The BBC has come under fire yet again over Princess Diana’s notorious interview with the channel two years before her death.
Prince William’s fury at the BBC is set to heighten as new information concerning his mother Princess Diana’s 1995 interview have come to light. The BBC has now been accused of misleading the public about the health of interviewer Martin Bashir in order to withhold information regarding his infamous interview with the late royal. Newly recovered emails suggest senior managers at the broadcaster had been in contact with Mr Bashir in 2020 to discuss accusations he had forged bank statements to gain Diana’s trust – despite the BBC stating publicly that the journalist was too unwell to be questioned over the matter.
Prince William’s fury at the BBC is set to heighten as new information concerning his mother Princess Diana’s 1995 interview have come to light. The BBC has now been accused of misleading the public about the health of interviewer Martin Bashir in order to withhold information regarding his infamous interview with the late royal. Newly recovered emails suggest senior managers at the broadcaster had been in contact with Mr Bashir in 2020 to discuss accusations he had forged bank statements to gain Diana’s trust – despite the BBC stating publicly that the journalist was too unwell to be questioned over the matter.
The host of emails, which have been seen by The Telegraph, show the contact occurred during the time accusations were mounting over the bank statements. At the time, the BBC said that they could not answer questions about the issue because Mr Bashir was “seriously unwell”. Mr Bashir’s ill health also gave the broadcaster a legal loophole not to disclose more than 3,200 relevant emails under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI). BBC bosses are not under pressure to explain the disparity in their public and private stance towards the journalist – in what has become the corporation’s most high-profile scandals.
In 2021 an inquiry found that Mr Bashor had acted in a “deceitful” way to secure the interview with Diana, by faking documents to make her think those close to her were receiving money from tabloid newspapers and the security services to spy on her. Prince William responded to the findings and said he was “most saddened” that his mother would never learn that she was failed by the BBC. Referring to Mr Bashir as “a rogue reporter”, William said that his mother was let down by him and his bosses at the BBC.
William also blamed the BBC for using the interview to fuel Diana’s paranoia in her relationship with the now-King. He added that it was a “major contribution” in making his parent’s marriage worse. Prince William also stated that, in his view, the deceitful way in which the interview gathered information “substantially influenced what my mother said”. He has also said that he wished for the interview to never be aired again.
In the interview, Diana famously said: “There were three of us in this marriage.” She also spoke about her mental health struggles and went into further detail about her marriage with the then-Prince Charles. In one particularly damaging comment she cast doubt on Charles’s suitability to be King.
