The royals - Kitty Kelley [213]
“Initially, I did not believe the book. Not for a minute. The Princess of Wales suffering from bulimia, throwing up in toilets, and attempting suicide? Impossible. But I grilled Andrew Morton, demanded to have the names of his sources, and independently interviewed all of them. Once I was satisfied the book was accurate, I decided to go with it, provided the two major sources, Carolyn Bartholomew and James Gilbey, signed affidavits backing up what they had said was true.”
The newspaper’s sensational excerpt appeared on the morning of June 7, 1992. That afternoon the Queen invited Camilla Parker Bowles and her husband to join the royal family in their box at Windsor to watch a polo match. Diana saw the gesture as one more kick in the teeth. Privately she questioned the Queen’s sensitivity. “If she wants this marriage to work, why won’t she help by acting like a decent mother-in-law?”
The next day the editor of the Sunday Telegraph said the editor of the Sunday Times was a scandal-monger who deserved to be horsewhipped. Andrew Neil published James Gilbey’s statement:
“I can confirm that the Princess discussed with me on numerous occasions her attempted suicides, as she has done with other close friends.”
The Sunday Times editor said he knew the monarchy was beginning to crumble when he received calls of support from aristocrats like Alan Clark, a former Tory minister of state. “It’s a shame,” Clark told Andrew Neil, “but no great loss. The royal family is just a bunch of pasty-faced Germans.”
An avalanche of news stories, editorials, and television commentaries questioned what was once accepted as unassailable—the future of the monarchy and whether Britain really needed a royal family. There were even questions about the dutiful monarch, who lavished more attention on her dogs and horses than on her children. Public opinion polls showed overwhelming support for the Princess, especially among American women. People magazine, whose twenty million weekly readers are predominantly female, put her on forty-one covers in sixteen years; and the issue featuring her with an excerpt from Morton’s book was the best-selling cover in the magazine’s history. The American writer Camille Paglia proclaimed the Princess a twentieth-century icon: “Diana may have become the most powerful image in world popular culture today.”
Frustrated aides in the Palace press office strained to be civil. Their original denunciation of the book had been unequivocal: “outrageously irresponsible.” Now they backtracked. “We have no further comment at this time.” Their accents became more clipped, as if cut-glass enunciation would ward off further questions.
As the press office was trying to deflect questions about the extramarital affair of the Prince of Wales, an internal memo surfaced that illustrated the standard of behavior the Queen expected from her servants. Her estate manager at Balmoral had issued a “gentle reminder” to any employee engaged in an illicit love affair. The reminder threatened eviction from Her Majesty’s premises. “If you’re living in sin,” warned the Queen’s manager, “you could lose your home.” The Palace tried to dissociate itself from the tone. “Any correspondence on whatever is going on up there is totally private,” said a press assistant. But Diana said the Queen should send a “gentle reminder” like that to her son. Although she had plenty to say about Morton’s book privately, Diana said nothing publicly. With no response from her, the editor of the Sunday Times was worried. “I didn’t know what to do to restore our credibility,” said Andrew Neil. Within hours he was saved by an anonymous female caller. She told the Press Association, England’s national news agency, that the Princess of Wales would be visiting the home of Carolyn Bartholomew. A photograph of Diana embracing her friend, a major source of information in the book, put the lie to skeptics.
When the picture