“I don’t sit here with resentment: I
sit here with sadness because a marriage hasn’t worked. I sit here with hope
because there’s a future ahead, a future for my husband, a future for myself
and a future for the monarchy,” Princess Diana said in her explosive 1995
interview.

Martin Bashir’s Panorama Special of November
20, 1995, which was innocently billed as an interview with Her Royal Highness
(HRH), the Princess of Wales, created all sorts of waves in the Royal
Family and its ripple effect took quite a bit of time to settle down.

In the interview, Princess Diana spoke
about the state of her marriage to Prince Charles, her fight with bulimia and
her lack of confidence that made her inflict harm upon herself. To put
matters into perspective, her interview came after David Dimbleby’s programme, where Prince Charles admitted to adultery.

In the interview, for the first time,
Princess Diana spoke about her marriage that was in shambles and that they were
separated for three years now. “There were three of us in this marriage, so it
was a bit crowded,” Diana had said. She was referring to Prince Charles’ affair
with Camilla Parker-Bowles. In the 55-minute long
interview, she admitted to having been unfaithful to Charles, as well, with cavalry officer James Hewitt.

Diana also talked about her
postnatal period after the birth of Prince William. She disclosed that she even
tried hurting herself during that span of time. When Bashir asked her about the
impact of depression on her marriage, she said: “It gave everybody a wonderful
new label – Diana’s unstable and Diana’s mentally unbalanced. And unfortunately, that seems to have stuck on and off over the years.”

Princess Diana bared her heart and
explained how media played a role on her mental health and marriage. The
fashion icon also elucidated on how she wasn’t credited for anything. “Anything
good I ever did, nobody ever said a thing, never said, ‘well done’, or `was it
OK?’ But if I tripped up, which invariably I did, because I was new at the
game, a ton of bricks came down on me,” she had said.

When the interviewer
asked what effect did the bulimia have on her, she responded: “Pretty
devastating. Rampant bulimia, if you can have rampant bulimia, and just a
feeling of being no good at anything and being useless and hopeless and failed
in every direction.”

“People were using my bulimia as a coat on a hanger: they decided that was the problem – Diana was unstable,” she had said.

Even though she had a cordial relation with her husband before things went south, she said that she had
to go through an excruciating period in her life “With a husband who loved
someone else, yes.”

When she was asked why
did she decide to give this interview now, her response was: “Because we will
have been separated three years this December, and the perception that has been
given of me for the last three years has been very confusing, turbulent, and in
some areas I’m sure many, many people doubt me.”

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Few years after this
interview, Prince Charles married Duchess Camilla in 2005. Princess Diana died two years later on August 31, 1997, after being injured in a car crash.

The interview, watched by over 22 million
viewers, not only officially paved the way for their divorce (the first in the royal family) in 1996 but is also believed to have changed the course of
royal history.

Mentionable quotes:

–“Because I do things
differently, because I don’t go by a rule book, because I lead from the heart,
not the head, and albeit that’s got me into trouble in my work, I understand
that. But someone’s got to go out there and love people and show it.”

–“So yes, I did inflict upon myself.
I didn’t like myself, I was ashamed because I couldn’t cope with the pressures.
She won’t go quietly, two children to bring up.”

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–“But then I, during the years you see yourself as a good product that sits
on a shelf and sells well, and people make a lot of money out of you.”

–“And so it was, it was isolating,
but it was also a situation where you couldn’t indulge in feeling sorry for
yourself: you had to either sink or swim. And you had to learn that very fast.”

–“I was crying out for help, but
giving the wrong signals, and people were using my bulimia as a coat on a
hanger: they decided that was the problem – Diana was unstable.”

–“Yes I was, but I wasn’t in a
position to do anything about it…Oh, a woman’s instinct is a very good one,” Princess
Diana had said about her husband’s affair.

–“At the age of 19, you always think
you’re prepared for everything, and you think you have the knowledge of what’s
coming ahead. But although I was daunted at the prospect at the time, I felt I
had the support of my husband-to-be.”

–“I want to reassure all those
people who have loved me and supported me throughout the last 15 years that I’d
never let them down.”

–“I desperately wanted it to work, I
desperately loved my husband and I wanted to share everything together, and I
thought that we were a very good team.”