bitchy | Princess Diana’s Panorama interview is Prince William’s ‘wound that will not heal’

I’ve already expressed my concerns about this new book, Dianarama, written by Andy Webb. Webb’s investigatory focus is on Princess Diana’s 1995 Panorama interview, where she spoke openly about bulimia, her affairs, Charles’s affairs and whether she believed she would ever become queen. She also suggested that Charles wasn’t up to the job of being king. Instead of focusing on Diana’s actual words, the conversation in recent years has been focused on how Martin Bashir manipulated Diana and lied to her to secure the interview. Strangely, Webb never acknowledges what the Dyson investigation acknowledged four years ago, which is that Diana wanted to talk and she was looking for an outlet and interviewer to get her side out before the inevitable divorce. Both things were true: Bashir secured the interview through lies and forgery, AND Diana would have talked to someone else if Bashir hadn’t come along. Well, Webb is still hustling his book and he said some odd things to Fox News.

Prince William is still in agony over Diana’s interview: “I’ve been discreet because I’ve gone as far as I was advised to go,” Andy Webb, author of “Dianarama,” told Fox News Digital. “I describe William as having a wound that will not heal. It’s been made clear to me that he needs to know what happened. I think the impact on William must have been absolutely traumatic. He’s decided that the time has come. He needs to know. He really wants to know what went down 30 years ago.”

On Diana’s paranoia: “They said Diana was paranoid,” said Webb. “And I always think to myself, ‘That’s really unkind,’ because you have to remember, this was the BBC telling her they had firm information and documents proving people were out to get her. That’s what Diana was acting on. At that point in her life, she knew her phone had been tapped, private calls had been recorded and even broadcast publicly. It was very embarrassing for her. She also worried whether a former friend she’d had a relationship with, who died in a motorbike accident, might have been targeted. She asked herself, ‘Is that a coincidence?’ That was the material Martin Bashir knew he was working with — that Diana was already deeply suspicious of being under surveillance. He knew she was concerned about the death of this particular man. Then he came along with his documents, and he was very convincing.”

How William feels: “I think it’s hard for William to realize that things might have been different,” said Webb. “If only Diana had been told what really happened — what Martin Bashir had done. It’s difficult to live with that knowledge.” In 2021, William said that “the interview was a major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse and has since hurt countless others. It brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.”

William was mad because Diana talked about her affairs & trashed Charles: “What teenager wants to watch TV and see his mother there being asked questions about, ‘Did you have sex with this boyfriend?’” asked Webb. “In the interview, Diana is encouraged to effectively trash William’s father when she’s asked, ‘Do you think he should be king?’ And she says, ‘No, I don’t think he’s got it in him.’ So William, at the age of 13, is sitting there watching this. What do his school friends think the next morning? You don’t have to be a prince to be horribly embarrassed by that.”

William wants Diana to be silenced forever: “William does not want this interview to be shown again,” said Webb. “He calls it illegitimate. What’s particularly sad is that, yes, some parts were valuable — but in reality, Diana gave that interview in a state of terror and fear.”

[From Fox News]

I’m still disgusted that the major takeaway for both Andy Webb and Prince William is that Diana should be silenced forever and that it’s wrong to speak out about the royal family’s abusive and toxic culture. I’m also disgusted that William is openly doing his father’s bidding here – again, Charles has been trying to silence Diana for decades, and Charles was always incandescent with rage over the Panorama interview too. Charles has wanted the interview buried for thirty years. And now William wants it buried too. Harry is the only one in this situation who acknowledges that Diana was simply trying to survive and tell her story.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, screencap courtesy of BBC/GMA.