As we now know, King Charles III is in the early stages of a fight against cancer, but unfortunately, he’s also going to be dealing with a new press headache in the next coming weeks. Terrible timing!
Days before Buckingham Palace announced the monarch’s health condition, DailyMail.com released an excerpt of an upcoming book all about Charles’ relationship with his late mom Queen Elizabeth II. But it also promises to spill a ton of tea about some other women in his life, including Princess Diana! On Saturday, an excerpt of Ingrid Seward‘s book My Mother And I revealed that Diana had serious reservations about marrying the former prince — and almost called off the wedding!
Related: Harry & Meghan Leaving Royal Family Brought Charles & Elizabeth ‘Closer’!
In the sneak peek, the royal biographer reveals that William and Harry‘s mother wanted to call off the engagement just a month before she was set to tie the knot to the now-King. The big revelation came at Prince Andrew‘s 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle, where Elton John was performing. Diana was eager to dance with her future hubby, who’d been away for several days, but he wasn’t paying her any attention!! The book notes:
“[Charles] spent the entire evening dutifully working the room and making sure he spoke with as many people as possible. Diana was in despair. Her fiance had been away in America for most of the previous week, yet he clearly had no desire to dance with her. Feeling emotionally drained, she threw herself into dancing frantically with one man after another — and finally just dancing by herself.”
Oof!
As the night turned to day, a footman named Mark Simpson “happened to glance out of a window and see Diana in the castle quadrangle.” She looked “exhausted and lost in her thoughts yet [was] still moving in slow, rhythmic time to some tune in her head.”
At around 5:30 a.m., she left the castle to head to her father John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer‘s home in Northamptonshire. The book claims she felt “distraught, flustered, angry and had no intention of ever going back. As far as Diana was concerned, the Royal Wedding was off.” Yikes! But, of course, we know Diana ultimately did say “I do,” and that was all thanks to her pops. The excerpt continued:
“But when she explained her decision to her father, Earl Spencer, he was appalled. After calming her down, he pointed out it would be an act of gross discourtesy to break off her engagement to the future King so close to the wedding. And, anyway, wasn’t it what she’d always wanted? Didn’t she remember him telling her that she should only marry a man she loved — and her firm reply: ‘That is what I am doing’? Diana wasn’t immediately convinced.”
After “gusts of tears and spells of indecision,” the activist “allowed her father to talk her round,” as the writer went on:
“She couldn’t deny that she still wanted to be the Princess of Wales. And, at 19, she was young enough still to believe in happy endings, despite what her instincts had told her on that terrible night.”
The couple got married on July 29, 1981 — just five months after announcing their engagement — but it was all over by 1996. Pretty wild that her main reservation going into the marriage was Charles not spending enough time with her only for his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles to break them up. Things would’ve been so different if she’d trusted her gut!
That said, it’s not like she was completely unhappy to marry Charles. In the past, the mother of two claimed she was so “in love with my husband” on the wedding day, recalling in the 1992 book, Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words:
“I remember being so in love with my husband that I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I just absolutely thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. He was going to look after me.”
In Lady Colin Campbell‘s The Real Diana, she added that the ceremony was “heaven, amazing, wonderful.” So, she definitely came around to it! Queen Elizabeth II did, too, since Ingrid claimed she “had just two reservations” about Diana’s relationship with Charles, noting elsewhere in the excerpt:
“She wondered whether anyone that young could differentiate between the man and the prince. And she couldn’t help thinking that the Spencer girl would be far better suited to her younger son, Andrew.”
But they all got on board with the wedding, and the rest is history, as we well know now…
Ingrid’s full book will be out on February 15. As mentioned, Charles began treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer this week. We’re sure the last thing he or his team want to be dealing with is a new book about his personal life during this already stressful time. Hopefully, he can avoid any possible drama the release comes with and focus on his family and health instead.
Reactions to this stunning new revelation, tho, Perezcious readers? Sound OFF (below)!
[Image via Anwar Hussein Collection/WENN]
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