Prince Charles, Prince of Wales with his fiance Lady Diana Spencer during a photocall before their wedding while staying at Craigowan Lodge on the Balmoral Estate in Scotland. Photo/Getty Images
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales with his fiance Lady Diana Spencer during a photocall before their wedding while staying at Craigowan Lodge on the Balmoral Estate in Scotland. Photo/Getty Images
Princess Diana revealed her sadness about her marriage to Prince Charles, his affair with Camilla and how she developed bulimia in secretly recorded tapes finally revealed.
Diana's biographer, Andrew Morton, revealed to the Mail Online that she contacted him through a friend to offer him an interview with her for his controversial book on the royal couple.
In transcripts of the interview conducted by Morton in 1991, Diana claimed her bulimia started after Charles made a comment about her being "a bit chubby".
Diana recalled a moment when Charles put his hand around her waist and commented on her weight. She claimed his comment, and the stress of knowing about his affair with Camilla, had led to her eating disorder.
"The bulimia started the week after we got engaged (and would take nearly a decade to overcome)," Diana had recorded herself saying.
"My husband [Prince Charles] 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," she said.
Transcripts of the tapes published by the Mail Online also reveal that when Charles proposed to her, she knew of his relationship with Camilla.
"Eventually, I worked it all out and found the proof of the pudding, and people were willing to talk to me."
Diana also said she tried to cut her wrists just weeks after her wedding, The Sun reports.
Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, with their baby son, Prince William in 1982. Photo/AP
Following her honeymoon with Prince Charles, the couple stayed at Balmoral.
Diana said her bulimia left her "terribly, terribly thin" in October 1981. She said: "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." She added: "All the analysts and psychiatrists you could ever dream of came plodding in trying to sort me out. Put me on high doses of Valium and everything else."
She said she also suffered a bad fit of bulimia that night.
In the tapes, Diana also described how Charles wooed her, The Sun reports.
She described herself then as being "podgy" and being loud - which she thought he liked.
After several meetings she said they spoke at his 30th birthday party where "he was all over me".
They chatted about him looking lonely at his great-uncle's funeral - who had been killed by an IRA bomb in August 1979.
She said: "The next minute, he leapt on me practically, and I thought this was very strange, too, and I wasn't quite sure how to cope with all this. Frigid wasn't the word. Big F, when it comes to that."
She added she would visit Balmoral: "Charles used to ring me up and say: 'Would you like to come for a walk, come for a barbecue?'
"So I said: 'Yes, please.' I thought this was all wonderful."
When Diana was 19 he proposed to her in February 1981.
She reportedly selected a large £30,000 ($53,000) engagement ring from a platter and they faced the press with the announcement.
Famously when the pair were asked if they were marrying for love, Diana said "of course" while Charles said "whatever love means".
The Princess and Prince of Wales, Diana and Charles, wave from their carriage on their wedding day. Photo/News Corp Australia
They married on July 29, that same year in St Paul's Cathedral.
She was the first British citizen to marry an heir to the British throne in 200 years.
Earlier this year her sons Princes William and Harry opened up about their mother's death.
They said they did not speak about the tragic event for years, as Harry, 32, admitted he though there was no point "bringing up something that's only going to make you sad" after Diana was killed in a car crash in 1997.
It came after Harry bravely told how he came close to a breakdown, spiralled into "total chaos" and ended up seeking counselling after "shutting down all my emotions" for nearly two decades.
Morton's book, Diana: Her True Story - in Her Own Words, is being republished later this month with a new foreword from Morton, in time for the 20th anniversary of Diana's death in August.
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