Author Reveals Who Princess Diana Blamed For Her Broken Marriage — It's Not Charles or Camilla

Princess Diana’s tumultuous marriage to then-Prince Charles continues to spark tabloid fodder. The late Princess was deeply hurt when she discovered her husband's affair with long-time flame, Camilla Parker Bowles. Despite the Princess's infamous remark about the 'third' person in her marriage, royal author Ingrid Seward claims that Diana allegedly did not believe Camilla was solely responsible for dissolving her marriage.

Seward shared a close relationship with Diana and even spent time with her in the weeks before her tragic death in 1997. Speaking on Hello!’s A Right Royal podcast, Seward said, “She said to me just before she died, it wasn’t Camilla. 'It wasn’t Camilla that ruined our marriage, it was the people around Charles.'” She reflected, “I could never unpick that comment and quite understand what it meant. But I also remember Diana’s father saying how tricky the royal household was. So, what I’m trying to say is that Harry obviously has a point amid his morass of complaints.”

While Diana reportedly felt that the people around her husband caused the breakdown of their marriage, Charles begged to differ. As reported by Marie Claire, biographer Robert Jobson in his book Charles at Seventy: Thoughts, Hopes and Dreams, revealed that the now-King believed their marriage ended because the pair barely knew each other. He claimed that Charles allegedly told him, “I desperately wanted to get out of the wedding in 1981, when, during the engagement, I discovered just how awful the prospects were, having had no chance whatsoever to get to know Diana beforehand.”

Meanwhile, royal author Andrew Morton’s book, Diana: Her True Story—In Her Own Words, which features excerpts from tapes sent to him by the late Princess, cites Diana’s soaring popularity as the reason that caused a wedge between the couple. Morton wrote of an incident where crowds would ‘groan’ when Charles was on their side instead of Diana during royal walkabouts. This allegedly had Charles growing bitter and turning to Camilla.

Diana, in her scathing 1995 interview with BBC correspondent Martin Bashir, spoke candidly about her husband's affair. She infamously said, “Well, there were three of us in the marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” alluding to Camilla. The interview was reportedly too much for the late Queen Elizabeth II, who wrote a letter ordering the couple 'to be done’ with it and divorce. The Queen’s assistant, Paul Burrell, claimed that Diana had shown him the letter and allegedly said, “That's rich! They get to decide whether I divorce.” Diana and Charles officially divorced in 1996, after four years of separation. Just a year later, she tragically died in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997.