Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s high-profile marriage. The public loved Diana’s outgoing character, but her husband did not.
Both Diana and Prince Charles lived through the majority of their marriage unhappy. It started when Diana found Camillia’s bracelet just days before the wedding.
But it was too late for her to cancel anything, so the Princess of Wales confronted Camilla about having an affair with her husband at a party.
According to a book written by royal biographer Andrew Morton “Diana: Her True Story—In Her Own Words,” published in 1992, Princess Diana did not beat around the bush. She said,
“I know what’s going on between you and Charles, and I just want you to know that.”
Camilla responded by telling the princess how lucky she was to have a perfect life with men worldwide falling in love with her. Then followed that up with the question, “What more do you want?”
Princess Diana still did not hesitate to reply; she simply said, “I want my husband.”However, that confrontation did lead to an immediate separation between Prince and Princess of Wales.
The royal couple tried to work on their union and welcomed their first child William in June 1982. After giving birth, Prince Diana suffered postpartum depression and opened up about it in an interview.
She confessed that it was difficult to get out of bed each day, and she felt misunderstood. Two years later, in 1984, the royal couple had Harry, their second son. But their marriage did not get any better.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana were undeniably unhappy in their marriage, and both of them had affairs.
Prince Charles rekindled things with Camilla, and his wife started seeing army captain James Hewitt around a similar time.
As much as divorce is frowned upon in the royal family, and the Queen insisted on Diana and Charles making their marriage work, the couple could not bear the darkness that clouded their union.
Therefore, the Prince and Princess of Wales separated in 1992. But the separation did not stop them from being on the front pages of newspapers and tabloids.
In 1994, two years after their break up, Charles admitted he had an affair on national television. A year later, Diana also had an interview.
She spoke about life as a royal wife, and when it came to her relationship with Charles, she said it did not work out because there were “three people in [her] marriage.”
The divorce was eventually finalized in February 1996. According to The New York Times, Princess Diana received a settlement payment of up to $22.5 million in cash plus $600,000 a year for her office.
Regarding the children, Charles and Diana were given equal access to Harry and William, which worked out perfectly because they had already gone on holidays separately.
After her divorce, the media seemed to follow Princess Diana even more. Her former bodyguard Lee Sansum, who wrote the book “Protecting Diana: Abody Guards Story,” recalled that she was about to tell the media that she was moving to America.
The Princess wanted to tell the press about her move because she wanted to protect her sons from the constant paparazzi.
After Princess Diana revealed her intentions of letting the press in on her move, Sansum said she reasoned her plans and said;
I want to go to the US and live there so I can get away from it all. At least in America, they like me and will leave me alone.”
When Sansum asked if she would be taking William and Harry, Princess Diana acknowledged she would never be allowed to take them away from their royal duties.
This meant the Princess of Wales was prepared to sacrifice her time with her kids to protect them from the hate she received in the media.
Diana planned to see her sons during their school holidays. But the escape from England was mostly her mother’s instinct to protect her children.
The princess said, “It was also to free them from all the attention they got when she was with them.”
After making plans to be rid of the Royal family, Princess Diana died in a car accident on August 31, 1997, with her boyfriend Al-Fayed and their driver, Henri Paul.
According to royal expert Penny Junor, Camilla and Prince Charles were shocked and terrified by the news.
But at first, Camilla had hope that Diana would survive. Junor said the Duchess of Cornwall did not think Diana suffered more than just a broken arm.
So when she and Charles received the call that Princess Diana had died on the operating table, Camilla was shocked and terrified for Charles.
Junor said Charles knew the media would blame Diana’s death on him and Camilla. And through that time of scrutiny, the Prince of Wales had constant support from Camilla.
What Happened to the Bodyguard That Survived the Car Crash?
Trevor Rees-Jones was Diana and Al-Fayed’s bodyguard and the only survivor of the tragic 1997 car accident.
The 54-year-old protector suffered severe head and chest injuries. Jones spent ten days in a coma, and several bones in his face were broken, leading to multiple surgeries.
Furthermore, Jones suffered immense amnesia and could only communicate by whispering or writing things down.
Surprisingly, the former bodyguard returned to work for Diana’s boyfriend’s father, Mohammed Al-Fayed, six months after the crash. But he resigned because he wanted to move on.
Jones went back to Shropshire and worked at a local sports store. From there, he got a security role at the United Nations and earned a fortune working for oil services giant Halliburton.
After building his resume for almost half a century, Jones is the head of security at AstraZeneca.
Jones kept a low profile after the tragic accident. He was spotted on a shopping trip with his family for the first time in five years.
The former bodyguard is married to Ann, a teacher, and has two children and a dog. The Jones family lives in their £500,000 detached house in Oswestry, Shropshire.