British: Soon, the world could be privy to some very intimate details of late Princess Diana’s ‘sex life’ with Prince Charles.
British television broadcaster Channel 4 has secured access to exclusive videotapes recorded by UK-based American actor Peter Settelen, who was Diana’s voice coach.
The tapes, containing rare footage of 21 hours, were recorded on a camcorder at Kensington Palace between 1992 to 1993 over 16 months.
The footage could become the main part of a feature-length documentary to Diana: In Her Own Words, which is expected to be broadcast in early August 2017. Channel 4 is yet to confirm whether or not it will broadcast those particular sections in which Princess Diana discussed her ‘sex life’.
Contents of the tapes have been described as ‘dynamite’ by a TV producer and are highly sensitive, never-before broadcast content on television.
Parts of the footage were once aired by NBC America in 2004. The contents became so controversial that BBC shelved plans to air documentary with more footage.
The videos showed Diana saying, “It was odd. Very odd. But there was [a sexual relationship] – it was there, and then it fizzled out about seven years ago.”
“Instinct told me, it was just so odd. There was never a requirement for it from his case. Sort of a once every three weeks … and I kept thinking…and then I followed a pattern. He used to see his lady [Camilla, now Duchess of Cornwall and the Prince Charles’ second wife] once every three weeks before we got married,” the Independant quoted Diana.
Back then, Settelen had acknowledged that Diana the videotape conversations were never meant to be public.
When asked as to why did he release it and profiting from it, Mr Settelen replied: “I don’t want to denigrate Diana. I’m trying to give the public an opportunity finally, finally, [to] see for yourself, because … people are spoiling, not just the work that I did with her but using it again to kind of diminish her, and I don’t think that’s right.”
The 21-hours footage mostly consists of voice coaching sessions. But there are times when Diana was remarkably open about her sexual relationship with Prince Charles.
The idea behind airing the videotapes is to clear lies and rumours doing rounds on Diana’s life and listen from her directly, said Channel 4’s spokesperson.
“At a time when everybody is going to be reflecting on her [Diana’s] life and the approaching 20th anniversary of her death, we feel it is important to hear from her directly, and we are placing her voice front and centre.
“Everything we are airing is carefully contextualised, placed within a historical framework, supported by interviews with those who were closest to her,” said the spokesperson.
The 20 video tapes were recorded after Diana revealed there were problems in her marriage to biographer Andrew Morton but before her 1995 Panorama interview in which she publicly declared: “There were three of us in this marriage.”
Diana also talk about Charles’ courting abilities, as was shown on NBC in 2004.
“He wasn’t consistent with his courting abilities,” Diana said. “He’d ring me up every day for a week, and then he wouldn’t speak to me for three weeks. Very odd. And I accepted that. I thought ‘Fine. Well, he knows where I am if he wants me’. And then the thrill when he used to ring up was so immense and intense.”
The two had only met only 13 times before they married.
Bureau Report
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