Princess Diana Told Queen Elizabeth Through Tears That Her Then-Husband Prince Charles Was “A Nightmare” and That She “Hated” Him, Royal Author Claims

In a new interview discussing her book My Mother and I—about the relationship between the late Queen Elizabeth and her eldest child, King Charles—author Ingrid Seward said Her late Majesty knew Charles’ marriage to Princess Diana was headed towards its demise before they actually split. (Charles and Diana were married in 1981, separated in 1992, and ultimately divorced in 1996; Diana died 368 days after her divorce was finalized in a car accident in Paris on August 31, 1997.)

According to Seward—who is editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine—Diana used to complain to Her late Majesty about Charles and, according to Seward, “Diana used to go to her private room in between appointments that the Queen had, which were every 20 minutes, and burst into tears,” she said, per OK. “[She would say] ‘Everybody hates me, mama, and I hate my husband. He’s a nightmare.’” 

Seward added that “The Queen would just stand there [horrified], and Diana would be getting more and more hysterical,” she said. “[The Queen] didn’t know how to handle it, but she thought Charles should know how to handle it. That was a very low point in the relationship.” Seward continued that the late Queen “couldn’t understand how” Charles, who was 12 years older than his wife, “couldn’t handle” the situation.

“And [the Queen] didn’t understand, because she didn’t have the experience to understand something like that,” Seward said. “Remember the cloistered world of the royal family, especially in those days. They didn’t have to ever deal with moral conflict because there was always someone else to do it for them. If you didn’t want to talk to someone, the switchboard at Buckingham Palace would just not put them through. So, you never had to take on things. And the Queen wasn’t used to doing this.”

Seward said that, from an outsider’s perspective, it was easy to understand why Charles and Diana’s marriage failed: “Charles wasn’t a very mature man,” she said. “She [Diana] was incredibly immature. They were completely unsuited. Diana said many, many, many years later to me, ‘If only we’d met at a different time in our lives.’ Diana was 19 when she met Charles, and she was a very naive 19. She had a fixed idea in her mind of what she thought Charles was, and he wasn’t at all.”