The amazing story behind the infamous Panorama interview with Princess Diana

On 20 November 1995, the BBC news programme Panorama broadcast Princess Diana’s first solo interview since her marriage to Prince Charles. It was broadcast two years after the couple announced their separation. An incredible 22.8 million viewers watched the programme and to this day it remains one of the BBC’s highest-rated programmes of all time.

In it, she appeared dressed in black, with eyeliner and shy – although some claimed she was deliberately playing for sympathy – and dropped a series of bombshells. The most famous line she uttered after interviewer Martin Bashir asked her about Prince Charles’ infidelity was: “There were three of us in that marriage, so it was a bit cramped,” the third person being Camilla Parker Bowles, now the Duchess of Cornwall.

She then admitted that she herself had actually had an affair – some believed to have lasted five years – with James Hewitt, a cavalry officer who had given her riding lessons. Of their relationship and its subsequent revelation in the book Princess In Love, she said: “Yes, I adored him. Yes, I was in love with him. But I was very disappointed.”

And from the beginning everything was pretty explosive.

Organized in secret

Amazingly, the interview and its organisation were carried out in complete secrecy. Buckingham Palace was not informed and even BBC chairman Lord Hussey only found out about it a few days before it was broadcast. Diana did not even tell her own press secretary, Geoff Crawford, who later resigned over it. A book published the previous year had revealed that Prince Charles’ affair with Camilla Parker Bowles had come to light, so she obviously wanted to make her own, very personal statement. We see today a much more reserved relationship between the press and the royal family, probably sparked by the Bashir interview.

Postnatal depression

The biggest bombshell of the interview was Diana’s admission of infidelity with James Hewitt, but she also revealed that she suffered from post-natal depression after giving birth to Prince William. “I suffered from post-natal depression, which nobody talks about, post-natal depression is something you read about afterwards, and that in itself was quite a difficult time,” she said. “You would wake up in the morning feeling like you didn’t want to get out of bed, you felt misunderstood and just very, very depressed. I’ve never had depression in my life.” She also added that she received little sympathy from those around her. “It gave everyone a wonderful new label – Diana is unstable and mentally unbalanced. And unfortunately that seems to have stuck over the years.”

Self-harm

She also admitted to self-harming, a topic that is discussed in the media much more often today than it was in 1995. “I hurt myself… I only hurt my arms and legs. And now I work in an environment where I see women doing similar things and I can completely understand where that comes from.” Her bulimia was also discussed, which she described as “a secret illness” and admitted that she would vomit up to five times a day.

The press has gone crazy

The Daily Mail wrote that the admission of infidelity had “plunged the monarchy into its greatest crisis since the abdication”, referring to King Edward VIII’s decision in 1936 to abdicate the throne and marry Wallis Simpson, a divorced American socialite. These events also nearly sacked the BBC’s Director General, and the BBC’s then chairman Lord Hussey put massive pressure on the Director General, John Birt, now Lord Birt, to resign. In a documentary of the interview, Birt told BBC2’s Arena in 2005: “The Chairman wanted to sack me. He immediately tried to take action against me. He tried to get the governors to condemn the programme, but they refused. He was very vindictive.” This was probably due to Hussey’s connections to the monarchy – his wife was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen and loyal to Prince Charles.

It forced a divorce

Following the interview’s revelations, Charles and Diana were forced to officially end their marriage. The Queen reportedly wrote to both Diana and her son personally to advise them to divorce. When they finally received their divorce decree in August 1996, Diana was given a lump sum of £17 million, plus £400,000 a month, along with a confidentiality agreement that meant neither could publicly discuss the finer details of their marriage.

Remorse

Some of her closest confidants revealed earlier this year that she regretted the interview. Her former private secretary Patrick Jephson told the Mail on Sunday: “I think when the programme was broadcast she regretted it deeply, not least because it did not help her cause. I think the scales fell from her eyes and what had been a rather subversive or daring plan – or however they (the BBC) had disguised it for her – suddenly did not seem such a good idea in the cold light of day. I could see from her general demeanour, her fidgeting, that she was not at all sure of what she had done and that she was realising the full consequences.”

Dirty tricks?

Sarah Ferguson even claimed that Bashir “tricked” her and that some of her statements were “off the record.” “She would never have said all the things she said if he hadn’t tricked her,” she told The View. “He lulled her into a comfort zone by being this wonderful, generous man and saying, ‘I’m a family man too,’ and getting her to talk like that. And of course, there’s no such thing as ‘off the record.'”

Photo credit: Rex Features