:16] on a week-long cruise on board the Royal Yacht, right? There are over a hundred other people on board. They're all there for Charles. It's just endless formal dinners, awkward conversation. They have zero privacy and on top of that, everyone knows this is their second date. That's the weirdest thing. Like, you've got, I don't know, you're invited on a family holiday essentially, and then the rest and everyone else. Yeah. That doesn't seem right. It seems weird. I don't know why Diana doesn't run for the hills at this point. That is beyond me.

[01:00:46] But she doesn't. And eventually, she gets invited to Balmoral. And this is where it becomes clear that the purpose of this invite wasn't to casually meet the family. It's a literal audition. Does she know this before she goes? I think she knows this. Yeah. I think she knows what's at stake. And is she prepped? Does she have any like rehearsed answers? She does well. Apparently, she passes with flying colours. But basically, they want to test if she can survive royal life. And it's a fucking minefield. Every day,

[01:01:16] she's expected to change outfits four times. I have for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. There's a strict pecking order around who she has to greet first, who speaks when, what titles to use, and it's a whole system that she just doesn't really have time to kind of learn properly. But she does well. Andrew Morton says, those who navigate this minefield are accepted. Those who don't disappear into the highland mists. Well, they're like taken out the back and shot. Probably. Tina Brown puts it more bluntly.

[01:01:46] She says, this isn't a courtship. It's a literal obstacle course. Like fucking wipeout. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, it'd be interesting to experience it and know that you're pissing off everyone because you're doing it all wrong. I'd want to go and just get really drunk. Yeah. But the thing is, you've got to be really careful. This is bad moral, right? They're really titchy about everything. Like, God forbid you sit in that chair over there because like, no one sat in that chair since Queen Victoria. Can you imagine it? You sit in it and everyone goes,

[01:02:16] get out. Johnny, get the shotgun. This is also where she comes face to face with the paparazzi for the very first time. Basically, she's walking along the river with Charles when a bunch of photographers spot them from the hillside. She immediately turns her back, whips out a compact mirror and starts walking backwards watching where she's going in the mirror. So they can't get a clear shot of her face at all. And Charles is super impressed. Like, she gets this. She understands what's at stake. And at the end of the weekend, Prince Philip pulls Charles aside and he says like,

[01:02:47] she's passed with flying colours. And so, yeah, it was a test. Yeah, she gets to go to date four. So the press, they start asking questions. They do a little bit of digging to find out who this woman is and eventually they figure out it's this woman called Diana Spencer. And it is game over. They start camping outside of her flat. They even rent apartments across the street from her house just to photograph her. All they get is just tons and tons of photographs of her literally doing the washing up. She's doing it wrong.

[01:03:16] Yeah, probably. She could never do anything right. And at the time, she is working as a nursery school kind of teacher. They completely hound her. It gets so bad that the parents are dropping their kids off. They can't even get close to the actual nursery to drop their kids off at the crash. And so one day just gets far too much for her. She walks out and says, listen, if I pose for a photograph for you, will you just leave me alone for the rest of the day? And they're all like, yep. So she scoops up a couple of kids,

[01:03:46] just grabs them and she smiles for the camera. They take their shots and as promised, they leave. So this is where she's now like learning how to play the system, play the cameras. I think at this point, yeah, possibly, but at this point she's just like, I need to get some work done. I've got colouring to do. The next day, Adam, it's all over the press and it's a tabloid scandal. Can you guess why? Oh, it's because she's posing. How? With two children. No, it's because she hadn't realised that the sun was behind her when the photographers

[01:04:16] were taking pictures of her. And so in the photo, you can see a silhouette of her legs through her dress. Cue national meltdown. Woman has legs. Oh, the humanity! What a harlot showing off those legs. Charles rings her up and he says, I knew your legs were good but I didn't realise they were that spectacular. And then he says, did you really have to show them to everyone? I'm like, Charles, no! She needed to wear one of those things

[01:04:46] that you find your skirt. Are they like pantyhose? No, not pantyhose. Petticoat. Petticoat. Why should she even need to think about that, Adam? I'm joking. And from there, they're just relentless. Everywhere she goes, she's hounded constantly the palace. They give her no support. There's no guidance. There's no security. They never send her any cars. She's just expected to continue catching the tube and she's one of the most famous women at this moment in time and it's just horrible. At one point, Charles was on the phone with her and he says to her, do you know what?

[01:05:15] I feel really, really bad for Camilla. Camilla, she's got three photographers outside her house and Diana's sitting there thinking, great, I've got like 32. Why is he telling her this? I know, that's so weird. So is he still going after Camilla at this point? I think that they're doing it. Yeah, they're doing it. For sure. So I just feel awful for her because every single night she comes home, all she can do is hide in the corner of the room, away from any windows and she just sobs. That's, so yeah, so this is where

[01:05:45] like her life is completely transformed. She probably just was not expecting this level of scrutiny, attention, everything. Yeah, it's so sad. But Adam, she ticks every single box. She's photogenic, she's got no scandals except for obviously one rumour where she apparently was snuck onto the royal train one night and she apparently slept with Charles. The Palace obviously deny this but it's probably true but still the tabloids think it's this massive deal and other than

[01:06:15] that one little blip the Palace kind of greenlight this match and so on February the 6th 1981 Charles proposes. And at this point I guess she's falling for him, right? But I guess what, sad at the situation? She doesn't seem like she's that happy yet she does love him. Yeah, I think she's sad at the situation of the press not at Charles. She's caught up in the whirlwind of it all, right? She's 19. Like of course she would be. Diana says that she got to Windsor around 5. He sat her down

[01:06:45] and said I've missed you so much that there was no hug there's no kiss and then he goes will you marry me? And she laughs and she thinks it's a joke and she says yeah okay and then she laughed again but he's deadly serious and then immediately follows it up with do you realise that one day you will be queen? And she says I love you so much and he goes whatever love means. What do you think of that proposal? Well it's not the best it feels very transactional

[01:07:14] and I guess for her she's probably wanting something quite romantic whatever and all of a sudden she's gotten herself into this big lifelong commitment. And the thing is I don't know if she necessarily wants something romantic because I don't necessarily think she knows what that is. She has no frame of reference for anything. She's really young I guess she's watched enough Extendence so she must know. She's watched Dirty Dancing. Yeah probably if that was out in the 80s yeah so I don't know maybe I'll take that back but what is sad is that Diana says afterwards that

[01:07:43] there was no embrace there was no quiet celebration between them instead he runs upstairs to tell the bloody queen. Well you probably do need to learn pretty quickly. Yeah come on give a little kiss and rummage around the knickers a bit. So get this in total up to this point they'd only met 13 times almost never alone and at this moment she still doesn't even call him Charles she calls him Sir. I feel like I've just got alarm bells don't do it don't do it run run yet she's thrilled

[01:08:13] she sees zero red flags to her this is just one big romantic fairy tale but that's because like I said she might not necessarily have a real frame of reference to judge things by right? Yeah I guess if her parents weren't necessarily in love True true but she's watched a lot of EastEnders so she should know there's no excuse Yeah but most people end up getting killed in EastEnders so maybe that's not a good reference I'm gonna get married I'm gonna get killed she does get killed sad that was

[01:08:43] accidental guys Charles meanwhile he probably likes her but it is clear that a big part of this is just out of a sense of duty right? But there is one person who's very very happy about this engagement The Queen Camilla Why's she happy? Because now that Charles has fulfilled that public kind of pressure to marry she figures that now they can just carry on as normal right? Right And honestly I believe and this is a hot take if Camilla hadn't approved Diana the marriage would not have happened

[01:09:13] to her they'd found someone together who they knew just wouldn't get in the way or they thought wouldn't get in the way of them And I guess what Camilla could never be Queen at this point in time she wouldn't even been considered I guess she'd already been married actually so there's no way she'd be considered I mean it feels very manipulative I don't know if I believe it but it'll be horrible if that was true So now they're engaged and the first thing for Diana is to move her ass to Kensington Palace she packs up all of her stuff and that evening when she

[01:09:42] arrives she thinks there's going to be kind of like this big lineup of servants ready to greet her to grab her luggage to kind of welcome her with open arms Adam there's no one there there's just one single staffer who hands her a key to her apartment and says welcome to the firm Wow again that'd be like actually you know what maybe I'm just going back out with this

[01:10:20] what is Charles doing at this point then if she's just got to move in by herself oh yeah sorry he's off on a six week tour of Australia New Zealand on his own right so he's not even there to guide her in fact he misses her 20th birthday so she celebrates it without him and there's no one there at the palace so what she can't have her family over or she doesn't feel like she can wow the only people she ends up bonding with are the kitchen staff so she'll go downstairs she'll just hang out with him in the basement like waiting

[01:10:49] for Charles to come back and then just to show her the ropes and he never does even when he does come back she's okay how do things work around here what's next eventually the queen has to step in and request that Diana's grandmother come in and teach all the ropes because the queen doesn't have the resources to sort it out why couldn't she have done that beforehand yeah i guess they just don't think about these things yeah so while Charles is away Diana is invited to lunch by Camilla and at first she's really nervous

[01:11:19] but also really excited because she thinks great i get to meet some of Charles closest friends right during that lunch Camilla asks you're not planning right yeah is that because you're going to be there exactly so Diana in this moment it doesn't sink in until a while later when she finds a package addressed to Charles in his office when she opens it it's a gold

[01:11:49] bracelet engraved with letters F and G which basically stands for Fred and Gladys which are actually Charles and Camilla's pet names for each other right okay apparently it's a reference to some kind of BBC radio show from like the olden days and he says

[01:12:19] so this is the kind of moment where everything clicks for her this package and this is when she realizes it Adam she's been engaged for like three weeks and so she knows that she's almost like a pawn is she going to be like is this always going to be the way then am I brought here for this just as a mask does not think that this is always going to be like this she she

[01:13:00] believes is going into this with her eyes wide open at this point she can see this for what it is but she just refuses to back out when she so easily could I don't know are you thinking oh this is a great opportunity like you say maybe it'll all pan out actually if I walk away am I going to regret this to be part of the royal family do love Charles all this stuff must be going on so it's probably not easy just to give it all up who knows we can't really know what she's thinking at this point but the fact is she's gonna go through

[01:13:30] this so at this point she's 19 she's already insecure and now she's competing for Charles's affection with this confident charismatic woman in her 30s who is beloved by all of Charles's friends and so it's around this time with all these emotions that she's dealing with that her bulimia starts so as we know obviously she suffered from bulimia secretly like for most of kind

[01:14:11] of course she's 20 inches wow that's quite a big huge jump not that she was ever big or anything like that before 29 is tiny yeah so at this moment she's spiraling and it's all under this pressure it's because of the lack of support

[01:14:41] she's trapped in this idea that she's just not good enough in light of camilla do you know what i mean and remember there is no outlet for her like she's got no one to confide in her family are so invested in this idea of her becoming the princess of wales that what i

[01:15:13] know and the only person who gives it any kind of warning about what's coming is princess grace of monaco so So basically, she is this American actress from Philadelphia. She ends up marrying like the Prince of Monaco and she becomes a princess. So they have a very similar dynamic. They meet for the very first time at a party in the lead up to the wedding. Diana ends up completely opening up to Princess Grace. She just spills everything out.

[01:15:43] Diana is not sure whether or not she wants to go to the wedding. She's not sure what to do about Camilla. And Princess Grace just smiles and says, don't worry, sweetie, it's only going to get worse. That's not the pep talk you want to hear. No, but she gives her a warning because she's been through that. And I think Princess Grace of Monaco also died in a car accident. Did she? Yeah. I think there's a conspiracy going on there. Someone killing princesses in cars. Probably just a weird coincidence. But it's weird that they had that same kind of crossover.

[01:16:13] They both had such a terrible time in their royal families in terms of adjusting and stuff. And the thing is, though, when she says, sweetie, don't worry, it's only going to get worse. She's 100% right because two days before the wedding, Diana is sobbing. And she tells her sister that she wants to just call the whole thing off. And her sister's like, don't be ridiculous. Your face is already on all the tea towels. Yeah. As if like, we can't get back now. Once your face is printed on the tea towel. Yeah. That's it. And at the same time, Charles is freaking out, right? The night before the wedding, he's sobbing too.

[01:16:42] He's torn between doing his duty, but also worrying about what calling the wedding off will do to Diana's reputation. Because if she calls off the wedding, no one questions him, right? But if he calls off the wedding, people are going to say, well, what's wrong with Diana? That ruins her entire future prospects of any other relationship that she might get into. Okay. So he was thinking about like, like calling off as well. How come? Just because he didn't think it was going to work? He wants to marry Camilla. Right. Okay. Yeah.

[01:17:09] I've heard other accounts where they have a conversation together and he's like, I just don't love you. And I don't think I ever will. It's tough. And so now you've got two people who desperately do not want to go through with this. It's the night before the wedding and neither of them see a way out. And so the wedding goes ahead. And Adam, it's fucking boring. It just feels weird because it's not really that long ago in the grand scheme of things. But this kind of arranged marriage, you feel like that's, I don't know, kings and queens of however hundreds of years ago.

[01:17:39] But, you know, it's as recent as 50 odd years or whatever. That's so weird. So in total, the wedding is watched by 750 million people around the world. Andrew Morton and Tina Brown. They barely mention it in their book, probably for that reason, because it is quite boring. It's just a wedding that's just largely uneventful. But of course, the things that are worth mentioning is Diana's dress, which is fucking enormous. It boasts the longest train in royal history. It's eight meters long.

[01:18:08] It's got 10,000 sequins sewn into it. The dress itself uses 50 meters of silk just all wraps around her. And remember, she's completely tiny and she looks like a giant meringue. It's huge. When they make the dress, they don't actually factor in how she'll fit into the carriage. So on the wedding day, they literally have to ram her into the carriage and her poor old dad is just squished up against the window. Yeah. I thought they should dye these things out in like the walkthrough or something. You would think. I guess you don't do the walkthrough in the wedding dress. Fair enough.

[01:18:37] Otherwise, Prince Charles is going to be like, oh, bad luck. The other thing worth mentioning is, and I think this speaks volumes, is that she requested they remove the word obey from their wedding vows. She also tries to get Camilla banned from attending the wedding. But the palace don't like that from an optics point of view, right? So instead, they see Camilla in one of the worst seats in St. Paul's Cathedral. So like right at the back, behind a pillar. Behind a pillar. Exactly. That's exactly it.

[01:19:02] And when you see footage of Diana walking down the aisle, she's actually standing through the crowd and she's trying to spot Camilla. Really? Mm. Wow. Which is brutal, dude. That's your wedding day. And get this. I don't know if this is a subtle dig towards Diana, but Camilla's wearing white. That's the one thing you should not be wearing. You don't want to clash. It's just a soap opera, isn't it? Mm-hmm. It can't be white though for like Camilla. It's got to be off-white. Why? Because of grubby knickers.

[01:19:30] You're only white when you're a virgin. That's why they wear like ivory, off-white, things like that. I think that's just more of a style. Not traditionally. Oh, I don't know. Moving on. So overall, the day, in spite of everything that's going on, they do look happy. They're smiling. They're waving to the crowds. You wouldn't really know that anything was wrong. And to Diana, now that they were married, she was hoping that things would just kind of just settle down. She hoped that the bulimia would ease and that Camilla would just fade away. And she was right about one thing.

[01:20:00] Camilla does actually just fade away for a little bit. And Diana tries, right? Honestly, she tries way harder than she probably should have. All she wants is Charles's affection. Even years and years later, whenever she would get styled or fitted with a new outfit, she would always routinely ask the stylist, like, do you think my husband will find me sexy in this? So you can tell that just through that kind of language, she wants to make this work. Yeah, that's why I've always got the impression that there are times it was tough, obviously.

[01:20:30] But at times she did love him and she did want it to work. Yeah, of course she did. So after they're married, they head off onto their honeymoon. It starts in the Mediterranean on a cruise where there are 271 people on board the royal yacht. Again, they have zero privacy, no alone time. And it's just, bam, one function after another. Any downtime that she has to herself, it's always on her own because, of course, Charles is off doing something else. And she's just lonely. Adam, this is our honeymoon. Isn't that sad?

[01:21:00] And again, she will go down. She'll hide in the kitchen. She'll end up just talking to the staff. One night during dinner, she notices that Charles, on their honeymoon, is wearing cufflinks with two interlocking C's. And she asks him, did Camilla give you those? And he's like, yeah, so. Wow. I just feel like, come on, think about it. Whether or not. I don't know. He just seems so oblivious for rubbing in that face. Dude, this is your honeymoon. Maybe don't wear jewellery from your girlfriend. Yeah.

[01:21:28] Weirdly, Tina Brown defends this. She says that his valet probably picked out those cufflinks for him to wear. But still, Charles has the ability to say, do you know what? Maybe not those ones tonight. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So that's a really weird thing that she would do there. Following the cruise, they then head off to Balmoral to summer with the rest of the family. And again, it's the classic. It's rigid. Like, dude, you're on a holiday. Just lighten up.

[01:21:54] Why do you need, like, bagpipes kind of, like, blaring at 6am in the morning and kind of all this pomp and ceremony and no one's allowed to sit in that fucking chair? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, bagpipes are definitely not relaxing. Here's the thing, Diana. The whole time is extremely cold. Bear in mind, she's so skinny and so tiny. She is suffering with bulimia. But it's because the family, they refuse to put on the heating, right? Considering all the wealth that they have. They have the best of everything. They begrudge putting on the heating even for half an hour.

[01:22:24] Well, you know, they grew up in the war. And so, you know, they're very careful. On top of that, Charles insists on sleeping with every single window in his bedroom open at night. Apparently it's good for kind of the circadian rhythm or something. But Diana is just constantly shivering. Shut the bloody window, Charles. Not allowed to. On top of that, every morning, like I said, 6am, bagpipes play across the estate at the Queen's request, which is just torture, especially when you've been kept awake until 2am the previous night,

[01:22:53] having to listen to Princess Margaret banging out show tunes on the piano. And so you're up at 6. Thanks. Oh, this sounds horrendous. It's horrible. Unless you're Princess Margaret. You're having a great time. Yeah. I don't think she knows that she is. At one point, she suggested to Charles that they go and walk around the gardens, right? Just be a bit romantic. Spend some time alone, finally. And to do that, he has to send a formal request through the Queen's secretary to make sure that she doesn't want the grounds to herself.

[01:23:23] She is literally in the next room. Just think, like, knock on the door. You're going to be in the garden later? I'll take the morning, you take the afternoon? It's wild. Even Prince Philip has to file requests to eat lunch with his own wife. This is not a family. This is a corporation. Who, like, introduced these rules? I get someone's doing, like, a diary management. You've got this at 11. You've got this at 1. Whatever. Yeah, let me know if you want to do something later. I'll try and fit it in her diary. Let me know if you want me to run me right in your necks at 1.

[01:23:53] You can have sex at 3, but literally that's it today. But, yeah, the thought that, especially when you're on holiday, you know what? There's no schedule. Yeah, exactly. You're right. Obviously, as we know, Diana had this habit of, like, sneaking down to the kitchens to kind of spend time with the staff. But at Balmoral, they're so afraid that they're going to get sacked that they lock her out of the kitchen. Because she's talking to them too much. Yeah. This is a world where servants are required to turn and face the wall whenever a royal passes them in the corridor.

[01:24:22] Like, they need to become invisible. That's weird. When they finally get some alone time, Charles' idea of romance is to take Diana out to, like, the moors or something. And he will just read her these really long, dry passages from his favourite memoirist, which he says he's doing to provide her with spiritual and intellectual sustenance. How? I don't know. In his biography, Charles writes, I was baffled by the lack of interest in these subjects.

[01:24:49] I wanted to talk to her about Carl Jung, but she just tuned out. I'm like, fuck's sake, Charles. Ask her what she's interested in? God! Yeah, take an interest in her. Just once. At this point, she just wants to scream and it's only their honeymoon. Tina Brown says, It's at Balmoral that Diana has a moment of icy clarity. That this situation, this disconnect, wasn't something temporary. This was literally the blueprint for the rest of her life.

[01:25:18] That must have been horrible, like, that realisation. Like, it just dawns on you. Yeah. So, at this point, she falls into a massive depression. Like, on paper, they come from similar worlds, but in reality, they are nothing alike. Like, and the problem is that Charles just isn't willing to meet halfway in any way to accommodate any of her needs. Like, it's the royal family's way or literally nothing. But equally, I honestly don't think either of them have the emotional vocabulary to express any of this. They just don't talk about it.

[01:25:47] Instead, it just manifests as these explosive fights. So, a really great example of how they come from just such different worlds is that Diana's watching Charles get dressed one day. His valet laid out three shirts for him. Charles doesn't like any of them. So, instead of just walking over to the closet, which is, like, literally two steps behind him, he calls the valet back in. And Diana's like, Just walk back two steps. Pick a different shirt for yourself. And let the valet focus on more important things. And Charles goes, But he's paid to do it.

[01:26:14] I just feel like there's so much inefficiency going on. Like, they could, like, probably save a hell of a lot of money. It's probably they have probably cut corners or cut back now. Yeah. But back then, Jesus. I think it's just that they do come from different worlds. They just do things different. Look, Diana's a show dog, right? Who's met and fallen in love with another show dog, a tiny poodle, right? And she thinks, Yes, I'll go and live with this family of poodles. Like, we're both show dogs. We're basically the same, right? Then she says to the poodle, Do you ever fetch and play with a stick? And he's like,

[01:26:45] I'm familiar with the stick, but I've never considered it. Like, they're just so different. Yeah. As an alien world, I can't imagine. I'd be so frustrated if I lived in the royal family. And the thing is, though, I think the frustration would be less if they both could communicate. This is the problem of everything. They do not know how to communicate. It's just this complete inability to express themselves or to talk to each other that sends her into this deep depression. The palace ends up sending her to a bunch of doctors

[01:27:13] who all say that she has anxiety and they prescribe her Valium. It's supposed to be, take one of these when you feel overwhelmed kind of sort of thing, right? But the palace builds us in to her routine. So it's like 10 a.m. They're like, Diana, time for your pills. And they're shaking her face. That's weird. So she had to take a Valium a day. Yeah. So she's always drugged up all of the time. They're bickering constantly. Like, could you just not let your corgi chew on my diaphragm sort of thing? But then that ramps up to like really spiteful things. Like Diana will tell him,

[01:27:43] you'll never be king. And the thing is, though, that sounds funny to us, but that's something that really cuts Charles deep. Yeah, I can imagine. Like, this is what he's been built for. Exactly. So the fighting then turns physical, mostly on Diana's part, right? She's like hitting him and slapping him and stuff. He has no idea what to do. Her behavior is 100% excusable, but it's also a massive, massive cry for help. Three months after they get married, she falls pregnant.

[01:28:13] She's violently sick. Like, it's the worst morning sickness, like every single day. The only upside of any of this is that this gives her an excuse to ditch the Valium. The downside is that she's feeling everything again. All the anxiety, the situation that she's in just floods back to her. This includes the anxiety about Camilla and her need for Charles' love and the fact that she's competing for it. So while she's pregnant, the bulimia starts up again. God, that can't be good to,

[01:28:43] you know, whilst trying to have a baby. With all this going on behind closed doors, there's still royals, right? So they're still required to go on these official royal appointments. And their first big joint appearance is like a walkabout in Wales. She's super nervous. And on top of that, she has to give a speech in Welsh. Does she know Welsh? I think she probably learned it, but that's messy at best, right? That's a hard language. You're going to mess up. Yeah. And it is. It's exactly that. It's messy. But Adam, it's real. And people can tell

[01:29:11] that she's tried really hard. And this sort of marks the beginning of the public's love for her. But it's also because she really gets in there with the crowd. Tina Brown says, when the Queen appears in public, she's formal, she's dignified, she might accept a bouquet, but she doesn't shake hands and she doesn't kiss any babies. Diana's doing both, right? She's kissing babies. She's pinching men's bums. She's hugging. She's got a full arm of flowers. She refuses to hand them over to A's so she can't see where she's going. But they're my flowers. Get off.

[01:29:41] I'm eating these. When the royal family sees this, they hate it. She gets chastised for being far too emotional, far too visible, too warm. Apparently, that's just not the royal way. Got to act aloof. Exactly. That's what they're saying. And they're saying this while they're staring at the approval ratings for the monarchy that is now skyrocketing because of Diana. It's so fucked up. Charles hates it as well.

[01:30:09] Not because it's not royal enough, but because he's jealous. Because the attention is not on him. Get this, right? Before the wedding, he was the most popular royal at 12% approval rating, which is what he used to brag with. What, it's like 12 over like 9 or something? Yeah, pretty much. He's like, I'm the most popular royal in the royal family. Respect. And he's like, on top of his mic. So when Diana's approval ratings come in at 80 plus percent, he's furious. Charles' solo tours,

[01:30:39] typically drawing crowds of like 20,000 people, right? Which is huge. When he tours with Diana, 400,000 plus. Wow. There is this moment where they're out greeting the crowds in Wales. The turnout is so big that they decide to split up. Diana takes one side of the street, Charles takes the other side. And as Charles approaches his side, there's a very, very audible groan from the crowd as they realise they're getting Charles and not Diana. Which is shit. I get it. Yeah. That must be hard. I mean, I'm not,

[01:31:09] I don't hate Charles at all. No. But sometimes you like, she seems a bit of an idiot. But then I get that at this point in time, yeah, he must, it must make him feel really shit. But the overall rating for the royal family is going up and it is because of Diana. But instead of seeing her as an asset, as a force for good for the monarchy, they treat her like a liability. It's awful. Isn't this the same sort of thing that's happened with Meghan and Harry, isn't it? Yeah, where I think they thought that Meghan could do

[01:31:38] a whole world of good to the royal family. Not to say they needed like this big public image or anything, but just, yeah, she could elevate them or take it in a new direction or kind of enhance, I should say. And it's the same sort of thing. She didn't know how to do this, speak Welsh, whatever it was. Yeah. So it's crazy how history did repeat itself. 100%. Basically, Charles sees Diana as a spotlight thief. He really wants to use his platform as a Prince of Wales to talk about big intellectual issues like sustainability, overpopulation

[01:32:07] and climate policy. Which is great. Yeah, which is great. But every time he does, the headlines just say, oh, look how good Diana looks in red. Yeah, and I get it from that point of view. Do we really need to be talking about her dress? Can we not talk about something more meaningful? Like... But look at her dress. So he resents her. This is the start of them living two very different lives behind closed doors. Things start falling apart. In public, a lot of it is performative. Like, it's not horrendous at this point, but there's definitely big cracks. Remember,

[01:32:37] they still have Harry to come. So they clearly are on and off and on and off, right? And they try for a long time. But at this point, it's a few months in and there are big fissures in their relationship. So there is a connection there, but it's just really strange, but also really complex. But her mental health just gets worse. She starts self-harming, like she's cutting her wrists and her chest. Did you know that? I did know that she's self-harmed, yeah. At one point, she tries to use a serrated lemon slicer to cut herself

[01:33:07] just so, like, she'll feel something other than what she was feeling in that moment. There's this incident when she's pregnant with William where she apparently throws herself down the stairs. Really? She and Charles had been fighting something about him wanting to go hunting and her not wanting him to go. She threatens suicide. Charles calls her bluff and so as he's walking out the door, she throws herself down the stairs. And so we're not sure if this was an actual suicide attempt. Diane herself tells Andrew Morton that it was.

[01:33:36] But Tina Brown insists that based on how devoted she was as a mother, she would never put a baby at risk in that way. She hadn't given birth yet, right? No, but she was pregnant with a baby so why would she want to put the kid at risk? But she also says that the staff that were there that day back up and say that she was insisting that she slipped, right? And if this was a call for help she would have been like, she wouldn't have said that, right? Yeah, yeah. So there's a belief that Diana said that to Andrew Morton because of course this was towards the end of the relationship

[01:34:06] and she wanted to make Charles look like he was very uncaring. But around six months into the pregnancy the media actually started turning on her not because they don't like her but it's large because they're trying to tap into her as a commodity they're just all trying to work out like what angles sell the best and they kind of stumble into them by accident but once they stumble into them they go, oh this sells papers so let's recreate more of this and basically it all starts when she gets papped in the Bahamas wearing a red bikini and at the time she's a few months pregnant with William and so when the

[01:34:36] pictures come out it's this huge scandal like how dare a pregnant woman wear a bikini it was that kind of things it was like the legs thing all over again and so from there every single picture that they take of her is twisted into some kind of nonsense headline like she's leaving the house and the headline will be Diana storms out do you know what I mean because that sells better but it's literally just her leaving the house yeah she just shut the door with some force it breaks that Charles is turning to vegetarianism and the headline reads Diana forces

[01:35:06] vegetarianism on her husband she's not even vegetarian every night yeah the palace they have to finally intervene when she is almost crushed trying to buy a packet of wine gums at a shop because she just gets swarmed the palace summon all the major press outlets it's so serious Adam that the queen herself is there and basically they're there to tell the press to fuck off really so they do actually get involved because I didn't think they did they tried to stay away from the press

[01:35:36] well at this point when she's pregnant it's more about William ah yeah so they come in they tell the press to back off and to be a little more respectful to consider that she's pregnant with William and at the end a journalist raises his hand and he goes if Lady Di wants to buy some wine gums can she not just send a member of staff yeah or write a letter to someone to go get it oh that didn't land the way that I thought it would because the queen looks at him doesn't miss a beat and just says what an extremely pompous man you are

[01:36:05] and then she walks up yeah she says that yeah wow I bet she sends a member of staff to get her wine gums yeah probably or Murray mints so yes the queen has her iconic moments eventually though on June the 21st 1982 Prince William is born after a 16 hour labour Charles is there it's the first four kind of royal fathers the queen visits and famously says thank goodness he does not look like his father she says that yeah wow

[01:36:34] thanks mum Prince Charles says to journalists like when asked does William look like you and he's like god no which is a nice moment of kind of self-awareness from him right and so what's really lovely is that after William is born both Charles and Diana they agree that they are going to raise their kids differently they both come from very awkward cold family dynamics and they are committed to being present affectionate warm and nothing like their parents but Charles adds one caveat he's like I'm committed to doing exactly that

[01:37:04] being warm and being caring everything our parents were but only behind those doors which is wild to me because he does not understand that his entire job as a senior royal is optics do you know what I mean like he knows the monarchy's image hasn't done well for the last 30 years right Diana swooped in the image has skyrocketed he sees how Diana's warmth has elevated that image and so saying that he's only going to be a doting

[01:37:34] father in private it's just totally misguided yeah but I guess it's got his mom probably saying yeah we don't do that that's not how we do it no it's so wrong if they want to be relevant they want to update the modern family they want to modernize it you have to roll with the punches you have to be more relatable so following William's birth Diana falls into postpartum depression and again the palace send her to a couple of psychologists one of them insists that she call him every day at 6pm and recount everything Charles has said to her

[01:38:03] throughout the day and so every day at 6pm she's basically reliving the worst parts of her day and so every day just ends with her sobbing how does that help it doesn't it doesn't turns out he's on retainer from the publication and he's getting paid a thousand dollars a week to leak all her secrets we don't know this at this point though okay that's what's actually happening yeah so she begs the palace to at least let her choose like her own treatment plan and eventually they give in she decides

[01:38:32] to try acupuncture and astrology and a bit of tai chi and Adam weirdly it helps and I'm not saying that stuff works but it works for her and that speaks volumes because she finally has some semblance of control in a world where she literally has none I was just about to say a bit is about control having some influence on her life so probably just makes her feel good that she gets to make a decision and I really do wonder if that's what the problem has always been

[01:39:02] up until now every aspect of her life as you said has been dictated by other people what to wear what to say what to eat where to stand this is the first thing that she gets to choose and so when William is one year old Diana starts to notice that Charles keeps slipping out of the house he's staying out more he's sleeping at different friends houses she can't reach him and there's also just no explanation and so one day in 1983 Diana walks into his study she picks up the phone clicks redial

[01:39:32] and on the other end of the phone there's a voice that says hello this is Camilla Parker Bowles and that is how she finds out that the affair is back on so it didn't last very long did it one year he stopped sticking it in her and Adam that is the story of Princess Diana part one her early life her courtship with Charles and the very slow unravelling of a marriage yeah there's a lot

[01:40:01] in there like so much in there I told you it would be an epic yeah wow it's almost like oh they did make a movie out of it they made a ten part documentary series yeah there's been a few you just when you relive some of those moments of her early years yeah you just can't help but understand how it just got out of control and you just feel so sorry for her really what's the thing that sticks out for you the most that she just doesn't have a say it feels like that she loves Charles but she feels probably trapped

[01:40:31] yeah and I imagine at this point in time doesn't feel like there's a way out yeah I think so it's certainly a heartbreaking one she's had a terrible start she's had a terrible childhood and she's just she had one moment of happiness true happiness in her life and then it was gone because she thought she was jumping into a fairy tale and she wasn't what she didn't realize is that she was already in a fairy tale in that little flat on Sloan Square yeah jumped into a bit of a not a nightmare because obviously she had

[01:41:01] you know her kids and all sorts and I'm sure there's so much that she is appreciative or was appreciative the fact that she could do a lot of good at this moment in time it probably didn't seem like that yeah so Adam next time we'll be diving into the affairs the betrayal and the slow motion very steady clearly approaching end of their marriage and I'm so looking forward to it because actually this is probably for me the most interesting part of Diana's life because she's got

[01:41:31] all sorts of things there's growth in there there's final realisation there is very very complex and strange behaviour from Diana herself very questionable stuff and I just love it but she does some incredible incredible things as well and it just makes her more relatable this episode sounds like we're going to learn some stuff that we probably is not that common knowledge no can't wait I love it and so that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium an assembly of fascinating

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