Princess Diana Part 2: The Truth Behind Her Divorce from Charles and the Royal Fallout

[00:00:00] Basically the gist is these two are the worst possible match for each other. Diana, if she heard this, would she be going, I wish he was my tampon? Would she be saying that? I don't know. As a public persona, it's all about optics. Charles still has not figured that out. Her work with AIDS breaks down that stigma that's attached to it. Yeah, this perception of what AIDS is.

[00:00:26] Camilla says, you've got everything, what more could you possibly want? And Diana says, I want my fucking husband. Bitch, back off. So embarrassing and iconic at the same time. You're not princess anymore. We know you make your own dinner. So the divorce is eventually finalized and it is almost exactly one year until the day that she dies. Wow.

[00:01:16] Welcome to The Compendium and Assembly of Fascinating Things, a weekly variety of podcasts 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 of course your host for this week, Kyle Risi. And I'm Adam Cox, the balloon animal ethics coordinator this week. Oh, well, you know, these animals, they are twisted and contorted without their consent.

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[00:02:36] I get the feeling you really like saying the word crotch. It's gross, really. It's a really weird word, actually. What do you think about it? People always say moist is a bad word. I'm not indifferent to that. I think moist is fine, you know. But crotch. But crotch is weird. Is there a word in other languages for crotch, do you think? Gusset is a very good word. If English isn't your first language, let us know if there's a translation for crotch and gusset. And actually what we'll do is every week we'll then say a new word for crotch instead of crotch.

[00:03:05] So we can always be dangling near your gusset. Gross. So lastly, guys, please follow us on your favourite podcast app and leave us a review. Your support really helps us find and reach new people that love these amazing stories. So Adam, today on The Compendium, we are diving into an assembly of private tapes, power plays, and a very awkward set of phone calls. Well, I know we're talking about Diana again this episode.

[00:03:34] I know exactly what that phone call is. Actually, there are two phone calls that we're going to be touching on today. But yes, we'll be talking about the infamous tampon gate today. But yes, today we're continuing our saga into the life of Princess Diana. Diana. This episode is going to be all about the rest of the marriage, the separation, and the eventual divorce.

[00:03:57] And this is a really interesting one because we get to see some really raw, real aspects of who Diana is as a person. And Adam, I'm living for it. In the next episode and the final episode, we're going to dedicate an entire episode to the last year of Diana's life, which of course, as we know, leads us to her death in Paris in 1997. Which is real somber and sad.

[00:04:21] And it's probably the section of her life that people mostly remember because it's really where she becomes truly her own independent person. She really starts to step into what the rest of her life would have been had she survived. And so I'm looking forward to that episode. But Adam, this episode is crazy for a whole set of different reasons. So we covered Diana's early life last episode, the courtship, and of course, the early marriage. Do you want to catch us up with what's happened so far?

[00:04:49] What are the key take-homes that you remember from that episode? So what I remember is that she was brought up. Her parents were a little bit, I don't know, not the most loving. She didn't have that care and warmth. Then happiest times of her life was when she was what, like a young adult, like 18, 19 or whatever. She was living in a flat in, was it Camden? No, in Sloan Square. Sloan Square, okay. Very fancy. Yeah. And that's what she described, I guess, really happy time.

[00:05:15] Which is really interesting because she is on the verge of becoming a princess, right? She has these expectations of what that will be. And yet, she still describes that time of isolation, living in Sloan Square as the happiest she's ever been. Which is wild. I think that really goes to show just how awful her situation was in that royal family. Yeah, because I guess you have this preconceived idea there's going to be a fairy tale,

[00:05:42] but then you have to learn all the tropes and things that you have to do or not do when you're in the family. And she wasn't really given that kind of education. She was just thrown in the deep end. Wasn't it like Prince Philip was saying like, oh yeah, she's actually doing quite well, but she's, I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. You just got to fake it till you make it. It was a strange thing I didn't know that Charles actually dated Diana's sister. She said something which basically said, oh, you're a stupid woman. I'm never going to see you again or something. That's what Charles said. That's right. Yeah.

[00:06:09] And that's just testament to how quickly the royal family are willing to cut people off as a way of protecting themselves. And it's because purely she spoke to the press and she basically said that even if the king of England asked me to marry him, I would simply say no. And that was a major dent on Charles's reputation. And so boom, he moved on to her sister. Yeah. Which is odd. But anyway, that's what happened.

[00:06:35] And then Charles was the most popular royal family at the time, but the whole royal family wasn't the most popular it had been for the last couple of decades, wasn't it? Yeah. Like relatively, he was the most popular at 12% approval rating. Yeah. I think Diana came along, didn't she? And yeah, she basically, everyone was talking about Diana. She was the thing. She was nice. She was speaking to the crowd. She was taking flowers. She was doing everything the royal family wouldn't do. And that's be relatable. Hmm. That's it. And then what about her marriage?

[00:07:03] Because we found out, of course, that very early on, she knew from the very beginning that Charles was having an affair with Camilla. Yes. And that's where she says that line that she realized that there was always going to be three in their marriage, that Camilla was always going to be there. Well, actually, she won't actually say that until this episode. And we'll get onto that towards the end. But yeah, and that just drove her into this really deep depression. She started self-harming.

[00:07:29] She attempted suicide a bunch of times and just became really deeply unhappy. And what we discovered, I think, during our chat was that it was purely down to one thing, and that was a lack of control. Because the second she was able to use her own medical treatment plan, even though it was all what they say, boo-hucky, because she was dabbling in astrology and acupuncture and Tai Chi, but she started to get better because she had some semblance of control. Yeah.

[00:07:57] And that's the thing that keeps hitting me about the story, is that for all the rigid rules and the rigid kind of rituals that govern everything about their lives, from how they dress, how they speak, how they even wave on a balcony, they don't really have any rules that govern how to have functional relationships. And it shows because they are such dysfunctional people. And so where we left off, Diana and Charles have been married for just over a year. Diana knew Charles was having an affair with Camilla.

[00:08:23] But for whatever reason, she goes ahead with the wedding anyway. And her thinking was that this would just be a period of readjustment, that everything would settle down eventually. And she would adjust the royal life and Charles would give up on Camilla. And for a while, Charles actually did give up on Camilla. But for very complex dynamics at play inside their marriage, everything just starts to unravel very fast. And it all comes down to the fact, Adam, I don't know if you agree.

[00:08:53] But it's because they just were not communicating effectively with each other. Yeah, it seemed like that. If he would go off and like go on his sort of hunting trips and do all those kind of things and just leave her alone or when they would have a date, he would never actually spend quality time together. Yeah, he would do these things where his idea of romance would be taking her to the moors or something and just reading her long, boring chapters from his favorite memoirist. And she was just like, this is it. This is how I'm going to die. It's not going to be 1997.

[00:09:20] It's going to be right here in Balmoral listening to Charles harp on about some memoirist. But like never once did he ever consider just asking her what she's interested in. And actually, what we'll find in this episode is that they have a lot of things in common. They're just not syncing up. And as a result, Diana's mental health, Adam, she starts to crack. And this is all before she gets pregnant with William.

[00:09:43] But what is clear is that despite how hard things are for her, Diana believes if she tries hard enough, her marriage can work. But then in 1983, she walks into Charles' study. She picks up the phone. She presses redial. And on the other end of that phone is Camilla Parker Bowles. And that basically confirms that Charles' affair with Camilla was back on. And that is just a massive punch in the gut for Diana. Yeah, imagine listening to that.

[00:10:12] Like, I guess she's always had those suspicions or suspected that maybe something's off. And to have that reconfirmed after all this time you've been married, it's kind of like, oh, well, I'm a show pony. And I don't believe for a second that she believed that the affair was off completely. I always thought she probably knew the affair was off during the period when she was having William. But I think that she always lived with that fear that it would eventually start again. And this is that moment that it then gets confirmed.

[00:10:39] But darkest kind of fears about their marriage just gets confirmed in that moment. I'm not defending the affair. I think Charles and Camilla made choices that put Diana in a very brutal position. There is no question in my mind that if Camilla didn't like Diana, the marriage would not have gone ahead. To them, they thought Charles could fulfill his duty of finding a wife, producing an heir, and Diana would be that good girl and just roll over and just let them continue sleeping together. And that sounds awful.

[00:11:07] But at the same time, I don't think Charles is this villain twirling his mustache in his dark tower somewhere. What they are doing is not right. They are 100% hurting people. But I genuinely believe, just like Diana, that for a time, he did want to make things work. He just couldn't. I think the thing is, if he could have married Camilla from the offset, like it could have been a very different story, but couldn't do that.

[00:11:33] And so had to go by the rules and get a wife another way. But I was thinking even for Camilla to sit by and know that, okay, he goes home to her in a weird way. Diana, I should say. That's an interesting perspective that she had to at least come to term with, knowing that she couldn't truly be with Charles. She could only be with Charles behind closed doors. Well, what kind of relationship is that?

[00:11:57] Yeah, and it is tragic because the thing is, Charles, like Diana, does not have that many people in this world who truly get him. So I understand how, with all the pressure that comes with producing the next heir, all the coldness in his marriage with Diana, that he would go back to somewhere that feels safe. And Camilla, unfortunately for Diana, was that person, has always been that person, has always been the person that really gets him. And it's not like Charles was constantly stepping out on Diana with dozens of women, right?

[00:12:27] It was just Camilla. Camilla has been the solid constant in his life for years. And it is undeniable that he has this deep connection with her. Being with her is just easy for him in a way that, at this point, it wasn't with Diana. So what I want to do is I want to give you a sense of just how comfortable Charles is with Camilla. We're actually going to jump ahead a few years. And it's just going to be for a minute because we'll come back.

[00:12:53] But this is going to get wild because we are going to talk about, wait for it, Charles' sex tape with Camilla. This isn't actually like a videotape, right? No, but it's a sex tape. It's still on tape. Ah, so this is Tampon Gate, right? Yes. This is a story that when it breaks, it pulls into question whether or not he is even fit to be king. And it is a secretly recorded phone conversation known as the Tampon Gate tapes. And of course, as you say, you know about this. So you're familiar with what it's all about.

[00:13:22] And yes, it is exactly as horrifying as it sounds. And while the contents are extremely private, it demonstrates something very clear about his relationship with Camilla. And that is that, I can't believe I'm saying this, but it is healthy and it is functional. In a world where functional normal relationships are very scarce to hit. So the call was actually recorded by an amateur radio enthusiast who happened to intercept the signal.

[00:13:49] We don't actually have the recording to play, but I do have the transcript. And so we, Adam, are going to role play it. Oh God. You should be Charles and I will be Camilla. I mean, that feels right. Right. I'm going to send you the transcripts if you can just open it up. And it starts with Charles. So fire away. Oh God. Do I need to put on a voice for this? You can put on any voice you want. All the voice I can think of is Alan Rickman.

[00:14:17] And I don't know if I could keep that up the whole time. Um, he thought he might have gone too far. Oh, well. She smokes a lot. She smokes a lot, lady. She does. Anyway, you know that's the sort of thing one has to be aware of and sort of feel one's way along with, if you know what I mean. Mmm. You're awfully good at feeding your way along. Oh, stop. I want to feel my way along you, all over you, and up and down you, and in and out. Oh, Charles.

[00:14:48] Particularly in and out. Oh, that's what I need at the moment. Is it? I know it would revive me. I can't bear a Sunday night without you. Oh God. It's like that program Start the Week. I can't start the week without you, Charles. I fill up your tank. Yes, you do. Then you can cope. Then I'm all right. What about me? The trouble is I need you several times a week.

[00:15:17] Mmm, so do I. I need you all week, all the time. Oh God. I'll just live inside your trousers or something. It'd be much easier. Ha ha ha ha ha. What are you going to turn into? A pair of knickers? Oh, you're going to come back as a pair of knickers? Oh God forbid. A Tampax. Just my luck. Ha ha ha ha. You are a complete idiot. Ha ha ha. What a wonderful idea.

[00:15:42] My luck to be chucked down the lavatory and go on and on, forever swirling round the top, never going down. Oh darling. Until the next one comes through. Oh, perhaps you could come back as a box. What sort of box? A box of Tampax. So you could just keep going. That's true. Repeating yourself? Ha ha ha ha. Oh darling, I just want you now. Do you? Mm. So do I. Desperately. Desperately. Desperately.

[00:16:13] So yeah, that is his sex tape. Do you know what? I was reading that and I don't really know what he was getting at. Like I get he wants to be a tampon and he wants to go in and out. I get it. But I'm always just, this isn't sexy. How are you turned on by this? First of all, when this tape leaks, it's obviously a PR disaster, right? It tanks Charles's reputation like never before. People start calling for the line of succession to skip him entirely and go straight to William because they don't think that he is fit enough to be king. But Adam, here is the thing.

[00:16:42] That tape gives us a glimpse into how intimate and emotionally open Charles can be, right? The sad part is it's just not with Diana. Yes, that is sad. But I just don't know. It's Diana. If she heard this, would she be going, I wish he was my tampon. Would she be saying that? I don't know. She does hear this and it is heartbreaking. We'll get onto that later because it reveals something really dark about their marriage.

[00:17:09] But what is clear is that this isn't some transactional mistress situation, right? This is a couple who are flirty and giggly and gross and very much in love. The transcript does go on for like six more minutes. And it's basically just the two of them coordinating their sex life. Like, how are we going to sneak around for the next week and have sex? So when Charles says something like, oh, I wish I could just live inside your pants. It's just boyfriend-girlfriend nonsense. Yes, it's deeply weird.

[00:17:39] It's deeply private. Yet it's normal and functional. Not something that unfortunately he has with Diana. Like, we've all had these conversations with our partners, right? And don't get me wrong. This is still an act of infidelity. He is lying. But both of them are in this situation that is wildly out of their control because of the institution that they're part of. But most importantly, it's because they cannot communicate. Yeah. It's a private thing, right? So we're laughing about it. But between the two people, it's quite sweet.

[00:18:08] Like you say, they're in love and everything like that. It's just, yeah, they didn't know that their phone was being tapped and listened to, right? Hence why it's a deep invasion of their privacy, I guess. Which we just reenacted. But this episode is about sympathizing with Diana. So it gives us life sense. And Charles, remember, he was raised in a system that never teaches him how to actually be human with someone. And as a result, he doesn't see Diana's pain. He doesn't get why she is unraveling.

[00:18:38] He is not being calculatedly malicious. He literally just does not know. And Diana, remember, she's still so young. She doesn't know how to advocate for herself or how to demand what she needs. And when she does, of course, the system that she's in means that her needs are just completely disregarded. And as a result, she retreats. She dwells on it. It causes her grief and frustration, which just ends up compounding itself.

[00:19:04] Basically, the gist is these two are the worst possible match for each other for very complex and very difficult set of reasons. So next to all of that, every single transaction between Charles and Diana just oozes resentment and contempt. They are constantly going at each other. There is this comment in Andrew Morton's book, basically, where Diana is sitting at a formal dinner. She's already very self-conscious about everything that's going on. She's already struggling.

[00:19:32] And she says something like, oh, this dinner looks really good. And Charles is like, isn't that just going to come up later? What a waste. It's like, Jesus Christ, Charles. Wow. Yeah. So this is something that's very sensitive. Her bulimia, it's inflicting her. It's causing her a lot of suffering. And it comes from a place of anxiety. And yet Charles is lost even the desire to even care about those basic things. It sounds like they're just being very petty or just anything to kind of get one over, right?

[00:20:02] And I'm sure that she probably did the same to him. So whilst that's- Oh, yes. 100%. Yeah. So just, it's that kind of any opportunity just to get one over. And it's sad really, because actually if they, I don't know if she got the help that perhaps she needed at the time, some of this could have, they would have got past it, or at least they would have been more civil to each other. And yet weirdly, they're still both clicking onto this idea that maybe this is all just a phase and maybe it'll just pass.

[00:20:28] And I think this is evident in December of 1983, Diana finds out that she is pregnant again. And in a moment, they do actually reconnect and things between them get a little bit better. They are both hoping that the baby is going to be a girl. But in April, Diana actually finds out that it's going to be another boy. And so, because she doesn't want this period of reconnection to fade, she doesn't tell Charles. He only finds out it's a boy after Harry is actually born. What? Yeah.

[00:20:58] So was she fearful then if he found out it was a boy, he wouldn't be as interested then? Yeah, because he was hoping it was going to be a girl. I see. Wow. But the moment Harry's born, things snap right back into that downward spiral. And Charles, who, remember, is a public figure whose literal job is to smile and wave and keep up appearance, can't even pretend that he is happy about it. And this is not just with the news that Harry is a boy. It's Adam with everything.

[00:21:25] There is this moment about a year after Harry is born that illustrates this perfectly. Both Charles and Diana, they're at like the Royal Ballet for a variety show. They're sitting in the Royal Box. Diana leans over to him and says, Darling, will you excuse me? I just need to go to the powder room. Five minutes later, the curtains raise and there's Diana on stage. And she ends up doing this whole dance number to like Billy Joel's Uptown Girl. It's really sweet. She kills it. The crowd goes wild. She gets like nine standing ovations.

[00:21:54] At one point, she even turns to Charles and gives him a little curtsy. And it's a moment of brilliance on Diana's part. Because again, the profile of the Royal Family just skyrockets. So it's a really cute moment that shows how relatable the Royal Family can be by giving this sweet little insight into this young high profile couple's life. But Charles is furious and he's just not able to conceal it, even with the cameras on it. Because after the show, he doesn't congratulate Diana. He doesn't say,

[00:22:23] Wow, darling, that was amazing. Thank you so much for doing that for me. Instead, he tells her that was undignified. He says, You're too thin. You're too flashy. And says the entire spectacle was not becoming of a royal. And this is a good example of their inability to communicate with one another. Because in Tina Brown's book, she talks about how the year before, Charles and Diana had done a comedy skit together. And it had gone over really well. They got a ton of press for it. Charles was really ecstatic.

[00:22:52] The public's opinion of him was starting to change again. So this is something he wanted to do every year, purely because it elevated his profile. So when she goes off and does this without him, instead of saying, Hey, darling, do you know what? I felt left out. Or this meant something really special to me last year. He just ends up lashing out. So instead, what Diana hears is, You're too undignified. And you're too thin. Why does her weight come into it? He's just trying to hurt her, isn't he? Yeah, she's trying to do a nice thing. And fair enough.

[00:23:21] Is it because of the jealousy? The attention's not on him. She's going to get all this attention. She's causing attention, which isn't what the royal family do, essentially. Adam, it comes back to what I've said before. They just do not know how to communicate with each other. That's it. And here's the thing. As a public persona, she 100% understands that part of her job is creating emotional compositions. And it's all about optics, right? And she is new to this, remember?

[00:23:49] And she gets that really acutely. Charles, who has been groomed for this role his entire life, still has not figured that out. And it makes me question what he actually thinks his job is. Like, he genuinely thinks that he is supposed to be taken seriously as an academic thinker and an intellect. But the reality is, that's the monarchy from like 300 years ago. The public doesn't want that from a monarch. And he just does not get that. Do you know what I mean?

[00:24:17] Like, he doesn't have any PR instincts whatsoever. But Diana, by contrast, she has incredible instincts. She feels how a story is going to play, sometimes even before it happens. Another example of how bad Charles is at this is when Prince William gets hit in the head with a golf club. It's fairly serious. He is rushed in for scans and assessments. There's a whole thing about it in the papers. Yet Charles keeps all his scheduled engagements, right? He goes to the opera. He meets with European diplomats. For him, it's just business as usual.

[00:24:47] And then he acts all shocked the next morning when every single paper in the country is screaming, what kind of father does this? When your son is in hospital, potentially with a concussion or whatever. And like, Adam, he is not wrong, but he just also doesn't understand the optics of how these things can come across, especially as a public figure. Yeah, because if you're a typical family, regardless of how serious it is, like you shouldn't be, not you shouldn't be, but I think it's just, it makes sense that you make sure that your child's okay.

[00:25:15] And so if you're going off to another party, unless, oh, actually I've had confirmation. It's absolutely fine. I don't need to be there. Exactly. But at the same time, like if you're any other family, if it was me and you, and you got hit in the head with a golf club, and you were stuck in hospital, and I knew we were just waiting for tests, I would still go back to work. But he is a public figure. And that's the important thing. It is all about his optics. Yeah. One more example of this is when Charles breaks his arm in a polo accident. The recovery ends up taking ages, and he's out of public life for a few weeks.

[00:25:44] And of course, the press starts speculating, as they normally do, of how he really broke his arm, right? Charles thinks the press are like just complete idiots for this. And so he gets this idea that he is going to hold a press conference when he recovers or is out of hospital, where he's going to pretend that he has a fake arm. And he's going to let the press believe that he's had it amputated. So he's planning on walking in wearing this prosthetic arm with a hook at the end of it. And then midway through, he's going to rip it off in a dramatic way

[00:26:13] and say, see, it's a fake arm. You're all ridiculous. Now, Diana's like, listen, darling, all this is going to do is- Of course, the notes. Yeah, yes. It's going to give the tableau just even more ammunition to come after you. She basically, she sees this for what it is, a dumb idea. But he's insistent. And so there's no changing his mind. So in the end, Diana is like, tells the staff, okay, just get him the fake arm. And then on the morning of the press conference, we'll pretend it's gone missing

[00:26:42] and be like, oops, I guess you'll have to just go ahead and just do a normal press conference. And that's exactly what ends up happening, basically. No way. So she sabotages it in the best way. But that's so funny. And so at this moment in time, Diana, of course, is at the height of her popularity amongst the public, but she's also a hot commodity amongst the press. Around this point, the tabloids are sort of becoming obsessed with the idea that she is having an affair. And there's no actual evidence of this. It's just purely speculation.

[00:27:12] But they treat it like it's a foregone conclusion. What's wild is that Charles is actually having an affair and everybody kind of knows it. The paparazzi will literally watch Shia drive out of Highgrove and then 15 minutes later, Camilla's car will just pull up in the driveway. Right? And yet there's just nothing printed about it in the papers. When anything does make it to the press, it's mostly vague euphemisms like Charles spotted on a beach in Turkey with female confidants. Do you know what I mean? The dynamics there are just awful.

[00:27:42] But the thing is, like the firm or the institution, they've got people in the press, haven't they? They've got this relationship. So they have to like, sometimes they leak stories or whatever it is. They have their influence over the press. Exactly. 100%. Whereas Diana, she'll go to the David Bowie concert with a couple of her male friends. She'll be sitting between them. But the tabloids will go ahead and crop out the second guy to make it look like she's having date night with someone. Right? It gets to the point where she has to strategically avoid being seen with men in public unless there are known homosexuals

[00:28:12] like Elton John. Meanwhile, Charles barely tries to hide what he's doing and there is zero speculation. It's just so bizarre. Exactly as you said, it's probably because they have an understanding with that press. Right? So I don't know if this is just simply gender dynamics at play or if maybe even possibly he's just really boring to the public. Yeah, you can print an article about him having an affair with Camilla. Everyone knows that but is it really going to sell papers? Probably not. I don't know because I think the public is obviously backing Diana

[00:28:41] and I guess the press don't want to cause that kind of controversy. Yeah. It's probably more likely. Eventually, Diana does start letting go of this idea that the marriage is salvageable. It becomes purely about appearances to the point that on official trips they start booking separate hotel rooms and then like 10 minutes before the event they'll meet up in a lay-by somewhere and then just walk in arm-in-arm like nothing is wrong. Andrew Morton says she seems to dread Charles' appearance like the days when she's happiest

[00:29:09] are when he is in Scotland. When he's at Kensington Palace he just feels like a child again. And Adam, I 100% get this. Like, my stepdad worked away a lot, right? I come from a hugely emotionally abusive kind of background. So, when he was away those were the happiest times for us where we could just chill out me, my sister, my mum and so as the week came to a close knowing that he'd be coming home on a Friday the entire atmosphere

[00:29:39] around the house would just shift in the lead up to him coming back home. So, I completely understand how being away from Charles was probably just a massive sense of relief for her at this point. there is like this event where they're chatting with some ambassador and he asked Diana so like what are you most looking forward to your trip here in Qatar for example. And she's got like a whole itinerary planned like she's going to be visiting some orphanages she's going to be meeting with delegates she's about to answer but before she can

[00:30:09] Charles just cuts in and is like she's just mostly shopping and then just keeps talking over her and of course she can't contradict the future king so she's like yep, that's me I'm just mostly shopping so you can imagine being in that kind of situation where that's constantly happening how you would just be like I can't be around this person anymore no matter how much I want to try it's just I'm just done. It feels like you know her identity is stripped really and so she just has to play along say the right things whatever

[00:30:39] and yeah like you say like when she's away maybe not just from Charles but maybe some of these kind of orchestrated events as well she can just be herself. When you see pictures of them together during this period of time it's often in the backseat of a car they go into an event they both just look so miserable at them it's just so bleak so it gets to the point where Diana's like do you know what if Charles is getting some in the arms of another woman then I want to get some too and so she actually does start having an affair. It's between 1984

[00:31:08] and 1986 she starts having at the very least an emotional relationship with her bodyguard and he's a guy called Barry Manneke do you know much about him? Um I don't know if I do actually Andrew Morton doesn't really go deep yet it's interesting because she's quite open about a lot of her affairs this one there's not really that much substance to it and I think it's because of course his book is approved by Diana so maybe there's certain details that she deliberately kept thin on the ground because maybe it was more impactful

[00:31:38] in her life I don't know maybe it was something she was uncomfortable with sharing but Tina Brown she's obsessed with who Diana was shagging all throughout her life so she talks at length about how much time they literally spent together and it's because he was probably a constant consistent source of comfort for her like she'd come back to the limo after an event with Charles she's completely drained she's completely shaken and then she would just collapse into Barry's arms and just sob in the back of this limousine it's really sad I guess she just wants to be comforted right

[00:32:06] and that's the guy that was able to do that she's not getting that from Charles she's probably not getting it from anywhere else yeah it's understandable that a romantic relationship could start with him but then in 1987 just completely out of the blue Barry is transferred out of the palace Diana believes that the palace probably had something to do with it and then Adam a few months later in May he is killed in a motorcycle accident he was riding on the back of a friend's bike when a 17 year old girl pulls out of the side road and he is killed

[00:32:36] instantly naturally later on the tabloids go wild with conspiracy theories that perhaps this was maybe a setup and that he was murdered as a way of silencing him because of potentially him having an affair with Diana like rumors fly around the palace all the time so it is conspiratorial at best right I don't believe he was killed it was just a tragic accident but Diana comes to believe that this is true and it's because other strange things happen on top of this and it makes her question things and so this is the start

[00:33:06] of her becoming really really paranoid the way that she finds out about Barry's death is honestly just brutal it's Charles who tells her and it's clear he has always suspected something has happened as I said gossip flies around the palace all the time so in a very pointed way in the middle of an event he just says to her do you remember that bodyguard of yours well yeah he's dead and so because they're at an event she has to maintain her composure and she's like oh really that's too bad he was a nice guy and then later when Charles

[00:33:36] is out of sight she just breaks down what a way to break that news I hope he wouldn't find any joy in that and it is just oh this happened by the way well at this moment in time we know they're at this point where they are deliberately saying things to dig at each other so I'm not convinced that he wouldn't have said it in that way so Diana's next affair is actually with a man named James Hewitt do you recognize that name yeah I know James Hewitt because he's been well speculation and everyone loves a conspiracy

[00:34:06] it's been speculated that he's Harry's father in the past that's right yeah so he's like a cavalry officer in the household division basically he's in charge of all the Queen's horses and he comes from a military background he's very polished he's actually very handsome but most importantly Adam as you pointed out he is ginger and so of course once the media catches wind of the James Hewitt affair there is all the speculation that he is actually Harry's father and even today you'll see like the occasional tabloid side-by-side

[00:34:36] photo of James and Harry talking about how similar they look but the truth is Diana doesn't actually meet James Hewitt until two years after Harry is born so this timeline unfortunately just does not add up in any way he is not the father you're telling me that the press are printing a story that doesn't make sense yeah they will literally one thing that we'll find about all of this is they will find puzzle pieces and they'll swim together to make them fit even though they don't actually go that's the running theme throughout all of these three episodes but yes

[00:35:05] they absolutely had an affair and it goes on at them for five years here's what Tina Brown says about it from the very beginning to the very end it was Diana who ran this affair she was as much in control of his pace and rhythms as she had been out of control of the pace and rhythms leading up to her marriage this would be her romantic pattern from now on forget the modest blushing she would do the initiating there are few men bold enough to make

[00:35:35] the first move on the princess of Wales and Adam that is the truth like she is the most famous woman in the world she has to be the one to initiate anything if she wants to get someone to rummage around in her knickers it is just it's fact I can't believe we're still using that phrase apparently she first notices James when he is walking through Buckingham Palace and immediately she starts asking questions about who he is when she finds out she has to be really sneaky so she makes sure that he

[00:36:05] is on a guest list for a party that she's throwing she goes up to him and she says I've always resisted learning to ride horses because it's something my husband does but I now think it's time that I learned translation hi handsome ginger man do you want to shag me yeah I want to ride your horse yeah spank me we can think of so many horse euthanisms it's during one of those lessons that she leans in and steals a kiss and that is how their affair starts basically and so it's really cute

[00:36:34] they routinely sneak off to various country houses she'll like drive two hours out of the city they'll then do it and then she'll drive back before anyone notices and Adam is really hot it's so strange that this is they just have all these secret events everyone probably knows what's going on but yeah she's oh I'm gonna go off for my riding lesson I was like oh of course you are Diana but as Tina says it was all on her terms like he had nothing that she wanted from him but again in 1989 James

[00:37:04] gets posted to Germany Diana pulls some strings to try and stop it but ultimately she loses that fight they try to make it work long distance for a while but when James ends up selling his story to the press that is it for Diana she just cuts him off dead and as far as I'm aware she never speaks to him ever again and basically she is learned to do the same thing that the rest of the royal family do and it's probably something you do out of protection right yeah why did he sell the story then was it already did he

[00:37:33] sense that it was over because it just feels like that's really shitty to do it is a really shitty thing to do and I don't think there's any excuse for it like they were really important to each other so why he would do it I think potentially says that maybe she wasn't as important to him as she was to her yeah that's a fair point because he's been on like a load of different shows like I'm a celebrity since then and everyone's kind of I think especially since Diana has died that yeah he's got this kind of notoriety so Diana

[00:38:03] doesn't have any allies in the royal family as we know no one relates to her she doesn't relate to anyone but it is around about this time in 1986 that Diana gains a kind of ally within the royal family do you know whose name I'm gonna say Prince Philip no Sarah Ferguson do you know who Sarah Ferguson is yeah Prince Andrew's wife although they got divorced but I don't know if they got back together yeah I think we're back together now Fergie's actually Diana's fourth cousin and so they've known each other

[00:38:33] since they were kids and Diana is entirely responsible for playing matchmaker between her and Prince Andrew she basically invites Fergie to a party she sits her next to Andrew and from there they hit it off they fall in love and they basically get married and suddenly Diana has someone in the family who actually gets it Fergie is relatable she's down to earth she too is now trying to navigate the same royal madness that Diana has been grappling with for years and because Diana has a little bit more

[00:39:03] experience under her belt she kind of becomes her mental and it's really sweet she's showing her how to behave in front of the queen who to avoid what not to say at Balmoral and just like that those dreadful stretches at Sandringham and Balmoral all of a sudden are way more tolerable to her now together they'll sneak off and disappear out the back with no shoes on they're always giggly together they're rolling their eyes there's all the pomp and the absurdity of what they just had to sit through like maybe two hours or Princess Margaret singing show tunes

[00:39:33] on the damn piano I imagine it'd be fun it's like they just like once the night's over they can go bitch about on the balcony or something yeah Adam it's really sweet so I'm genuinely genuinely happy for it this moment in time but of course the tabloids they can't leave them alone right the press start pumping out these stories about a developing feud between them it's just like what they did with Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle every article pitted them off against each other it's just that classic thing of Diana can do no wrong but Fergie was

[00:40:02] just either too loud too messy or too common and Fergie always just came out worse and was this instigated by like the royal family or the institution sort of thing where did they basically put these stories out no they didn't actually but here is the thing right these fake tabloid stories they actually do end up having an effect on how the royals start treating each other because they start to believe them it's like you hear some rumor that someone said about you behind your back and so

[00:40:32] this fake rivalry starts turning into a bit of a real one and it's slow boiling but there is a resentment there because these stories are manufactured in the press so it's not a case of the royal family are inventing these stories the press are inventing them and then they become real it's weird but to make things worse Fergie actually starts doing really well in the royal family she's integrating seamlessly she's getting along with everyone even prince philip who rarely warms to anyone they start bonding over like horse and carriage

[00:41:01] riding which is apparently a hobby that you can have but also she's getting closer to the queen tina brown writes the queen liked her new daughter-in-law because she was a country girl and a real one this time like tina brown why all the digging do you know what i mean the queen apparently liked how Fergie would sit with her legs apart and make jokes which is not what you expect the queen to like do you know what mean that's such a weird thing i like it that your legs are apart and i bet if diana did that they're like oh you're

[00:41:29] undignified exactly so slowly the queen starts having lunch with Fergie on the regular and diana is like the queen never wants to have lunch with me what's wrong with me right and so that sows the seed of resentment between fergie and diana even more basically fergie transforms into everything that diana just isn't even though diana hates the royal family she desperately wants their approval she wants to be accepted so seeing fergie get

[00:41:58] all of this is another just punch in the gut for diana right the thing is though does that seem a bit fake in a sense okay she hates the royal family but she wants to be accepted maybe that kind of shows to the royal family like that she's just not that into it and so having fergie come in who actually takes like a duck to order and just gets along and maybe integrates better it just feels like she gets it i'm not saying that's right or wrong but maybe there is like an air of there's something that diana is giving

[00:42:28] off essentially sure adam do you know what it is so complex there's so many variables we could discuss this for hours i don't believe that diana wasn't trying early on probably got to the point where after years of it she just stopped trying but then still missed the idea that hey why can't i also be accepted getting to the point where she's done but she still looks back and she goes you know what it would have been nice if i was accepted back then so once again diana finds herself completely alone again she's lost her little ally

[00:42:57] and again she becomes increasingly more and more isolated she tells andrew morton i got up every morning early on my own to be on my own and at night time i went to bed early it's bleak growing up i always had the impression that diana had a lot of friends but the more i read about this story the more it sounds like those friendships were really shallow acquaintances if anything mostly because the institution makes it difficult for outsiders to penetrate through right she has no one in the royal

[00:43:27] family the french does have her outsiders like she knew a lot of people but should only like see them once a month i remember like she was super close with elton john but apparently they weren't as tight as we imagined so she doesn't seem to have that many close friendships her family relationships are not much better at this time either there is a story about when diana's mother francis finds out that her new husband was cheating on with a younger woman and diana says i used to ring her up and she'd

[00:43:56] cry down the telephone i tell her mom you've had two goes of this marriage and you cannot get it right you've got to look at yourself i'm stuck in this one and i'm worse off than you and her mom is like sobbing and she's like you've got to let me cry you've got to let me cry and diana replies you can cry as much as you like it's good to cry but you're not getting any sympathy from me and how harsh is that wow it's like yeah it's like my my life is worse than yours yeah

[00:44:24] as for her stepmother rain legs diana is at her brother's wedding one year by everyone's there her mom her dad are there rain are there they're all sitting at the same dinner table together and her dad john and rain literally pretend that her mother francis does not exist right eventually diana just loses it she starts yelling at them saying like you're all acting like children everyone in the hall is super embarrassed and then later on she confronts rain directly she's

[00:44:54] screaming at her she's saying we've always hated you you've ruined our family i hope you're pleased about it and then adam princess diana the princess of wales the people's princess pushes rain legs down the stairs and it's not a little trip adam rain is properly this feels like an episode of dynasty or something yes it is is that shocking yeah i don't think i really knew about this i was not expecting like elder assault from diana

[00:45:24] parentheside but then was uh rain really that bad or was diana just kind of losing at this point yeah rain was not bad at all i feel terrible for rain rain is just as damaged as all of them diana resents her and so the rest of the family or the kids anyway because they feel like rain has come in stolen their father right at a time when they were desperate for his attention anyway rain is not a bad person she genuinely loves john diana says my stepmother and i ended up having this row and i pushed her down the stairs which

[00:45:53] gave me an enormous sense of satisfaction my father didn't speak to me for six months i mean yeah yeah i can't understand that he just tried to bump off his wife yeah so i'm afraid to say it adam we have to incorporate this incident into what we know about diana she literally pushed an old lady down the stairs that was not on my bingo card yeah so to sum up diana is extremely alone she's loved but that's her

[00:46:23] public persona in her personal life she has very few allies within the family and because being a royal is so high profile personal relationships outside of the institution are really difficult plus she is now a strained relationship with her own family and so we're going to change up the gears a little bit because we cannot talk about diana without talking about her humanitarian work yeah this is what she's kind of known for and loved for right so it feels there's a lot of obviously chaos going on in her private life but

[00:46:52] that didn't stop her from doing good yeah and she was really incredible at it by this point it is the 1990s and the AIDS crisis had already done its worst across the world people are literally dying everywhere people are afraid of catching it and those with the virus are being stigmatized Adam it is a horrible decade it seems like her involvement with AIDS starts because basically she keeps losing friends like several of them were staffers from within the palace but prince Charles's private

[00:47:22] secretary famously dies from AIDS so it becomes a real personal thing for her and so she starts going to these AIDS hospices and sometimes she'll even bring William and Harry with her and it's not just AIDS clinics like she'll take them to homeless shelters palliative care centers just anywhere where people are just basically hurting and she'll tell the boys straight like this is what a welfare state looks like we're extremely lucky to have what we have you don't need to fear these people they deserve love and support just like everyone

[00:47:51] else and Adam this is purely Diana just at a complete best right she completely understands the system that she is in but also how powerful her image is because it's her work with AIDS that breaks down that stigma that's attached to it yeah isn't there like a particular image or incident whereby she's on like a hospital AIDS ward and they're like you know put on this protection gear to protect yourself and she's like why do I need to do that

[00:48:21] and so she's photographed holding the hands I think of an AIDS victim or someone that's yeah dying from AIDS and it's oh if Diana's treating someone like a human understanding understanding how the disease works yeah it breaks down this kind of perception of what AIDS is like this kind of contagious disease that you can get in the air whatever it wasn't like that basically we might as well just skip this section because that's exactly the point I was trying to get across obviously the photo you're talking about is that photo of the man where he

[00:48:50] has his head turned away from the camera so you don't actually see his face and Adam that is deliberate because he doesn't want his family to know that's how much stigma there is towards AIDS at this point when that famous photo was taken he was only one of 12 patients willing to be photographed and even then it was only from behind so like you said when she is photographed embracing this person and these people it is like a miracle because it shifts that stigma towards AIDS and HIV within the public consciousness like if

[00:49:20] Diana is reaching out as you perfectly said and touching these people then maybe we've got it wrong about how the virus has spread and here's the thing with Diana even if the cameras are not there she would still reach out and come from these people a perfect example of this is remember when Charles broke his arm and he was going to do the whole fake arm switcheroo thing yeah well when Diana was visiting him in the hospital she went on a wander through the different wards and she ends up meeting this family whose mother had fallen

[00:49:49] into a coma and she starts checking in on them every day that she's at the hospital and eventually the mom she dies and Diana keeps her eyes and she's at the house and having dinner with them alone there's no press there's no photo op Diana is just showing up and doing what she can do to comfort these people yeah it's odd how she just does that all off her own back and I guess this is why people love Diana because she just seems authentically human and has this care and love I do wonder if there's

[00:50:19] an element of this extra love she has to give because she doesn't have those close relationships at home and maybe she's one maybe able to easily spot people that are hurting like herself well we know that that's true already yeah and perhaps she just wants to feel that connection the human warmth the bond and I'd not to say that she wouldn't be like this but if she didn't have that kind of upbringing and trouble at home I wonder if she wouldn't be quite as warm to other people yeah I disagree

[00:50:48] because of course long before all of this happened long before she was essentially emotionally bankrupt in her early childhood she was demonstrating these abilities I think this is just in her I think it's just naturally in her which I think that makes it more powerful rather than something that she turned to yeah and I think I do agree with that I was just wondering what could have shaped her and formed the way that she was but ultimately she did seem like a person that just cared yeah and this is where I really struggle to understand why Charles and

[00:51:18] Diana couldn't find common ground in their philanthropic work because Diana is incredible with these people and Charles is actually really amazing at raising money he knows how to build institutions and how to physically move resources like together they could have been this incredible team but I guess by this point their relationship had deteriorated so much that any kind of synergy between them is just impossible instead you have the situation where two people who are incredible at what they do are just operating in these

[00:51:48] silos just jabbing at each other like Charles will criticize her saying all you're doing is just surface level stuff shaking hands thinking that changing hearts and minds are enough and Diana's like all you're doing is raising money without actually showing up but honestly both of them are 100% correct because when it comes to HIV and AIDS specifically money helps yes but you can't build infrastructure for people unless you first change hearts and minds so in a way they're like the perfect team they could have just

[00:52:17] worked together yes so both approaches that both of them are good at really do matter there's a really heartbreaking story in Andrew Morton's book about Diana's friend Adrian Ward Jackson so he's currently dying of AIDS at this point and Diana is visiting every week she'll sometimes bring William and Harry with her and basically she's basically walking him waste away near the end Adrian gives her a page so that he can be with her when the time comes and when that page finally comes in Diana

[00:52:47] is up in Balmoral with the royal family and because there's no last minute flights out she drives eight hours back to London to be with him Andrew Morton writes Diana's abrupt departure did not go over well with the royal family who were assembled in Scotland for their annual reunion in her rush Diana had failed to observe royal protocol and asked the Queen for the customary permission to leave so she just got up and just went sorry gotta go bye yeah why she would even

[00:53:15] need to do that is just beyond me but also a few days later the palestines summoned Diana back to Balmoral telling her that a simple token visit would have been enough basically her devotion to a non-royal was making them feel uncomfortable I think it's just this whole optics thing because are they like oh that's making them feel unroyal or is it because that's not what we do we don't show that kind of emotion and that's just like but that's not Diana apparently basically she had gone beyond

[00:53:45] the traditional call of duty so Adam it gets worse though when Adrian eventually dies they try to block her from going to his funeral because royals are not supposed to go to funerals for commoners that's so weird yeah in the end Diana's like fuck you and of course she goes so yeah good for her okay so Adam we talked about Charles and Camilla's sex tape right it would not be fair if we didn't also talk about Diana's sex tape oh no I didn't I didn't know she had a

[00:54:14] sex tape yes she had one and it comes to like round about the same time that Charles and Camilla's infamous tampon gate tape came out and the tape was actually recorded believe it or not years before it was actually released and Diana knew about it right and she was expecting it to be released like any day now but after years go by and nothing comes out she starts speculating that maybe it was being blocked from being released by potentially

[00:54:42] someone in the royal family and this is one of the many things that feeds her paranoia that the royal family were spying on her it gets to the point where she even thinks that they may even go as far as like literally killing her and she pieces this together basically from different events that start happening following the death of her bodyguard Barry Manneke but also she starts to suspect that her brakes on her car had been tampered with because she has to change cars twice because the

[00:55:11] brakes seem to be kind of faulty so it just ends up feeding into this paranoia yeah I have heard about the brake story I think the thing is everyone wants to look for speculation or someone to blame or whatever it might be for her death and as interesting as it is to speculate is it I don't know I just don't think the royal family in this day and age could go and put a hit on someone at least the clothes the actual people people in the firm I don't know what they're like they seem a

[00:55:40] lot more murky remember like I mean I understand where Diana's coming from she is vulnerable she is looking at certain things and she's putting things together the media obviously find this note that she writes where she's speculating that the royal family were potentially trying to kill her that thing gets used as a separate puzzle piece and put with another puzzle piece that gets put together and then there's this big conspiracy theory so a lot of it is but yeah this sex tape I'm sorry to burst your bubble but it's not

[00:56:08] really a sex tape in any way it's on a similar part kind of the tampon gate thing where they just make it out to be something more than it actually is it's not an actual sex tape itself certainly not on Diana's part what it actually is is a recording of a call between Diana and a man called James Gilbey I've never heard of him before but basically he is being actuated with her she very much isn't basically they're on a call together she is watching TV while he is

[00:56:37] very obviously trying to instigate sexy talk with her and she is just not interested at some point he literally asked her to turn down the TV and she's like no so what are you wearing or what are you doing I'm watching EastEnders that is exactly it he goes he says things like so what are you wearing and she goes uh you know a pink polo neck and some black pumps and he says you looking good and she's like yes and he goes are you and she goes I think so and he goes dead good

[00:57:07] and she's like yes dead good Adam it is so awkward at one point he mentions that he hasn't had a wank in four days and Diana's like oh yeah it's been raining that I love that just really brushed off change the subject anything it's like when you're watching TV with your parents and there's like a sexy scene that comes on and your mum either like changes the channel or starts a conversation so you don't watch yeah that's it this tape is basically called the squidgy gate tape because he calls her squidgy like 30

[00:57:36] times during the school squidgy yeah it's like a pet name for them yeah it doesn't feel like something you should say to compliment someone no so basically the tabloids get hold of this recording years before it comes out they approach her and they're like we have a tape of you and gilby talking dirty obviously Diana denies it and they say that they're going to release it and she's freaking the f out and so she waits and she waits but nothing

[00:58:05] appears in the papers and because there's never not been an instance where even a sniff of a scandal hasn't appeared in the papers she starts to wonder who's blocking the story do you know what I mean this is my point it's the press or the royal family does have control with some of the stories and they don't probably want that one coming out also it's not really a story to be honest there's not really a lot there but I guess it could paint the royal family bad or that she's

[00:58:34] like doing the dirt on Charles they don't want her and so Adam from this little event her paranoia starts to spiral to new heights she starts to believe and maybe correctly that the royal family is involved that they're surveilling her manipulating the press deciding what gets leaked and what does not exactly as you said so yeah we also need to incorporate that with what we know about her that she has a weird little sex tape where she is just really disinterested that it's

[00:59:02] hilarious and talking about the weather but does that mean that obviously her phones were tapped and so who tapped those phones exactly yeah a bunch of different people news of the world maybe did it someone probably pays a member of the staff to go and fit the tap to it who knows but it's also around about this time that she gains real confidence like something happens that makes her realize that she isn't just a war flower who should stand by and wait for the palace to tell her what to do and this all kicks

[00:59:31] off when she's on a skiing trip with Charles and some friends while they're there there is an horrific avalanche at him one of the people in their group is actually killed and he is killed while trying to save Charles so they need to work out the logistics of getting the body back to the UK but Charles at this moment in time he's completely shaken and completely in shock so she takes the initiative and she sorts everything out she starts coordinating with ambassadors and digging trees and she gets the body

[01:00:00] back home and it's at this moment that she realized actually do you know what I'm really good at this crisis management diplomacy leadership I can do it her whole life she's carried this insecurity about her intelligence but this moment proves that she has the instincts and the skills to do this and so from here she starts leaning deeper into her charitable work not just shaking hands and comforting people like she's now leading some of these initiatives like she is really

[01:00:28] getting things moving and this new confidence in her also motivates her to finally tackle her bulimia head-on it actually comes in the form of an ultimatum after a friend sits her down and is like listen the reason you're so depressed the reason you're so tired is because of your bulimia and she says if you do not get help I'm literally going to go to the press and Adam it works I don't think Caroline Bartholomew would have gone to the press because she's one of her oldest friends but I think she was using it as a

[01:00:58] bit of tough love guaranteed I'm almost certain of that I could be wrong and it works she gets help she starts seeing a doctor for the next few months the doctor visits her every week he encourages her to read books about her condition and even though she had to do all this in secret she found herself inwardly rejoicing as she starts turning these pages she said like this is me I'm not the only one Adam Dinah thought she was the only one really that seems and maybe people didn't

[01:01:26] talk about it as much back then or and also she doesn't have access to other people in the same way so how long did she have bulimia for so she's in her 30s now so she got bulimia the week after she got engaged that's when it started officially so over 10 years then is that right yeah her sister was bulimic as well so I wouldn't be surprised if this was learned behavior but it really kind of became an option for her to take after she got engaged and Charles was like

[01:01:56] you're a bit chubby on your on your side oh yeah that's right so the effects of all of this mounting confidence also gives her the will to also finally confront camilla and this happens at a birthday party that Charles invited to like she doesn't actually want to go he just asks her mostly out of obligation a bit like what you do as well when you're like now do you want to go to the gym I'm like thanks for asking but no thanks and then when you don't ask I'm like you didn't even ask I know the whole charades

[01:02:25] that I have to go through yeah same thing here but this time she's like I'll be there and at the party she notices that Charles has disappeared and so is camilla and she's like nope not tonight she gets up she goes downstairs she finds them both in the middle of a private intense conversation on the sofa and she says Charles you need to leave camilla and I need to talk and Charles is just done he's like what do you want to talk about and she's like just us girls wow she is

[01:02:53] wearing the trousers now she has transformed Charles doesn't know what to do is he turned on is he like are we gonna put three-way there's a lot of emotions oh my god is he turned on what I thought so according to diana she tells camilla I know what's been going on between you and Charles for all these years and camilla says you've got everything you have all the men in the world falling in love with you you have two beautiful children what more could you possibly want and diana says I want my

[01:03:22] fucking husband basically bitch back off and I think what's close to the truth was that she didn't actually want Charles at this moment in time like at this point their relationship had deteriorated far too much but by saying this now was just her saying what she knows that she should have said years ago mm-hmm kind of taking back I don't know some control and also to say like I'm not stupid like you think I was oblivious to this whole time I mean camilla must have known that she don't know she knows that she knows she knows right she doesn't know that we

[01:03:52] know that she knows that we know so like you said this moment was her taking back a bit of power but it's after all of this the building paranoia the growing self-confidence getting her bulimia under control that she sort of realizes that if she's going to leave Charles then she needs to repair for it to get really ugly she's not just up against a bad marriage she's up against the press she's up against the palace the institution whatever we want to call it so if there's going to be a war of

[01:04:20] public opinion she needs to get her side documented and she needs to do that fast clearly thoughtfully but most importantly on her own terms so Diana starts looking for a journalist someone that she can trust and finally she lands on a guy called Andrew Morton and hence why we now know all this yes mostly because he's written really glowing books about her before but also because he's been really critical of Charles in those books and in those writings so they meet up and

[01:04:50] following this Diana starts sneaking him tapes with her recorded memoir on them basically and eventually in 1992 the book is published which could not have come at a worse time because 1992 is a terrible year for the royal family a it's the year that Prince Andrew and Fergie are basically getting divorced and Fergie's in the process of being unofficially exiled from the royal family Princess Anne is divorcing her husband and there are rumors swirling that she's actually having an affair with Camilla's

[01:05:19] husband Andrew Parker Bowles so it's very incestuous but also 1992 is a terrible year for Diana personally it's because this is also the year that her father dies and she's absolutely devastated the fallout from this means that she has to deal with rain legs who apparently on the day that her dad died they kick her out out of the Alphorpe estate out of the home that she's known for all of these years wow that seems quite harsh like okay you

[01:05:48] didn't get on with her but on the day that he died yeah they basically force her to pack up all of her shit which she does using luggage trunks belonging to the family when all of the stuff is gathered at the front door they tell her those trunks belong to the family and so they make a repack all of her stuff in bin bags and then they throw them at the door damn it's vicious Adam all around 1992 is a bad year and with this book coming out it's about to get a hell of a lot worse basically one Sunday morning Charles and

[01:06:16] Diana are hosting a weekend at High Growth their guests are still asleep Charles comes downstairs for breakfast he opens the Sunday Times he sees the headline Diana driven to five suicide bids by uncaring Charles what he's reading is an excerpt from Andrew Morton's book and he realizes because he's seen these types of things all the time right but what he realizes based on the phrasing is that it can only mean one thing that the details must have come from Diana herself which means that she's been

[01:06:44] talking which is a royal family rule number one you do not do that as we know so Charles fucking livid yeah understandably that's obviously I mean it's an awful headline and obviously terrible that Diana went through that but yeah you can understand like what like yeah being exposed like that but Adam they've got guests so he has to sit there eat breakfast sip his fucking tea and pretend that everything is fine and then after breakfast he's okay I'm gonna confront her

[01:07:14] but then the guests insist they all go horseback riding across the estate so Charles has to spend the whole day just smiling through it I bet she's like please don't leave eventually they leave and then he confronts Diana and basically it ends up with her running out the house in tears driving back to London and of course she 100% vehemently denies this but in reality Diana was behind Andrew Morton book and the article in the times in fact she specifically chose

[01:07:44] the times because it's a paper that she knew that Charles read but also because it was the times he'd know that it wasn't just tabloid fodder and that it would have some credibility and he would then take it seriously so she planned even the article and for him to find it that morning damn that is I mean we said that she realized she could manage a crisis this is her managing her crisis I guess but then what did she expect of course Charles was gonna get angry so I don't know how does

[01:08:13] she think that was gonna go down you're right she knew he'd be angry her running out in tears is just like okay it's done the emotion is like they've obviously said some hurtful things but she was fully expecting this to blow up don't be under any illusion so basically the book there are three massive bombshells number one Diana attempted suicide number two she has a severe eating disorder and number three Charles has been sleeping with Camilla since the beginning of their marriage and these revelations this book is

[01:08:41] huge the revelation that she has an eating disorder in particular is massive we don't know this at the time but years later in 2006 there's actually a study that shows that bulimia diagnosis in the UK jumps 60,000 cases between 1992 and 1994 and it's because Diana went public with a struggle people were like wait if the princess of Wales has the same disorder that I do maybe I can accept it maybe I can get help that's the power that

[01:09:09] this woman had and perhaps people don't even know how to diagnose what they had right I would have thought at this time remember Diana was sitting there as well thinking god I'm the only person right suffering with this when her book comes out it makes other people go hang on a minute this is me this is me I'm not the only one as well so it's just incredible yet she didn't have the confidence to do this sooner it's such a shame right because remember same time she's also just a person with

[01:09:38] flaws and all these different things so basically this book being published means that there is now no hope for reconciliation between Diana and Charles and so the next day Diana and Charles they go visit the Queen and Prince Philip and they request permission to formally separate there of course is a lot of back and forth but in the end the Queen tells them listen just wait six more months let everything cool down and then we can reevaluate but Prince Philip he ends up getting really nasty he starts writing her letters in one of the first

[01:10:07] letters he literally says can you honestly look into your heart and say that Charles's relationship with Camilla has nothing to do with your behavior during the marriage wow I mean probably yeah Charles did go to Camilla because he wasn't enjoying what was going on it's probably an element of that but I don't think we can say that's because of Diana you've got to think how it started right it started with them together yeah they had no intention of not being together yeah he didn't start cheating on her because of Diana yes

[01:10:36] exactly he also reminds her that Charles did cut ties with Camilla in the early years of their marriage and that Diana never showed enough gratitude for that basically you didn't thank your husband for not cheating on you yeah I feel like you don't need to say that that should just be a you know a given a given exactly yeah so they have this big back and forth he eventually threatens her and

[01:11:02] says if you keep pushing to leave this marriage I will release tapes proving that you had an affair so this is him admitting that they do know everything that happened with those tapes uh-huh so Diana writes back and essentially is like fuck you I'm not to blame for the breakdown of my marriage but also him mentioning their sex tape confirms something in her that the royal family had been spying on her or at least had been involved in some way so the

[01:11:30] question is did Prince Philip block squidgy gate tape from being released if so why optics again optics or maybe to use it against her because remember the tape comes out eventually but it only comes out after Charles's sex tape comes out so who released squidgy gate if it wasn't to draw attention away from the fact that Charles I see did tap on gate so yeah so

[01:11:56] they kept that one in the bag ready to blackmail basically sounds like it doesn't it so they agree to wait six more months they're not going to try Adam this is a sort of already a done deal in their eyes they're basically just running out the clock so they get busy negotiating the logistics of how they are going to orchestrate their lives from here on it's mostly around the kids Diana literally has this vision that when they separate or divorce that she will leave the country with William and Harry she seriously wonders if she can relocate them to

[01:12:25] South Africa because that's where her brother lives but what she doesn't realize is that there are specific British laws that apply only to the royal family and because William and Harry are the heirs to the literal throne it is literally illegal for her to have sole custody of them let alone take the boys out of the country so it's a huge issue so much so that the palace get lawyered up and plus the prime minister has to get involved as well so taking the

[01:12:53] kids out of the country unfortunately is a no-go because essentially they belong to the crown that's so weird yeah it is bizarre eventually 1992 they do formally separate Diana gets to live at Kensington Palace she retains access to the apartments in St James's Palace Charles will get to live at Highgrove and Clarence House and so for the first time in years Diana is literally free and

[01:13:21] everything about her life is reinvented she remodels her apartment she's in complete control of her diet and her social life she literally becomes Adam a soccer mom if you can imagine a soccer mom Andrew Morton writes on every chair were silk cushions embroidered with humorous slogans like good girls go to heaven and bad girls go everywhere oh no is this what she hid in her house yeah that's it yeah see if I see that in someone's house I'm like yeah be warned one thing she does is she

[01:13:48] decorates a bathroom with wallpaper that has political cartoons on it or mocking Prince Charles really you always want something humorous in the bathroom so I like yeah she also starts repairing old relationships with friends and family she even reconnects with Ray Lengs the old lady that she pushed down the stairs I read that when Diana first reached out to Rain Rain was so terrified that when they met up for lunch she brought someone with her for protection she thought it was a

[01:14:16] trap basically that Diana was gonna jump or punch her but she's like I'll only eat at a restaurant as long as they have no stairs or steps yes like wheelchair access only yeah basically the end Diana has this realization that Rain also really loved her father and when he died they both lost someone that they really loved it's also random this time that Charles and committed sex tape that gets leaked to the media it's really bad for his reputation

[01:14:42] and so I think because of that the palace decide as we said already to release Diana's sex tape just to try and draw attention away from his if that's not the case then I think this is what they were hoping it would do because any news about Diana always seems to kind of trump anything that he does but not this time though like the public they're really pissed but here's the thing Charles's tape which is basically about them talking about whose house that they're going to be

[01:15:08] having sex in in the next couple weeks Diana realizes that for their entire marriage there had been some very very close mutual friends of theirs who had been facilitating their affair behind their back and so she feels deeply betrayed by these people that she thought were their friends yeah like that's that's horrible especially if she thought she was close to the wife or whatever it was knowing that oh you didn't care about me then also around this time because she's no longer

[01:15:35] actively involved in the royal family her public schedule is pulled back massively she suddenly has all this extra time on her hands she starts kind of building a fairly normal easygoing life she stays in at night she watches tv she eats beans on toast when she has the boys she takes them to outings to the zoo and things like that but it also means she's excluded from family events involving the boys like Christmas so every year the royals they go up to Sandringham they say that she can visit

[01:16:03] on Christmas Eve but she has to leave before anyone wakes up on Christmas morning and so their very first year she says she cries all the way driving back down to London yeah to know that you need to be out of the house before they wake up it doesn't feel nice okay so Diana has all this extra time on her hands Adam what is she gonna do uh well she's gonna take up pottery uh maybe some yoga um maybe help out at the local church I don't know no Adam she is gonna go a bit psycho and I'm

[01:16:32] absolutely living for it more so than already yeah yeah yeah this this gets embarrassing so she starts up an affair with a guy called Oliver Hoare is how I'm gonna pronounce it it's H-O-A-R-E and basically he's a mutual friend of hers and Charles and he actually helped with the negotiations during their separation like Diana will be like Oliver go tell Charles that I want the the arm one the primary bedroom and then Charles will be like Oliver tell Diana that she can have the armoire but not the

[01:16:59] knobs they belong to my great grandmother Mary Tech or whatever so that kind of facilitation anyway they fall in love but Oliver is married the issue is is that all of his wealth comes from his wife like he owns a gallery but it's completely funded by her without her he literally has nothing so there is no way that he's ever actually going to leave his wife but Diana on the other hand she's convinced that he is the one they end up renting a little flat in Pimlico to have sex in eventually though his wife

[01:17:28] she finds out and she's like Oliver I will forgive you you can keep your gallery but you have to cut Diana off not just romantically like not even as friends so he ends things with Diana and almost immediately Oliver's wife starts receiving these really weird phone calls at first it's just one or two but within weeks it's literally dozens a day and all she hears when she picks up the phone is just someone on the other end just breathing and then you'll just hear a click as a hanger Adam it's

[01:17:55] creepy as fuck Oliver's wife gets really freaked out she calls Scotland Yard they investigate and they discover that most of the calls are coming from Kensington Palace they definitely did not expect that probably did they no they probably double check but I just check that again I don't think that's true and it's so embarrassing apparently sometimes Diana would even put on a wig and then call from a payphone down the street amazing amazing this is one of my favorite things that I've learned about

[01:18:23] Princess Diana and I respect her just the thought that she could get did she not like dial 141 isn't there like a way you can make sure that's not traceable I don't know if that even existed true and to be fair probably like the police they can see behind that so somehow the story leaks and her defense is I don't even know how to use a parking meter let alone a phone box oh come on you are not Prince King Charles you know how to use a damn phone yeah you're not princess anymore we know you

[01:18:53] make your own dinner so she doubles down right she'll arrange to meet with a journalist as friends off the record knowing that they'll probably end up talking to their own network of other journalists and that way her defense will end up leaking but it won't look like she's done it premeditatively do you know what I mean so at the lunch she'll casually be like oh god did you hear about that stupid story that I Princess Diana Princess of Wales is making nuisance phone calls to like I'm some

[01:19:20] random woman and then she'll whip out her diary and be like it couldn't have been me because I was at X event that night and like those entries are clearly added in after the fact because when this event she does actually circulate other reporters they check and they see that she wasn't even at that event that night come on Diana it's so embarrassing and iconic at the same time and I love it and this

[01:19:45] is where that reputation as someone who manipulates the press really sets in like my mom always said that about her and now I sort of see why Diana tries to get ahead of these scandals when they break and basically it's a way to kind of reframe them to her benefit this is literally what she's doing with the Andrew Morton book and also what she did with the famous Martin Bashir interview and I know I framed that in this kind of nefarious way but that's not my intention because the way that I see

[01:20:13] it as I said in the previous episode is that she's just someone who's been relentlessly hounded by the press for her entire adult life so I'd say it's less about her making waves and more about her learning to just ride those waves do you know what I mean and I can respect that I don't see that as a negative yeah I guess she's always had to put on an act or kind of I don't know perceive or be a certain way and so I kind of I'm not mad at her for doing it put it that way also anyone faced with

[01:20:42] a story this fucking embarrassing can you blame them for wanting to get ahead of it this is her surviving basically so this new song's call story sort of kicks off a new wave of the press coming after her the squidgy gate tapes are released like I said before one paper even kind of sets up a hotline where people can call and listen to the recording for 36 a minute and a little gross that's extortionate back then it is and this but this latest wave is different to the others and it's because she now

[01:21:11] revolts because now she's not an official royal she has nothing to lose so there's no incentive for her to play nice it all starts in 1994 when a man who goes to a gym installs a hidden camera in the ceiling and secretly photographs of working out I have to say she looks fucking incredible the photos look like they are from a photo shoot not from some dodgy 1990s kind of cctv camera she knew she knew what was going on she's like I'm gonna dress up today honestly she didn't so basically he goes and sells

[01:21:40] them to the tabloids they publish a nine-page spread showing all the pictures she is furious and she goes and sues the guy who did it and eventually they sell out of court but this is the moment that she starts calling the press out for infringing on her privacy and writing bullshit stories about her she's way more aggressive with photographers who hound her in public she refuses to stop for photographs and she just basically wants to be left alone but Adam this backfires massively because every time

[01:22:08] she reacts she gives the press a juicy photo which keeps escalating in physical value that they can sell it for and so the paparazzi start goading her for a reaction they start calling her a bitch one spanish photographer shouts at her why don't you put your head up and start acting like a fucking princess it all explodes when she's at like a jurassic park premiere the press are screaming at her calling

[01:22:33] horrible things and she just yells back why don't you go and rape somebody else you're making my life hell and so the next day it's all over the papers one of them shows a cartoon of diana as a giant t-rex towering over the photographers with a caption saying oh wow mom you're better than the movie it's just terrible so in december 1993 she announces that she is resigning from public life

[01:22:58] which basically means nothing unfortunately she is one of the most famous women in the world so there's no stepping away from this all it means is that she's going to be cutting her charity work down for like 100 organizations to just five at an event at the serpentine gallery she's chatting to jeremy irons who tells her that he's taking a year of acting and she just smiles and she says you know what so am i but her cutting back in this way just means that she can really focus in on just a handful of those

[01:23:24] charities like she is now looking to step into more of an ambassador role so this gives her the capacity to do that and be more impactful but we now have to talk about adam essentially the three main events their final result in the queen greenlighting charles and diana's divorce do you know what these might be by any chance i don't think i do i'm guessing probably some more controversy and drama

[01:23:49] and like bad press but i mean there's been so much already what was like the final straw for the queen to go fine just get divorced i think that you're gonna know two of these things you're not gonna know the final thing so basically the first is when diana gets wind that charles is planning on releasing a documentary where he is going to try and get his side of the story out there just like diana did with the andrew morton book ever since the andrew morton book came out approval ratings for the royal

[01:24:16] family have taken a huge hit and charles's approval rating had plummeted to just four percent right the documentary is basically going to air on the bbc it's a huge pr campaign that's behind it and it's supposed to humanize him it's going to give him a bit of a rebrand it's going to make him a bit more relatable spoiler alert it does not first off it's excruciatingly boring and all he talks about is architecture and gardening it's the dullest thing i've ever watched in my life it's like

[01:24:45] going on a date with charles yes the only real revelation that comes out of this documentary is that he finally admits to having an affair with committed during their marriage so the night the documentary is supposed to air diana is meant to be attending an event at the serpentine gallery but she originally declines the rsbp when she hears the documentaries coming out she decides that she is going to go knowing that if she does she'll dominate the headlines the next day so at the last minute she

[01:25:13] shows up at the serpentine gallery wearing what we now know as the revenge dress uh yes of course so basically as our listeners may not know this is that little black dress where she just looks incredible i think you everyone can agree she's wearing that kind of blue sapphire sort of heart of the ocean pearl choker necklace it's just gorgeous she arrives the paparazzi yo mental and the next

[01:25:41] morning the front pages are not talking about charles's documentary they're instead plastered with photos of diana stepping out of that limo looking like a million bucks and so diana has ruined charles's and the royal family's little pr move and they're basically pissed and that is the first big thing yeah i guess they're like is this always going to happen that she's going to outshine us um and so i guess they're like well if we don't give her what she wants we're always going to face this issue right

[01:26:11] yeah the second thing that leads the queen to finally greenlight the divorce comes in 1995 basically diana agrees to do a solo interview with panorama and a journalist you might know martin beshir yeah so this is the famous interview where she actually even says those quotes like oh there were three in the marriage um and she revealed all this dirt which obviously that's the most unroyal thing you could be doing is giving this televised interview to this on the news

[01:26:39] yeah basically that's where she utters those famous words about there have been three people in this marriage and that's a huge revelation i mean it wasn't really a huge revelation to certain people like if you were maybe a daily mail reader maybe you would have known it if you're a telegraph reader maybe you could have read between the lines but this is where it's properly confirmed right so if you're an american listener you might remember martin beshir from that famous interview

[01:27:07] that he did with michael jackson at his ranch i think never never land where he's like in the tree in the red shirt so this interview it airs on the 20th of november and the reason she's doing it is because essentially she is trying to reclaim control over her public image this is after the whole crank call scandal and the t-rex incident but also she knows that if a divorce is ever finalized the royal family will likely slap a gag order on her and that means that she'll never get a chance to

[01:27:36] tell her actual side of the story she already knows martin beshir by reputation in fact he'd been trying to land an interview with her for like years but the answer has always just been no she only agrees when martin shows her checks given to members of her own staff that prove that they've been leaking stories to the news of the world for years remember she's already paranoid at this point so this is really persuasive for her right yeah didn't we find out later that those checks they were kind of forged or

[01:28:04] they misled to what diana did like she did this interview off the back of one okay she wants to say you know her own piece and two yeah she felt like she was being spied on so a lot of this information could get out so this is her getting ahead of that but had this not been forged all those documents she might have done it differently and i think this is something that harry has been quite vocal about saying like the things that were done to manipulate his mother 100 adam yeah she

[01:28:32] probably wouldn't have done this interview had she not seen those checks and seen that evidence so at this moment in time she does not know and that won't come out for years having the bbc's graphic design department that's taxpayer money mock those checks up and so he calculatingly is playing off of her paranoia and it works and so she agrees to this interview but the entire interview has to be

[01:28:56] kept completely secret not just from the royal family but from the bbc itself did you know that i think i'm trying to read because i've watched the crown i think they did cover that in the crown actually yeah and it's because the chairman of the bbc at the time is a guy called which i love this name i'll never not love this name and we are going to call our son this name his name is mama duke mama duke do you know that that name kind of comes up quite often it feels american though

[01:29:23] no i think it's very like victorian south african so his name is mama duke hussey and he's basically deeply connected with the royals he has been known to flat out kill royal stories before so this has to all happen in total secrecy not even diana's own staff know that this is in the works and in the interview diana openly talks about the collapse of her marriage she finally admits to the affair with james hewitt she says she doubts that she will ever be queen instead saying that she hopes one day to

[01:29:52] be the queen of the people's hearts and she talks openly about her bulimia her mental health but famously she says the words there were three of us in this marriage so was a bit crowded and adam when the interview airs it's watched by over 20 million people which at the time is the most watched documentary interview in british television history yeah it was kind of groundbreaking to have this kind of interview from a royal like all the scandal it revealed well you know or at least

[01:30:20] confirmed a lot of the things that people had seen in the press and it is a really incredible interview knowing everything that we know about her and like what she's been through it's this moment where you see that she is basically adam completely just let go of all the shame in a really incredibly calm composed even regal way like the public there's this overwhelming sense of honesty and vulnerability

[01:30:44] from her she could have easily just gone on a rampage had she done that that would have lost her credibility but she was so demure about this but in the eyes of the royals adam they are completely horrified and so that wedge is just jimmied in even further and that is the second big thing that happens now the final straw the thing that finally breaks the camel's back and pushes the queen to finally green light the divorce

[01:31:10] involves a woman called tiggy do you know who she is so this is the thing that i probably won't know right yes i think so yeah yeah i don't know about this i thought it was the interview that would have been the final nail basically tiggy is william and harry's nanny and she sort of sparks this jealous streak in diana because she's constantly been photographed with the boys they're always out kind of horseback riding they're snapped together laughing and playing diana hates this she's really

[01:31:38] attached to her boys but she's also convinced that tiggy is trying to marry charles so she puts in a formal request to the palace to outline tiggy's duties and insist on being consulted about anything that she does involving the boys but then in 1995 a rumor starts swirling that tiggy has gotten herself pregnant with charles's baby and so he has arranged for her to have an abortion that december diana is

[01:32:03] attending a christmas party and she knows that tiggy is going to be there diana casually walks up to her and says tiggy good to see you darling so sorry to hear about the baby tiggy burst into tears she runs out of the room everyone turns around to see what's happened they're all mortified by diana's insensitivity because adam this could be true and so they're wondering what kind of person does this

[01:32:29] yeah but also for the palace when the palace finds out it's a huge crisis and so they try to kind of contain the rumor they they're aware of the rumor but now because diana has physically uttered these words they're scared it's going to leak outside the confines of the physical royal social circle which is not good for charles and the royal family and so they seriously consider filing for libel against

[01:32:55] diana really yeah turns out adam the rumor isn't even true and it was diana who started it oh no so why did so she started it to what just kind of get her own back why did she do it no idea what she's thinking no idea maybe she just wants to tarnish charles's reputation who knows they're in this catfight where they're just constantly going at each other this is one of them and this was she actually pregnant was that true or was no i don't think so there's no evidence of it

[01:33:25] is we know that it was diana's side of the rumor so yeah okay so eventually the queen is like this is enough let's get this woman out of our lives and so they start the divorce proceedings they have to consider the money property custody and weirdly the biggest sticking point is can diana keep her title as her royal highness and from the very beginning diana's fully set on this becoming very messy she's like i want the money i want the house i'm taking the kids i'm gonna take them for everything

[01:33:53] they've got but the queen is really chill she's like you want the money sure have the money you want the property sure have the property obviously you can't have the kids full time but you are their mother and we're not really going to put on any real restrictions on custody except you cannot take the boys out the country so like the queen is not a monster right but she's adamant about one thing the title they instead say you can be known as diana comma princess of wales is that not just the

[01:34:23] same thing what what's the importance of that comma exactly it's dumb like diana is like fine whatever none of this actually means anything anyway not to a regular member of the public they still see me as princess diana right so in the end she receives a 17 million pound lump sum plus 400 000 pounds a year for office expenses her staff remain on the royal payroll and her official name becomes diana princess

[01:34:50] of wales and so the divorce is eventually finalized on the 15th of july 1996 and from that point it is almost exactly one year until the day that she dies wow so she only really gets that kind of freedom yeah really late in the game yeah it's so sad and adam that is the story of princess diana and the

[01:35:14] breakdown of her marriage yeah i mean it is messy and there's some things that i think diana did do which i think we can all go yeah that probably wasn't smart that wasn't cool and but i think if we perhaps knew the turmoil and the trouble and all the issues that she had you'd you'd probably kind of understand it a bit more we can only speculate from the outside just maybe how tough it was

[01:35:38] based on what she said and i don't think we ever hear the the royal side like that's what she was like i'm not saying that you know she wasn't justified in what she was doing but clearly she did do things that you know intentionally rubbed them up the right wrong way correct i mean there is clear evidence that she's done some questionable weird things i don't hate her for it but you are

[01:36:02] in an environment where like things that you do and say do matter so when she has made these kind of muck-ups i guess it probably doesn't go down well we don't know what kind of person she was behind closed doors either but to the public she can't do any wrong i think she is just real she's raw she's graceful she is messy she's everything she's everything she's a human being that i just think is really special exactly she's human i think that's the main thing like she's flawed but she's

[01:36:32] human and and you know she's a good mother she did a lot of good like you know no one's perfect yeah so adam in the next episode we're actually heading into the final chapter of diana's life we're going to meet dodgy al-fayyad we are going to talk about what happened in the lead up to that night in paris on the 31st of august 1997 and we're going to look at some of the conspiracy theories

[01:36:57] and the reactions that came out of it it's going to be a tough one but it's also going to be an interesting one because for the first time we actually see a glimmer of who diana could have been as a human being outside of the royal palace basically yeah when she hasn't got to deal with all all of that pompous yeah this and it's exciting because a she has one last love affair and yeah

[01:37:23] i'm living for it and essentially she dies happy but yeah any last words before we run the auto for this week adam no i think i think that's it so guys that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium an assembly of fascinating things we hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did and if today's episode sparks your curiosity then please do us a favor and follow us on your favorite podcast app it truly makes a world of difference and helps more people like you discover the show and for our dedicated freaks out there please don't forget that next week's episode is

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