Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words

This 25th-anniversary edition of Andrew Morton's biography is constructed from secret tape-recorded interviews Diana gave in 1991 and 1992, supplemented by testimony from family and friends. The book functions as an unauthorized autobiography, combining edited transcripts of Diana's own words with Morton's biographical narrative and an account of events from the book's 1992 publication through Diana's death in 1997.

Morton, a royal reporter for nearly a decade, explains in the Foreword that his intermediary was Dr. James Colthurst, a physician and former Eton College student who knew Diana before her marriage. Colthurst bicycled to Kensington Palace with Morton's questions and returned with Diana's recorded answers across six sessions in 1991. Diana approved the final manuscript. Morton notes that she withheld information about her own infidelities, including her affair with army officer James Hewitt, her relationship with close friend James Gilbey, and her infatuation with married art dealer Oliver Hoare.

Diana was born on 1 July 1961, the third daughter of Viscount and Viscountess Althorp, British aristocrats. The family's disappointment at not having a male heir was compounded by the earlier death of the couple's infant son. Diana grew up at Park House in Norfolk, near the royal estate of Sandringham. Her parents' marriage collapsed when she was six, and the bitter custody battle left lasting scars: Diana recalled hearing her brother Charles sobbing at night for their mother. Her maternal grandmother, Ruth Lady Fermoy, a lady-in-waiting, or personal attendant, to the Queen Mother, testified against her own daughter in court, a betrayal never forgiven.

Diana attended boarding schools where she struggled academically, failing all five of her O-level examinations, the standard British secondary-school qualifications, but excelled at swimming, diving, and community work. After a brief, unhappy stay at a Swiss finishing school, she returned to London, shared a flat at Coleherne Court with friends, and worked at a kindergarten.

She first met Prince Charles in November 1977 when she was 16 and he was dating her elder sister Sarah. The pivotal encounter came in July 1980 at a barbecue, where Diana told Charles how sad he had looked at the funeral of Lord Mountbatten, Charles's beloved great-uncle and mentor. A rapid courtship followed, and Charles proposed at Windsor Castle on 6 February 1981. When Diana told him she loved him, he replied, "Whatever love means."

During the engagement Diana moved into Buckingham Palace and found it isolating. Her weight dropped sharply as bulimia took hold. She discovered a bracelet Charles had made for Camilla Parker Bowles, the wife of his friend Andrew Parker Bowles, engraved with their pet names "Gladys" and "Fred." Charles delivered the bracelet to Camilla two days before the wedding despite Diana's protests. Diana told her sisters she could not go through with the marriage; they replied that her face was already on the tea towels.

The wedding took place on 29 July 1981 before 750 million television viewers. Diana walked up the aisle scanning for Camilla and spotted her in a pale grey hat. The honeymoon proved grim: Charles read Laurens van der Post novels, photographs of Camilla fell from his diary, and Diana's bulimia escalated. At Balmoral afterward, she attempted to cut her wrists. Diana made several further suicide attempts, describing them as cries for help. At Sandringham, three months pregnant with Prince William, she threw herself down a staircase after Charles dismissed her distress. The Queen witnessed the fall and was visibly shaken; Charles went riding.

Prince William was born on 21 June 1982, and Diana insisted her children would experience the real world rather than follow traditional royal education. Prince Harry arrived on 15 September 1984. Charles's first words were, "Oh God, it's a boy, and he's even got red hair." Diana told friends that something inside her died at that moment, marking the effective end of emotional connection in the marriage.

Diana's public popularity soared after a triumphant 1983 tour of Australia, but privately she felt unsupported. The arrival of Sarah Ferguson as Duchess of York in 1986 highlighted Diana's isolation; Charles unfavorably compared the two women. A turning point came during a 1988 ski holiday at Klosters, Switzerland, when an avalanche killed Major Hugh Lindsay, a former equerry, or senior aide, to the Queen. Diana took charge of the crisis, overruling Charles's wish to continue the holiday. Her friend Carolyn Bartholomew pushed her to seek treatment for bulimia; psychiatrist Dr. Maurice Lipsedge told Diana the problem lay with her husband, and within six months her condition improved markedly.

Diana confronted Camilla directly at a party, telling her, "I know exactly what is going on between you and Charles." Though jealousy remained, it no longer consumed her. She also spent months secretly caring for a friend dying of AIDS-related illness, an experience that redirected her public work toward the marginalized and the sick.

The Sunday Times began serializing Morton's book on 7 June 1992. The revelations about bulimia, suicide attempts, and Charles's relationship with Camilla shocked the nation, and Charles and Diana agreed to separate; the formal announcement came on 9 December 1992. In June 1994, Charles admitted his adultery with Camilla in a television documentary. In November 1995, Diana recorded a secret Panorama interview for the BBC, discussing her marriage and Charles's relationship with Camilla: "There were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded." She also acknowledged her own affair with Hewitt. The Queen wrote to both Charles and Diana requesting they divorce, and the decree absolute, the final legal order dissolving the marriage, was issued on 28 August 1996. Diana received an estimated £17 million but was stripped of the style "Her Royal Highness."

Diana reduced her charities from over a hundred to six, focusing on leprosy, homelessness, AIDS, cancer, children's health, and ballet. Prime Minister Tony Blair encouraged her ambitions as a humanitarian ambassador, and her January 1997 visit to Angola with the British Red Cross, in which she walked through a minefield, produced one of the most iconic images of her career. In the summer of 1997 she began a relationship with Dodi Fayed, a film producer and eldest son of Mohamed al-Fayed. She told friends she had never been so happy.

On 31 August 1997, the couple's driver, Henri Paul, the Ritz hotel's deputy head of security, crashed their car into a concrete pillar in the Place de l'Alma underpass in Paris. Paul, who was three times over the legal alcohol limit, was driving at reckless speed. Dodi and Paul were killed instantly; Diana was fatally injured and died at La Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital at 4 am. Both French and British investigations concluded the crash was a tragic accident, though conspiracy theories persisted.

An unprecedented week of public mourning followed. The royal family's decision to remain at Balmoral and their failure to fly the flag at half mast over Buckingham Palace provoked widespread anger. Prime Minister Blair captured the national mood, calling Diana "the People's Princess." At the funeral on 6 September, Diana's brother Earl Spencer delivered a eulogy praising her compassion and implicitly rebuking the royal family. Diana was laid to rest on an island on the Althorp estate.

Morton's Afterword traces Diana's legacy through her sons. Prince William's engagement to Catherine Middleton in 2010, sealed with Diana's sapphire-and-diamond ring, signaled Diana's enduring place in the monarchy. Both princes continue their mother's humanitarian work, and together with Catherine they founded the Heads Together charity to address mental health stigma. Morton concludes that Diana broadened the monarchy's reach and that her legacy will endure through her sons.