Unheard Princess Diana tapes reveal her claim that Charles was disappointed when Harry was born as he 'wanted a girl'
1 September 2023, 17:51 | Updated: 1 September 2023, 17:56
Unheard tapes have been revealed of Princess Diana telling how Charles said he was "disappointed" when Prince Harry was born.
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Diana recorded the tapes in the 1990s for her biographer Andrew Morton - the author behind the book Diana: Her True Story.
Snippets from the audio have been released just a day after the 26th anniversary of Diana's death as part of an upcoming US documentary.
In the audio, Diana can be heard saying: "At Harry's christening Charles went up to Mummy and said 'we're so disappointed, we wanted a girl' and Mummy snapped his head off and said 'you should realise you are lucky to have a child that's normal'.
"Ever since that day, the shutters have come down. That's what he does when he gets somebody answering back at him."
Another clip revealed Diana's dislike for her stepmother, Raine Spencer, who married her father in 1976.
After he died, Raine left her family seat of Althorp. Speaking on the matter, Diana says: "I was so angry. I told her, 'I hate you so much. If only you knew how much we all hated you for what you've done.
"'You've ruined the house, you've spent Daddy's money.' I said everything I possibly could and Raine said, 'you have no idea how much pain mother put your father through'.
"I said, 'Pain, Raine? That's one word you don't even know how to relate to.
"'In my job and in my role, I see people suffer like you've never seen. And you call that pain?' I said, 'you've got a lot to learn'."
Diana and her siblings called their stepmother "Acid Raine" and often sang "Raine, Raine, go away!"
In a separate clip released in a 2017 documentary, Diana refers to her "ridiculous" wedding to Charles in 1981.
"It was so grown up," she said. "Here's Diana, a kindergarten teacher. I mean the whole thing was ridiculous."
Tom Jennings, who produced both the current documentary and the 2017 film, told ABC: "When the first film came out, people were blown away because they had not heard Diana talk like this before.
"It's a style of storytelling that is very difficult to do but I think it is the closest thing to the truth that you can get because nothing gets in your way.
"It is important as part of Diana's legacy to allow more of those tapes to be heard."
The news comes less than a week before the first anniversary of the death of Queen Elizabeth, Charles' mother.
