In 2021, following an inquiry by Lord Dyson into the Panorama interview and Martin Bashir, Prince William issued a dynamic statement in which he stated: “The Panorama interview fuelled my mother’s ‘paranoia’ and ‘worsened my parents’ relationship”.
Last Week, Harry took exception to the word “paranoia” used to describe her mental state at that time.
Well, who knew Diana’s state of mind better: William or Harry? It is well documented that Beyond being a mother to William, Diana emotionally relied on him and involved him, at a very young age in adult matters.
Often referred to as “my little wise old man” and “the man of my life”, the duo had an unusual bond. One of the People who had a first-hand experience of the mother-and-son dynamic was Piers Morgan.
Piers met Diana for the first time in 1994 and wrote in an article in the Sun dated last February 2024: “Princess Diana, had invited me to a private lunch, I was editor of the Daily Mirror at the time, and at the last minute, she asked if I minded her elder son joining us.”
“I had the extraordinary experience of having lunch with Princess Diana and the young Prince William at KP. I was impressed by William’s maturity, even at 13. He was charming, very polite, and had impeccable manners.” “But it was clear that William knew most of Diana’s world. Although he was only a teenager at the time, William became his mother’s closest confidant.”
He adds that “they also met on other occasions, with William at his mother’s side,” and adds, in another article published in the NY Post in November 2023, “In the last 18 months of Diana’s life, we established a surprisingly friendly relationship and I saw with my own eyes what a charming, magical, mercurial and sometimes crazy personality she was.”
Indeed, Diana involved William in many decisions and even integrated him into her private life, which she revealed in 1995 in a wide-ranging interview in front of 23 million Britons and 200 million people worldwide, much to William’s frustration. William, 13, had just begun at Eton and watched it that Monday from the house master Andrew Gailey’s office.
In Panorama, Diana revealed a private conversation that happened in 1992 when William was merely 10 years old and his parents officially separated. “I went to school and told William privately that when you find someone you love in life, you should embrace them and take care of them,” she said. William asked me what happened and if I could answer his questions, which I did. I told him that the three of us were in the marriage and that media pressure was another factor that made it very difficult to live as a couple.
She further revealed another private moment. In 1994, Anna Pasternak’s Princess in Love, a purported tell-all about Diana’s affair with James Hewitt, hit shelves, an affair she confirmed in Panorama. Diana was distressed and she said to Bashir: “The first thing I did was go downstairs to talk to my children. William took out a box of chocolates and said, ‘Mom, I think you’re hurt. This is to make you smile”.
The day after the interview, Diana telephoned Eton to speak with William, but he declined. It was Mr. Gailey who spoke to her and reported, When the program ended, he found William slumped on the sofa, his eyes red with tears. But when he realized he had an audience, he immediately composed himself and ran to his room.
Prince William has described himself as “having developed a higher sense of self-preservation”. Indeed even at that young age, William already learned a hard lesson of survival in the Royal spotlight: “One always smiles in public and cries in private”
To Prince William, the 1995 Panorama interview left a sour aftertaste of painful memories.
Simone Simmons, Diana’s longtime friend spoke to Diana at length the weekend after William confronted her about the interview.
Sitting with Vanity Fair, Simone recounted: “William was livid at his mother. He only learned about the interview from his mother after it had already been taped”
“I was very sorry for what I had experienced, but I was angry with her. She was being scolded at school. The weekend after the news was announced there was a big row at Kensington Palace and Diana was in a very bad way.”
Diana also told Simone that she had never seen her son in that state: “She had never seen her son so hurt and that William had apologized to her the next morning for being angry with her and had given her a small bouquet,” but Diana told Simmons that she had “sensed in his sad blue eyes that deep and irreparable damage had been done.”
On top of their row, HMTQ formally demanded that Charles and Diana divorce. So yes, that interview brought painful memories to him that Harry cannot fathom because the relationships were different: Diana treated Harry like a son and babied him; but William was parentified and felt the need to save her, most time, from herself.
1996 Further brought another drama between Mother and Son. In 1996, the press published photos of Diana sunbathing topless in Spain. William, now 14, was being teased once again by Eton boys, this time about his mother’s breast size.
The following event was published in the memoirs of Nicholas Coleridge, the publisher of Vogue and Tatler magazines. He was a friend of Princess Diana’s and worked with her on numerous occasions.
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In his book, he revealed the conversation that took place in 1994, the day after the topless pictures on a balcony in Spain were published. He wrote that Diana came for lunch in his office and said: “Nicholas, can I ask you something? Please be truthful.
Did you see the photograph of me in the Daily Mirror? The topless one?’. Diana continued: “William was so upset. He said some of the boys were teasing him saying my t**s are too small.” “Are my breasts too small, do you think?”
Nicholas said she was “as red as a guard’s tunic” before saying her breasts were perfect. Both events in 1995 and 1996 clearly outline the unusual dynamic between Mother and Son, where William is almost like the Parent figure, and Diana is the naive teenager who keeps embroiling herself in trouble.
You can see further evidence of William’s impact and influence on his mother in 1997, the last year of her life. In 1997, Tina Brown reported that Before agreeing to the Divorce, Diana took William through the Divorce Terms. It was there that he told her to not be afraid if she lost her HRH status because he would give it back to her once he was King. Furthermore, in 1997, Princess Diana sold 79 of her dresses at Christie’s Auction raising £2 million for cancer and AIDS research.
She then credited William for suggesting the idea to her. It became one of the last big charity auctions before her untimely death two months later. On August 21, 1997, she was last seen having her regular mother-and-daughter lunch with Prince William shortly before her death 10 days later on August 31, 1997.
In 1997, Shortly after her death President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke in a now declassified conversation posted by Raf Sanchez of the NBC in 2016 on X. PM Blair mentioned How “he last saw her just a few weeks ago when he hosted her for lunch with Prince William” whom he described as “having his feet on the ground.”
So time and time again on record, Diana included William in every aspect of her life and relied on his opinion. So truly who better than him knew her mental state after Panorama?
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