Khaberni - During her life, Princess Diana was dubbed "People’s Princess" for her continuous efforts to do good and to facilitate people’s access to the royal system, yet there was one thing in her legacy she regreted at the end of her life.
Just ten days before her premature death, Diana, who tragically died in a car accident in Paris on August 31, 1997, confessed to one of her closest friends her deep regret about her sons, Princes William and Harry.
During a vacation in Greece in August 1997, Diana confided to her close friend Rosa Monckton her regret over participating in the still controversial 1995 Panorama interview, particularly because of the impact she feared it would have on her sons.
Monckton told People magazine about the late princess's confession: "She told me that she regretted doing it because of what she believed it had done to her sons." The magazine described it as "a very rare and very personal reflection on the airing of the interview on November 20, which was watched by an estimated 200 million viewers around the world."
Diana’s concern was not about the opinion of the 200 million viewers on the infamous interview about her, but about the damage she feared it had caused William and Harry, who were fifteen and twelve years old at the time.
The interview where Diana made Prince William cry
Lacey wrote in his book "Battle of Brothers: William, Harry and the Inside Story of a Family in Tumult": "Before the fifty-eight minutes were over, William was crying," adding that William's housemaster at Eton, Dr. Andrew Gailey, found the young prince in a state of mild emotional collapse after watching the series. "Gailey told Diana that he found her son collapsed on the couch, his eyes red with tears."
In her Panorama interview, Diana was extremely candid about the difficulties she faced during her time in the royal family, openly discussing Prince Charles’s infidelity at the time, the impact of his romantic relationships (with his current wife Queen Camilla) on their marriage, as well as her personal struggles with bulimia, and the general difficulty of adjusting to life in the royal family.
In the years following the broadcast of the interview, the controversy around Diana’s Panorama interview grew, particularly as revelations about the deceptive methods used by journalist Martin Bashir to secure the interview came to light, as well as how much the BBC knew about these methods.
Monckton explained: "She was vulnerable, which made her susceptible to Bashir," adding that Diana "held everything back," which exacerbated matters. "He told her that she couldn't talk about it. So, she withdrew from people."
