An Interview with HRH The Princess of Wales
"An Interview with HRH The Princess of Wales" is an episode of the BBC documentary series Panorama which was broadcast on BBC1 on 20 November 1995. The 54-minute programme saw Diana, Princess of Wales, interviewed by journalist Martin Bashir about her relationship with her husband, Charles, Prince of Wales, and the reasons for their subsequent separation. The programme was watched by nearly 23 million viewers in the UK. The worldwide audience was estimated at 200 million across 100 countries. In the UK, the National Grid reported a 1,000 MW surge in demand for power after the programme. At the time, the BBC hailed the interview as the scoop of a generation.
In 2020, the Director-General of the BBC Tim Davie apologised to the princess's brother Lord Spencer because Bashir had used forged bank statements to win his and Diana's trust to secure the interview. Former Justice of the Supreme Court Lord John Dyson conducted an independent inquiry into the issue. Dyson's inquiry found Bashir guilty of deceit and of breaching BBC editorial conduct to obtain the interview. A year after the inquiry's conclusion, Tim Davie announced that the BBC would never air the interview again and would not license it to other broadcasters.
Background
's interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, was conducted in Diana's sitting room at Kensington Palace on 5 November 1995; the room later became the playden for Princes William and Harry. The camera and recording equipment had been brought into the palace under the pretence of installing a new hi-fi system. In addition to Bashir, Panorama producer Mike Robinson and a cameraman, Tony Poole, were also present. To ensure the secrecy of the interview, the final transmission tape was kept under constant surveillance and security guards were present during its editing. In the week following the recording of the interview, the BBC's controller of editorial policy, Richard Ayre; the head of weekly television current affairs programmes, Tim Gardam; and Panorama editor Steve Hewlett watched the interview at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne.The Board of Governors of the BBC were deliberately kept unaware of the interview by Panorama executives and by the Director-General of the BBC, John Birt. The chairman of the board of governors, Marmaduke Hussey, was married to Lady Susan Hussey, a confidant of Queen Elizabeth II and a woman of the bedchamber. It was feared that the interview might have been discredited ahead of broadcast or possibly never shown if Hussey had been aware. The official royal liaison person between the BBC and the British royal family, Jim Moir, was also kept unaware. The film director David Puttnam had advised Diana against the interview and subsequently said that he would "never forgive John Birt for not explaining to Diana the implications of what she was doing and for not alerting Hussey".
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother brought forward the date of an operation on her hip to the week of the broadcast of the interview with the expectation that should she dieshe was aged 95Diana's interview would receive substantially less coverage in the media. Ironically, some derogatory comments about the Queen Mother from the Princess were removed from the final cut.
Content
Diana spoke of her early expectations of her marriage to Prince Charles and how she "desperately wanted it to work" in light of her own parents' divorce. The constant presence of the media and their focus on her led her to perceive herself as a "good product that sits on the shelf...and people make a lot of money out of you". The effect of the initial trip to Australia and New Zealand in 1983 was that she returned as "...a different person, I realised the sense of duty...and the demanding role I now found myself in". She was uncomfortable with being the centre of attention over her husband and had found an affinity with people who'd been "rejected by society".Diana said that she had felt enormous relief at her pregnancy with William but that she subsequently suffered from post natal depression, which led her to be labelled by others as unstable and mentally unbalanced. She thus began self harming and became bulimic, both of which intensified following Charles's resumption of his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. She famously noted, in reference to her husband's relationship with Parker Bowles, that "there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded". Diana felt that she had been compelled to perform her role as Princess of Wales and that her behaviour had led friends of Charles to indicate "that I was again unstable and sick and should be put in a home of some sort... I was almost an embarrassment".
Diana claimed that she never met Andrew Morton but that she allowed her friends to speak to him. His subsequent book, Diana: Her True Story would lead to Diana and Charles agreeing to a legal separation. Diana confirmed the accuracy of the Squidgygate tapes of a telephone conversation she had with James Gilbey; however, she denied the charges of having an affair with him and harassing Oliver Hoare. Diana said that she was in a unique position as the separated wife of the Prince of Wales, and that she would "fight to the end, because I have a role to fulfill and I've got two children to bring up". She confirmed her extramarital affair with James Hewitt and was hurt at his cooperation for a book about their relationship. Diana spoke of her difficulty at coping with constant media attention, which she labelled "abusive and... harassment".
Diana spoke of her wish to be an ambassador for the United Kingdom. On the future of the monarchy she said that, "I do think that there are a few things that could change, that would alleviate this doubt, and sometimes complicated relationship between monarchy and public. I think they could walk hand in hand, as opposed to be so distant". She mentioned showing William and Harry homelessness projects and meeting people dying of AIDS. Diana said it was not her wish to divorce but did not think she would ever be queen, or that many people wanted her as queen; however, she wished to be a "queen of people's hearts, in people's hearts".
Diana felt that the royal household saw her as a "threat of some kind" but that "every strong woman in history has had to walk down a similar path, and I think it's the strength that causes the confusion and the fear". When asked if the Prince of Wales would ever be king, Diana said, "I don't think any of us know the answer to that. And obviously it's a question that's in everybody's head. But who knows, who knows what fate will produce, who knows what circumstances will provoke?" and that, "There was always conflict on that subject with him when we discussed it, and I understood that conflict, because it's a very demanding role, being Prince of Wales, but it's an equally more demanding role being King".
Aftermath
Birt subsequently wrote in his memoirs that, "In effect the Diana interview marked the end of the BBC's institutional reverence—though not its respect—for the monarchy." Birt had previously liased with Lord Robert Fellowes and Robin Janvrin while negotiating the BBC's access to the British royal family and wrote that he "had been sorry to hurt such good people". The BBC soon lost its sole production of the Queen's Royal Christmas Message in the wake of the interview, though Buckingham Palace denied that it was the reason, saying the new arrangements "reflect the composition of the television and radio industries today."Prince William was reported to have been "overcome with a feeling of dread" when he saw the interview, while Prince Harry initially refused to watch it and later blamed Bashir for asking personal invasive questions and not his mother for answering them. In Simon Heffer's opinion, by going public about her marital issues, Diana's only purpose was "to manipulate public opinion ruthlessly, and to cause whatever damage she could to her husband and his family." Tina Brown held a similar view and argued that Diana's "purpose was to frame herself to the British public as a betrayed woman before the increasingly inevitable divorce from Charles". The interview proved to be the tipping point. On 20 December, Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen had sent letters to Charles and Diana, advising them to divorce.
Sarah Bradford believed Diana was a "victim of her own poor judgment" as she lost social privilege by doing the Panorama interview. However, according to former BBC Royal Correspondent Jennie Bond, Diana told Bond in late 1996 that she did not regret the interview. She is reported to have said: "Suddenly it seemed right, particularly with a divorce on the horizon. I thought that would mean a gagging clause. And I felt it was then or never."
2020 investigation
Allegations and concerns
In November 2020, interest was renewed in the circumstances of the interview on its 25th anniversary, with documentaries being broadcast by all of the UK's non-BBC terrestrial channels, comprising ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5.Following these documentaries, BBC Director-General Tim Davie apologised to the princess's brother, Earl Spencer, for the use of forged bank statements falsely indicating people close to her had been paid for spying. The people named in the fabricated bank statements included Alan Waller, an employee of Lord Spencer; Patrick Jephson, Diana's former private secretary; and Richard Aylard, Prince Charles's former private secretary. The falsified documents had been created by one of the BBC's freelance graphic designers, Matt Wiessler. An internal investigation in 1996 concluded that the documents were not used to secure the interview and cleared Bashir of any wrongdoing. The inquiry, following a Mail on Sunday account of the falsified documents, was headed by Tony Hall, who later became BBC director-general, to be succeeded by Davie in 2020. Hall acknowledged having never interviewed Wiessler for the 1996 inquiry. Wiessler's house had been robbed a month after the interview aired and two CDs containing the graphics he had created for Bashir were stolen. Wiessler said in 2020 that work dried up for him after the 1996 inquiry cleared Bashir, and said he had been made the scapegoat. Similarly, former BBC producer Mark Killick was removed from Panorama after voicing his concerns about the falsified documents.
Lord Spencer, also not interviewed in the 1996 investigation, rejected the apology and demanded an inquiry. Spencer told Davie that his records of contacts with Bashir implied the journalist lied to the princess to gain her trust. Spencer claimed that he would not have introduced Bashir to his sister without the falsified documents and charged that Bashir had made false and defamatory claims about senior members of the royal family. Davie announced on 9 November that the BBC was in the process of commissioning an independent inquiry. Michael Grade, a former chairman of the corporation, said that the allegations left "a very dark cloud hanging over BBC journalism".
At the time of the revelations about his interview with the princess, Bashir, who had been rehired by the BBC in 2016 as its religion and ethics correspondent, was seriously ill from the aftereffects of COVID-19 and was recuperating after undergoing quadruple heart bypass surgery. The BBC said Bashir's ill health had impaired its ability to investigate the controversy any further until his recovery. The Daily Mirror published a photo of Bashir taken on 6 November with the headline: "Martin Bashir visits takeaway after BBC says he's 'too ill' to respond to Princess Diana claims". The Daily Telegraph later reported on a series of emails exchanged between Bashir and the BBC's senior managers during his illness which saw him engage in detailed discussions about the scandal despite the BBC's statement that he was unable to respond to any questions publicly.
On 13 November 2020, it was reported that the BBC had found the note from Diana which cleared Bashir of pressuring her to give the interview. Bond wrote in The Sunday Times that the princess told her in a private meeting in 1996 that she did not regret the broadcast. Diana said she had feared a gagging order in her imminent divorce settlement, meaning it might have been her only chance to give an interview. Nevertheless, Rosa Monckton, who was a friend of the Princess of Wales, noticed a change in her behaviour after she became acquainted with Bashir as her focus shifted from "day-to-day matters, just like any normal friend, to suddenly becoming obsessed with plots against her."