Ex-Royal Assistant Remembers ‘Job From Hell’ With King Charles Throwing Things at Staffers and No One Wanting to Work With Princess Diana Either
Princess Diana and King Charles‘ marriage was never a fairy tale or any type of great love story. The pair wed in 1981 and a few years after tying the knot, they both engaged in extramarital affairs. Eventually, they agreed to separate in 1992, but that was about all they could agree on as their drama over the next few years was dubbed the “War of Wales.”
Those who worked in the royal household at the time witnessed firsthand how bad things had gotten between them and described working for Charles and Diana as the “job from hell.”
Former aide says Charles would ‘pick up things and launch them at staffers’
Major Colin Burgess began working as The Queen Mother’s equerry in 1994 and remembered that Charles didn’t handle the aftermath of his split from Diana very well. His admission that he cheated on the princess with Camilla Parker Bowles during Jonathan Dimbleby’s television documentary was a total disaster, and he hated seeing unflattering stories written about him in the press.
Burgess explained that he was “always first down for breakfast and one morning was joined by Charles.” Burgess recalled the then-Prince of Wales sitting down for breakfast and going through the newspapers.
“Oh, bloody hell, these bloody people! Why don’t they just leave me a-bloody-lone?” the royal cried, slamming his fists on the table after seeing what one of the tabloids had printed.
“I would never have worked for Charles at that time, not even for double the money,” Burgess told the Daily Mail. “His separation from Princess Diana polarized their staff, who had no choice but to take sides, and if you walked into any of his offices you could easily witness something being thrown at someone in anger. Even [Charles] would pick things up and launch them at one of his staff if that person had done something wrong, or said something inappropriate to the press.”
Author Howard Hodgson wrote about the current monarch’s temper tantrums in his book Charles — The Man Who Will Be King. Hodgson relayed a story about Charles’ longtime aide, Michael Colborne, and when he had stuff thrown at him.
According to that account, “Charles tossed Diana’s wedding ring at Colborne in the dark drive as he prepared to leave for London. After throwing the ring at Colborne, Charles took out more of his anger on his aide with an explosion of hot temper concerning a trivial point about his new Range Rover’s carpets.”
Working for Princess Diana around that time wasn’t much better
Major Burgess added that working for the late princess during that time wasn’t much better.
“Equally, being Princess Diana’s equerry would have been the job from hell because she was then on the verge of a complete breakdown,” Burgess shared. “She regularly went off into London alone, without any bodyguards, sparking mass panic among those back at Kensington Palace who would launch a hunt to find her.”
Charles and Diana divorced in 1996, one year before the princess died following a car crash in Paris. In 2005, Charles married Camilla.
