Princess Diana recordings reveal what she thought of 'sad man' Prince Charles and 'dead energy' Buckingham Palace
Once-secret tapes which recorded the private thoughts of Princess Diana, reveal what she thought of Prince Charles when she met him, the life they had together, her view of Buckingham Palace and her struggles with an eating disorder.
Transcripts of the audio tapes said to be recorded by the princess several years before her death, formed the basis of Andrew Morton's book 'Diana: Her True Story'.
The princess had recorded her thoughts for the author in 1991, on the condition they stayed private.
However they became the subject of the book which caused outrage when it was released in the early 90s.
Despite this the author maintained he had the transcripts to back up the claims, which will be released in a re-issue.
20 years after her death in 1997 the transcripts have also been released to the Daily Mail.
They show the princess was just 16 when she first met Prince Charles, who had been dating her older sister Sarah at the time.
She describes herself as being "podgy" and loud - something she thought he had liked about her.
"Charles came to Althorp to stay, and the first impact was: "'God, what a sad man'. He came with his labrador," she said.
"My sister Sarah was all over him like a bad rash, and I thought: ‘God, he must really hate that.’
"I kept out of the way. I remember being a fat, podgy, no make-up, un-smart lady but I made a lot of noise, and he liked that. And he came up to me after dinner and we had a big dance, and he said: ‘Will you show me the gallery?’.
After several meetings she said they spoke at his 30th birthday party where “he was all over me”.
"Would you like to come and stay for a couple of nights down at Petworth (in West Sussex), because we’ve got the Prince of Wales staying. You’re a young blood — you might amuse him?" she said she was asked.
"So I said: ‘OK'.
"Charles came in. He was all over me again, and it was very strange.
"I thought: ‘Well, this isn’t very cool.’ I thought men were supposed not to be so obvious; I thought this was very odd."
She said they chatted about him looking lonely at his great-uncle’s funeral – who had been killed by an IRA bomb in August 1979.
She said: “The next minute, he leapt on me practically, and I thought this was very strange, too, and I wasn’t quite sure how to cope with all this. Frigid wasn’t the word. Big F, when it comes to that.
“Charles used to ring me up and say: ‘Would you like to come for a walk, come for a barbecue?’
“So I said: ‘Yes, please.’ I thought this was all wonderful.”
Prince Charles popped the question to her when she was just 19 in February 1981.
She reportedly selected a large £30,000 ($AU 50796) engagement ring from a platter and they faced the press with the announcement.
Famously when the pair were asked if they were marrying for love, Diana said “of course” while Charles said “whatever love means”.
They married on July 29, that same year in St Paul's Cathedral.
The princess also told of how she felt Buckingham Palace was a place of "dead energy".
She talked of how she moved from Clarence House to Buckingham Palace. It was a place of ‘dead energy’, she said, and she felt lonely there.
"I couldn’t believe how cold everyone was; how I thought one thing but actually another thing was going on," she said.
Princess Diana also spoke about her struggles with bulimia during the recordings, explaining it started the week after she got engaged.
"My husband put his hand on my waistline and said: ‘Oh, a bit chubby here, aren’t we?’ and that triggered off something in me," she reportedly said.
She said she "shrunk to nothing" by the time of her wedding.
"The first time I was measured for my wedding dress, I was 29 inches around the waist. The day I got married, I was 23½ inches. I had shrunk into nothing from February to July."
Princess Diana was the first British citizen to marry an heir to the British throne in 200 years.
She was killed in a car crash in August 1997.
