(“She was suffering dreadfully from morning sickness, she was haunted by Camilla Parker Bowles, and she was desperately trying to accommodate herself to her new position and new family,” Morton wrote. She admitted to multiple suicide attempts. So Colthurst agreed to interview Diana with questions written by Morton, record her answers via tape, and then deliver them back to the author.ĭiana left no question unanswered. Kensington Palace and Prince Charles would no doubt discover, and attempt to squash, the project quickly. Morton was a known and – at six feet four with glasses – a conspicuous reporter. Since Colthurst is a frequent visitor to Kensington Palace, no one suspects a thing.Ī major problem? How to conduct the interviews. She records her answers on tape, and Colthurst returns them to Morton. Morton provides him with questions, which he, in turn, passes on to the princess. Secretly, Colthurst agrees to be an intermediary between the two. “But I don’t want to be responsible for starting a war.” “I’d love to have a book out there so everyone understands how difficult it’s been,” Debicki’s Diana says to her friend James Colthurst when he tells the princess that a journalist named Andrew Morton is writing a book. Leaving Charles means potentially sacrificing not only her role as an altruistic public servant but her sons: As heirs to the throne, they’d have to remain behind in England if Diana were to move anywhere else. The press follows her every move – so much so that Diana even fears that her home at Kensington Palace might be bugged. (A note for the reader: spoilers are to follow.) She’s miserable in her marriage to Prince Charles, who is in love with Camilla Parker Bowles.

In The Crown season five, the second episode finds Elizabeth Debicki’s Princess Diana in a dilemma.

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