Princess Diana Feared One Decision Caused “Harm” to Prince William and Prince Harry Just 10 Days Before Her Death

Rachel BurchfieldMon, August 31, 2026 at 3:00 PM UTC

0

Princess Diana with her sons Prince William (left) and Prince Harry on a skiing holiday in Lech, Austria, 30th March 1993.Credit: Getty ImagesThe Gist -

Princess Diana confided in her close friend Rosa Monckton while they were on holiday in Greece in August 1997.

The former Princess of Wales died in a Paris car accident that same month.

Monckton told People that on that trip, Diana expressed over a now-infamous interview due to the “harm” she felt it caused her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.

Princess Diana confided in a close friend just 10 days before her untimely death on August 31, 1997, about a heartbreaking regret she believed negatively affected her young sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, who at the time were just 15 and 12 years old, respectively.

The late Princess of Wales reportedly told her close friend Rosa Monckton that felt remorse over participating in her infamous 1995 Panorama interview—which Prince Harry has since said ultimately cost her her life. While speaking with Peoplein November 2025, Monckton said while the two friends were on what would become their final holiday together in Greece that August, Diana told her that “she regretted doing it because of the harm she thought it had done to her boys.”

Princess Diana, Prince William & Prince Harry Visit The ‘Thorpe Park’ Amusement Park.Credit: Getty Images

The interview was controversial at the time and has since been the subject of an investigation into the manipulation and deception Bashir used to obtain the interview in the first place. Diana’s candor was elevated in the interview, speaking publicly to Bashir about her struggles with eating disorders, infidelity in her marriage—on both her part andPrince Charles’s—and more. Diana spoke freely about Charles’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles—later saying she and the now-king fought on their honeymoon over a pair of cufflinks Camilla had gifted him.

The momentous impact of the interview led Queen Elizabeth to request that Charles and Diana finally divorce after being separated for nearly three years.

In 1995, Diana “was frail, and that made her susceptible to Bashir,” Monckton said, adding that Diana had “kept it all in.”

“He’d told her she couldn’t talk about it,” Monckton added. “She cut people out because of that.”

Advertisement

Princess Diana with her sons William and Harry during a holiday with the Spanish royal family at the Marivent Palace in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, August 1987.Credit: Getty Images

In the years since, the Panorama interview has been reexamined, including a 2021 inquiry by Lord Dyson that concluded that Bashir used forged documents to secure the interview, and that the BBC later tried to cover it up.

William—who had inspired his mom to take a meaningful trip to New York City only two months before she died—has said that the interview contributed to his mother’s “fear, paranoia, and isolation,” saying, “She was failed not just by a rogue reporter but by leaders at the BBC who looked the other way rather than asking tough questions.”

Princess Diana in ChicagoCredit: Getty Images

Diana died less than two years after the Panorama interview, never knowing the full extent of the deception. Royal biographer and friend of Diana’s Ingrid Seward said on Hello!’s “A Right Royal Podcast” that Diana saw a positive in doing the Panorama interview, namely the “thousands of letters about other people who suffered from anorexia and bulimia,” Seward said the former Princess of Wales told her.

Seward added, though, that Diana told her, “The only thing I felt a bit bad about was talking about James Hewitt,” whom she admitted being in love with during her marriage to Charles. “She felt bad for William and Harry saying that,” Seward said on the show.

After Harry’s own emotionally charged BBC interview in May of last year, Seward said of Diana, “I think she might have been proud.”

Prince William with Princess Diana and Prince Harry on the day he joined Eton in September 1995.Credit: Getty Images

“I think she would, I’m guessing, that she might have been quite proud of him for speaking up and saying what he thought, because that’s what she liked,” Seward said. “She liked to say exactly what she thought and then deal with the consequences afterwards, which is, of course, what happened to her.”

on InStyle

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”