Princess Diana's unhappy marriage to Prince Charles isn't exactly a secret, but the devastating nature of their relationship is finally being chronicled by Lady Di herself thanks to a series of recently-released audio transcripts which served as the source material for Andrew Morton's Diana: Her True Story. Here, the heart-breaking takeaways.
On Her Struggle with Bulimia:
"My husband put his hand on my waistline and said: 'Oh, a bit chubby here, aren't we?' and that triggered off something in me. And the Camilla thing. I was desperate, desperate. I remember the first time I made myself sick. I was so thrilled because I thought this was the release of tension.... The first time I was measured for my wedding dress, I was 29 inches around the waist. The day I got married, I was 23½ inches. I had shrunk into nothing from February to July. I had shrunk to nothing."
On Her Suicide Attempt:
"We stayed up there [at Balmoral] from August to October. I got terribly, terribly thin. People started commenting: 'Your bones are showing.' By October, I was in a very bad way. I was so depressed, and I was trying to cut my wrists with razor blades. It rained and rained and rained. I came down early [to London] to seek treatment, not because I hated Balmoral, but because I was in such a bad way."
On Finding Out Charles' Was in Love with Another Woman:
"The first thing that hit me was my [future] husband sending Camilla Parker Bowles flowers when she had meningitis: 'To Gladys from Fred'....I once heard him on the telephone in his bath on his hand-held set, saying: 'Whatever happens, I will always love you.' I told him afterwards that I had listened at the door, and we had a filthy row."
On Catching Charles Red-Handed:
"Somebody in his office told me that my husband had had a bracelet made for her, which she wears to this day. It's a gold chain bracelet with a blue enamel disc. It's got 'G and F' entwined in it, 'Gladys' and 'Fred.' I walked into this man's office one day and said: 'Oh, what's in that parcel?' He said: 'Oh, you shouldn't look at that.' I said: 'Well, I'm going to look at it.' I opened it, and there was [the] bracelet, and I said: 'I know where this is going.' I was devastated. This was about two weeks before we got married."
On Charles Being Obsessed with Her:
"He'd found the virgin, the sacrificial lamb, and in a way he was obsessed with me. But it was hot and cold, hot and cold. You never knew what mood it was going to be—up and down, up and down."
