Princess Diana’s Final Years Were Plagued by “Anxiety” Over This “Cold-Blooded” Betrayal
Princess Diana’s Final Years Were Plagued by “Anxiety” Over This “Cold-Blooded” Betrayal
Rachel BurchfieldSun, August 30, 2026 at 12:30 PM UTC
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Princess Diana in Angola in 1997.Credit: GettyThe Gist -
Princess Diana’s final years saw her struggle with anxiety and paranoia, leaving her unable to trust even her closest confidants because of journalist Martin Bashir’s determination to secure the late royal’s explosive tell-all BBC interview.
He presented her with fake bank statements and suggested that palace staff were spying on her.
She ultimately felt the only way to free herself was to speak out, and to do so on her own terms.
Princess Diana’s final years saw her struggle with anxiety and paranoia, leaving her unable to trust even her closest confidants. The reason? Allegedly, journalist Martin Bashir’s determination to secure what would become the late royal’s explosive tell-all BBC interview.
Per People, a 2021 independent inquiry led by senior U.K. judge Lord Dyson found that Bashir used forged documents to manipulate Diana into sitting down with him in November 1995. He presented her with fake bank statements and suggested that palace staff were spying on her and that her estranged husband, Prince Charles, wanted to cause her harm. As a result, Diana began to believe that even her private secretary, Patrick Jephson, was an “enemy within.” She ultimately felt the only way to free herself was to speak out, and to do so on her own terms with Bashir.
Princess Diana at a banquet in Auckland, New Zealand in April 1983.Credit: Getty
“She was in a state of justified anxiety,” Jephson told People. “It is not paranoia if you have reasonable grounds to believe that they are out to get you.” At the time, Jephson couldn’t understand what had changed between himself and the princess. It wasn’t until he learned of Bashir’s lies that everything began to make sense. “For 25 years, I never understood what went wrong, and whether it was my fault,” Jephson said.
Those close to Diana called Jephson “a stabilizing force—a source of calm, measured advice during some of the most turbulent periods of her life,” People reported. But Bashir, the outlet added, convinced the Princess of Wales that Jephson and other loyal figures in her life “were secretly spying on her.”
Princess Diana and Prince Charles during a Royal Tour in Canada in 1991.Credit: Getty
Diana withdrew from trusted aides, making the “momentous decision” (in People’s words) to proceed with the interview. The infamous sit-down—where she said in part that there were three people in her marriage, referring to Charles and his then-mistress Camilla Parker Bowles, and now wife Queen Camilla—ultimately led Queen Elizabeth to write to Charles and Diana one month later and request that, after three years of separation, they finally divorce.
In January 1996—just two months after the Panorama interview aired—Jephson resigned. He was later paid damages by the BBC in 2022 in a settlement, People reported. Bashir resigned from his role at BBC ahead of the investigation and faced no criminal charges. He’s defended his actions but has expressed regret over what transpired.
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“It is chilling to re-run those events and feel that Diana was seeing me as the enemy within,” Jephson said. “I had no understanding of what had changed.” It turns out that Bashir had “told her I was betraying her,” Jephson continued.
Princess Diana, Princes Charles, and Prince Harry with Prince William during his first day at Eton in 1995.Credit: Getty
“It was horrifying,” he said. “I now understand the lengths he was prepared to go to. It was chilling, creepy, and cruel.”
Jephson said Bashir had “fertile ground” for manipulation when it came to the already-vulnerable Diana. “That is what is unforgivable,” he said. “It’s inhumane, cruel, and calculated. It is chilling and cold-blooded.”
Princess Diana and Patrick Jephson on September 10, 1989Credit: Getty
Diana’s friend Rosa Monckton also spoke out, telling People that the princess was especially “frail” making her “susceptible to Bashir.” Looking back, Monckton added, “[it] does explain so much about her strange behavior. She was constantly changing her number.”
Princess Diana visiting The British American Benevolent Society During Her Official Tour Of Argentina in 1995.Credit: Getty
Jephson said that by the summer of 1997, Diana “was putting her trust in people who were not qualified to look after her.”
He added, “If I was still running her program then, and her administrative arrangements, there would have been appropriate oversight of her visit to Paris”—where she ultimately died as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
