When Princess Diana and Prince Charles wed in a ceremony shown around the world in July 1981, it followed a relatively short engagement period of only five months, according to reports from The Sun . It has now been revealed that during Diana and Charles’ entire courting and engagement process, the pair only managed to meet with each other a total of 12 times before the wedding.
Susan Zirinsky, the senior executive producer of Princess Diana: Her Life, Her Death, Her Truth, a documentary about the Princess of Wales, explained the circumstances for the lack of interaction as well as her own shock at the revelation.
“The thing that surprised me most is they had only been out 12 times before they got married,” said Zirinsky. “They had only been together 12 times and at one point Prince Philip pressured his son and said, ‘you have to do the right thing.’”
The documentary was shown last year as part of the 20th memorial of Diana’s tragic death in August 1997. The in-depth documentary gave a view into a life that was known by very few, with interviews from some of Diana’s closest associates. That includes her friend Lana Marks, who revealed that Diana truly did love Charles, as the princess told her, “I really have only loved one man, and that’s Charles,” shortly before her death.
The shocking number of times Princess Diana met Charles before they married https://t.co/Unx5U7xfxk pic.twitter.com/obiX2FALU4
— The Sun (@TheSun) October 4, 2018
The documentary also covered the devastating period before Charles and Diana split up, which includes the birth of Prince Harry, according to reports from The Sun . Allegedly Charles was disappointed with the birth of Harry because he wanted a girl, creating a wedge in a strained relationship that Diana described as going “down the drain.”
Royal biographer Andrew Morton said that the first thing that Charles said when Harry was born was, “Oh God, it’s a boy,” in a sarcastic tone. Diana had known well before Harry’s birth that he would be a boy but deliberately hid it from Charles because she knew how desperately he wanted a girl.
“I knew Harry was going to be a boy because I saw on the scan. Charles always wanted a girl,” said Diana, according to the report. “He wanted two children and he wanted a girl. I knew Harry was a boy and I didn’t tell him.”
When he realized that he had upset Diana and her family with his comments, Charles attempted to walk them back by saying he was “joking.”
