Prince William has endured the private agony of knowing how deeply his mother was betrayed — and now he’s determined to find the truth.
“I’ve been discreet because I’ve gone as far as I was advised to go,” Andy Webb, author of “Dianarama,” told Fox News Digital. “I describe William as having a wound that will not heal. It’s been made clear to me that he needs to know what happened. I think the impact on William must have been absolutely traumatic. He’s decided that the time has come. He needs to know. He really wants to know what went down 30 years ago.”
In November 1995, Princess Diana secretly gave an explosive interview to journalist Martin Bashir for the BBC investigative program “Panorama.” The then-34-year-old, who was already separated from her husband, Prince Charles, detailed how her marriage had failed because the future king, then 47, was still in love with his mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles.
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Diana’s many revelations, including her battle with bulimia and how she deliberately hurt herself in a desperate bid for help, shocked millions. The princess never realized she had been manipulated into speaking out — a decision her loved ones believe led to her death.
Webb, an investigative journalist, has spent 20 years uncovering what he described as the network’s cover-up. It was later revealed that Bashir used false documents and other dishonest tactics to persuade Diana to agree to the interview.
Speaking to Diana’s brother Earl Charles Spencer — himself deceived by Bashir’s tactics — Webb revealed that the journalist had presented forged bank statements, claimed William’s watch was a listening device, alleged palace staff were monitoring Diana, and even suggested Charles wanted her killed to marry the boys’ nanny and take her children away.
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Bashir even produced a forged document that suggested the nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, had undergone an abortion paid for by Charles.
Fox News Digital reached out to Bashir for comment about Webb’s book. The 62-year-old, who resigned from the BBC in 2021 citing health reasons, said he deeply regretted falsifying the bank statements, calling it a “stupid thing to do.” He added that he felt it had “no bearing whatsoever on Princess Diana’s personal choice to take part in the interview.”
Webb said the consequences of Bashir’s deceit were catastrophic. Consumed by isolation and mistrust, Diana began purging her inner circle, letting go of trusted aides — including her longtime chauffeur — after Bashir reportedly convinced her that even he was an informant.
“Diana had been schooled to believe that the people around her, the people closest to her, couldn’t be trusted, that they were actually taking very large sums of money, £40,000 in one case, to spy on Diana,” Webb explained.
“She could no longer trust these people. All the people whom she’d relied upon in her life up to that point, she got rid of. So, 18 months later, there is a different set of people. It turns out they were not the people you want to have in charge of your security.”
“The most heartbreaking thing is the very strong suggestion that if executives at the time had briefed Princess Diana on the fraudulent activity — the forgeries and lies she had been told — her life could have gone in a different direction,” Webb noted.
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The fallout from the interview was swift and devastating. Queen Elizabeth II instructed Charles and Diana to proceed with a formal divorce. In its wake, Diana was stripped of many royal privileges and grew distrustful of those closest to her, including her private secretary, Patrick Jephson. Just two years later, tragedy struck when the princess was killed in a Paris car crash while being relentlessly pursued by paparazzi.
“They said Diana was paranoid,” said Webb. “And I always think to myself, ‘That’s really unkind,’ because you have to remember, this was the BBC telling her they had firm information and documents proving people were out to get her. That’s what Diana was acting on.
“At that point in her life, she knew her phone had been tapped, private calls had been recorded and even broadcast publicly. It was very embarrassing for her. She also worried whether a former friend she’d had a relationship with, who died in a motorbike accident, might have been targeted. She asked herself, ‘Is that a coincidence?’”
“That was the material Martin Bashir knew he was working with — that Diana was already deeply suspicious of being under surveillance,” Webb said. “He knew she was concerned about the death of this particular man. Then he came along with his documents, and he was very convincing.”
The interview and its aftermath remain a sorrow that has weighed on William for decades.
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“I think it’s hard for William to realize that things might have been different,” said Webb. “If only Diana had been told what really happened — what Martin Bashir had done. It’s difficult to live with that knowledge.”
In 2020, The Sunday Times published new evidence showing that Bashir used deceitful tactics to reach Diana through her brother. It prompted the BBC to launch an independent inquiry led by senior judge Lord Dyson.
The 2021 report concluded that Bashir breached BBC rules by fabricating fake bank statements and showing them to the earl to gain access to the princess. Believing there were forces within the palace that wanted to silence her, Diana agreed to tell her side of the story — unaware Bashir was exploiting her fears.
The report also criticized the BBC for covering up what it knew about Bashir’s actions, noting that the corporation’s internal probe fell short of its usual standards of integrity and transparency.
“The interview was a major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse and has since hurt countless others,” William said in a statement. “It brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.”
William’s younger brother, Prince Harry, said in his own statement that the issue was bigger than just the BBC — and that “the ripple effect of a culture of exploitation and unethical practices ultimately took her life.”
“To those who have taken some form of accountability, thank you for owning it. That is the first step toward justice and truth,” he wrote. “Yet what deeply concerns me is that practices like these — and even worse — are still widespread today.”
William was 13 when his mother spoke out. Harry was 11.
“What teenager wants to watch TV and see his mother there being asked questions about, ‘Did you have sex with this boyfriend?’” said Webb.
“In the interview, Diana is encouraged to effectively trash William’s father when she’s asked, ‘Do you think he should be king?’ And she says, ‘No, I don’t think he’s got it in him.’ So William, at the age of 13, is sitting there watching this. What do his school friends think the next morning? You don’t have to be a prince to be horribly embarrassed by that.”
BBC Chairman Richard Sharp said the corporation accepted the investigation’s findings, adding that “there were unacceptable failures.” The broadcaster also wrote to the royal family to apologize.
“William does not want this interview to be shown again,” said Webb. “He calls it illegitimate. What’s particularly sad is that, yes, some parts were valuable — but in reality, Diana gave that interview in a state of terror and fear.”
