Princess Diana confronted Camilla Parker Bowles about her affair with Prince Charles at her sister’s 40th birthday party in a tense showdown that threatened to tear the Royal Family apart
Diana knew about Charles’ affair and took a blind eye, but only for so long, until she felt the need to confront his lover (Image: Tim Graham/Getty Images)
Princess Diana confronted Camilla Parker Bowles at her sister’s 40th birthday party after discovering Prince Charles “had returned to her.”
The showdown occurred when Diana approached Camilla at a party for Lady Annabel Goldsmith in February 1989, revealing she was aware of the affair.
Andrew Morton’s book Diana: Her True Story – In Her Own Words, commemorating 25 years since her tragic death, details this explosive encounte.
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One engrossing chapter retells Diana’s confrontation with Camilla, where she discussed her unhappy marriage and her battle with bulimia.
In the book, Diana describes the day she realized that Charles and Camilla were still involved as the worst day of her life.
Diana famously said there were three people in the marriage and “it was a bit crowded” (Image: Getty Images)Diana confronted Camilla about her affair with Charles
After gathering the courage to ask her rival for a “quick word,” she let everything out.
“I’m sorry I’m in the way – I obviously am in the way and it must be hell for both of you, but I do know what is going on. Don’t treat me like an idiot,” she told her, according to excerpts from the book.
Even Camilla’s denial, claiming she had no idea what Diana was talking about, couldn’t sway her.
“I know what’s going on between you and Charles, and I just want you to know that,” she is said to have responded. After being told “it’s not a cloak-and-dagger situation,” Camilla allegedly responded to the Princess: “You’ve got everything you ever wanted – you’ve got all the men in the world falling in love with you, and you’ve got two beautiful children. What more could you want?”
Diana simply stated that all she desired was her husband.
When Morton’s biography Diana hit the shelves in 1992, it faced harsh criticism, including from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The backlash was so intense that one MP suggested Morton should be exiled to the Tower of London.
‘Everybody still believed it was the perfect marriage’
However, Morton stands by his work as a representation of Diana’s perspective.
Charles and Camilla made their first public appearance as a couple in 1999 and married in 2015
He further commented on the facade of their relationship: “At the time, everybody still believed it was the perfect marriage – the handsome prince and his beautiful young bride. But nothing could have been further from the truth.”
Morton also recalls a chilling moment from the tapes recorded in 1991, where Diana expressed a longing to visit Paris anonymously.
He said: “One particular part of the tapes from 1991 which still gets the hairs standing up on the back of my neck was when she said she wanted to go to Paris for a weekend to walk along the pavement and not have anyone follow or recognize her.”