Princess Diana hits out at Charles in videotape

Princess Diana

NEW YORK - Princess Diana was "traumatised" by Prince Charles' refusal to publicly declare his love for her on the day of their engagement and became bulimic to punish herself for their failed marriage.

Diana vented her feelings about her life and the British royal family in a videotape made in 1992 by her public speaking coach, former actor Peter Settelen, and broadcast on Monday for the first time in an NBC News special.

The princess, who was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997, discussed her childhood, marriage to Charles, whom she divorced in 1996, and struggle with bulimia in the one-hour programme. A second instalment will air next Monday.

Diana spoke of an early warning about Prince Charles' commitment to her during a "ghastly" TV interview they did in 1981 on the day they announced their engagement.

"This ridiculous ITN man said, 'Are you in love?' So I thought, 'Oh, what a thick question'," she said.

"And Charles turned around and said, 'Whatever "in love" means.' And that threw me completely," she said. "God. Absolutely traumatised me."

Diana, speaking from her couch in her Kensington Palace sitting room, expressed frustration with family members she turned to during troubled times of the marriage.

"I wanted to throttle that stepmother of mine because she brought such grief," Diana said about Countess Raine Spencer. "She kept saying to me, 'Oh, but Diana, you're so unhappy in your own marriage, you're just jealous of Daddy's and my relationship'."

She said she confronted the Queen in 1986 after she learned that Charles was having an affair with his longtime paramour, Camilla Parker-Bowles.

"I went to the Top Lady, and I'm sobbing. And I said, 'What do I do? I'm coming to you. What do I do?' And she said, 'I don't know what you should do. Charles is hopeless'."

Diana said five years into their marriage she suspected Charles had gone back to Camilla. "I remember saying to my husband ... 'Why is this lady around?' And he said, 'Well, I refuse to be the only Prince of Wales who never had a mistress'."

Diana said Prince Phillip had actually told Charles he could keep his options open. "And my father-in-law said to my husband, 'If your marriage doesn't work out, you can always go back to her after five years'."

Diana said the family blamed the failure of the marriage on the bulimia, but that it was the other way around.

"I took it out on myself," she said in telling how she explained it to the family.

"I said I could have gone to alcohol, which would have been obvious. I could have been anorexic, which should be even more obvious. I decided to do the more discreet thing, which ultimately wasn't discreet. But I chose to hurt myself instead of hurting all of you," Diana said in the videotape.

- REUTERS