The tragic if true story was relayed to Paul Burrell, the Princess’s former butler and close friend, who has today gone public with what she told him for the first time
Diana’s close friend and “rock” made the claim about the hours after Harry was born(Image: Getty Images)
Princess Diana was allegedly left in tears in her hospital bed after King Charles III said he was “returning to Camilla” just hours after Prince Harry was born. The then Prince of Wales was apparently visiting his newborn son for the first time, when he turned to Diana and said the words which she later claimed were the beginning of the end of their marriage.
The story was relayed to Paul Burrell, the princess’ former butler and close friend, who has today gone public with what she told him for the first time. “[Diana told me] Charles came into the hospital, looked in the cot and said ‘Oh, red hair’,” recalls Burrell, in his new book The Royal Insider, reports the Mirror.
“Diana replied, ‘But, Charles, you know that’s the Spencer gene. We’ve all got red hair’.” Paul adds: “Then [according to Diana] came the damning blow. He said, ‘Well at least I’ve got my heir and spare now and…. I can return to Camilla’.”
Prince Harry met King Charles for first time in over a year yesterday(Image: Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images)
While aware of her husband’s affection for the then-married Camilla Parker-Bowles, according to Burrell, Diana was shocked that Charles would say such a thing as she lay in hospital having just given birth to their son.
It is hard to know for sure what was said in that hospital room, but Burrell, who Diana described as her “rock”, recalls just how scarred the princess was by what happened that day in 1984.
“Diana told me: ‘I cried myself to sleep that night knowing my marriage was over’,” says the butler-turned-author. “She said: ‘Four years, Paul, I gave him four good years and he was gone. For the rest of the time I had to pretend and put on a facade to the world’.”
Diana had known about her husband’s affection for Camilla for some time(Image: Getty Images)
Diana was only 23 when she gave birth to Prince Harry. She had married four years earlier and welcomed Prince William two years before.
Charles, then 36, reportedly made it clear, according to Burrell, that the marriage was effectively over once he had fulfilled what he saw as his duty to produce an heir.
Paul, 67, today reveals he reluctantly shared Diana’s story with with Princes William and Harry, after they allegedly asked for a secret meeting in Kensington Palace in 2017.
Paul claimed the boys wanted to hear his stories about their mother on what was the 20th anniversary of her fatal car crash in Paris. But then, he says, they asked him why he thought things had gone wrong between their parents. From what Diana had allegedly told him, it was that moment in the hospital which had changed everything.
“Harry stared straight at me poker faced,” Burrell writes in his book.
The comments in the hospital room scarred Diana for many years(Image: Getty Images)
“He couldn’t believe what I was telling him. I said to him ‘Harry it’s the truth. I wouldn’t tell you that unless it was exactly what your mother told me’. This happened just before Harry became engaged to Meghan. I think that powered him, and put fuel in his tanks to go forward with everything he felt. [And it’s] probably why he called his book Spare.”
This news comes after a 55-minute reunion meeting between Prince Harry and King Charles yesterday. It was the first time the pair had met in over a year and has opened up fresh speculation about the future of their relationship.