Princess Diana was reportedly not coerced or bullied into giving her now infamous 1995 Panorama interview. Photo / Getty Images
Princess Diana was reportedly not coerced or bullied into giving her now infamous 1995 Panorama interview. Photo / Getty Images
A veteran BBC broadcaster has made a bold claim about Princess Diana's infamous 1995 BBC interview.
David Dimbleby, an 83-year-old veteran BBC broadcaster, has claimed Diana was not coerced or bullied into giving her now infamous 1995 Panorama interview.
The broadcaster said she clearly wanted to "say her part" about her life in the spotlight.
His claim follows huge outcry over the means used by rogue reporter Martin Bashir, 59, to secure the interview, including commissioning fake bank statements used to suggest people were being paid to keep Diana under surveillance.
Dimbleby said: "I don't believe Diana was coerced into giving it.
"She clearly wants to say her part, she was not bullied or hectored into it. The clips show that what she was saying was genuinely meant."
A report by Lord Dyson into the interview last year exposed "deceitful behaviour" used by Bashir to secure the one-on-one.
The broadcaster said Diana clearly wanted to "say her part" about her life in the spotlight. Photo / AP
Along with using falsified bank statements, the reporter is also accused of spreading false smears about Princes William and Harry's former nanny, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, to whom the BBC had to pay damages.
Dimbleby's claims come as a four-part Channel 4 series investigating the princess' death began in the UK on Sunday, August 21.
It is not yet known if the series will air in New Zealand.
Dimbleby is also presenting a documentary about the BBC next week looking at its biggest controversies – but was barred from using the Diana footage in the show.
A series of new claims are being made ahead of the 25th anniversary of the beloved princess's death aged 36 in a Paris tunnel car smash on August 31, 1997.
The series, Investigating Diana: Death In Paris, which started August 21, referred to the so-called Mishcon Note as it was written by the Princess of Wales' legal adviser in 1995, and is reportedly an account of what Diana said during a meeting with Victor Mishcon and her personal private secretary at the time.
Diana apparently alleged she had been told by a source there would be plans to "get rid of her" by April 1996, using the method of a car crash that would either leave her maimed or dead.
The Daily Mail has also claimed even though Mishcon handed his note to senior Metropolitan Police officers in 1997 when Diana died, it was not sent to French authorities probing her car crash in a Paris tunnel until six years later.
