It turns out the royal fairytale wasn’t so magical after all. Behind the grand palaces, glittering tiaras, and picture-perfect smiles, Princess Diana was enduring a heartbreak she couldn’t hide — one that reached all the way into her marriage bed. In private tapes recorded more than 30 years ago, the late Princess of Wales described her intimate life with then-Prince Charles as “very odd.” The recordings, made during sessions with her voice coach at Kensington Palace between 1992 and 1993, captured Diana’s most vulnerable and unfiltered moments as her marriage unraveled.
The tapes were never meant for public ears, but a U.S. documentary that aired more than two decades ago gave viewers a raw, painful glimpse into Diana’s truth — a story far from the fairy tale the world had been sold.
Diana revealed that she and Charles were intimate only once every three weeks, and that his meetings with Camilla Parker Bowles, his longtime mistress, seemed to happen just as often. The princess also said their physical relationship came to a screeching halt after Prince Harry’s birth in 1984. According to Diana, Charles once coldly told her, “Well, I refuse to be the only Prince of Wales who never had a mistress.” Her words painted a heartbreaking picture of a woman struggling to hold her marriage together while her husband’s heart clearly belonged elsewhere.
Diana also revealed just how little she and Charles knew each other before their grand royal wedding in 1981. “We had only met 13 times prior to getting married,” she admitted — a stunning confession for a couple watched by millions on their big day. And then came the moment that shattered her world — when Charles was asked by an ITN reporter if they were in love following their engagement announcement. His response? “Whatever in love means.”
Diana recalled, “That threw me completely … Oh God. Absolutely traumatized me.” The tapes — later sold to NBC by Peter Settelen, Diana’s former voice coach — became a window into the loneliness and despair that haunted her behind closed doors. Settelen eventually won a legal battle with Diana’s family to keep them but claimed 12 tapes were missing, leaving the world wondering what other secrets they might hold.
The revelations show a side of Diana the public never truly saw: a young woman, just 20 when she married a future king, desperate for affection but met instead with rejection and betrayal. While the world adored her as the People’s Princess, behind palace walls she was a woman broken by love — yet brave enough to finally speak her truth.
