Princess Diana Once Revealed She Didn’t Speak to Prince Charles the Day After Their Wedding: ‘We Were So Shattered’
Princess Diana and Prince Charles had a rocky relationship. The two were introduced when Diana was only 16, and though they ended up marrying, neither was ever in love. Diana recalled in her recordings with biographer Andrew Morton that she and Charles never had a stable relationship — and they didn’t even speak the day after the wedding.
Prince Charles was in a rush to find a wife
When Charles returned from serving in the British Navy, he was hoping to reconnect with his true love, Camilla Parker Bowles. However, Camilla had already wed, leaving Charles getting older and no closer to being married. At that time in the royal family, it was a bad look that the future king still had not found a wife, and Charles knew that if he wanted to be taken seriously, he had to take that next step.
Charles and Diana had met when she was 16 after he briefly dated her older sister. They reconnected when she was 19, and though there was an initial attraction, the two didn’t give the relationship nearly enough time to blossom. Charles proposed after 12 dates, and Diana once remarked that she laughed in shock when he popped the question.
Charles and Diana didn’t speak for nearly a month after their engagement
Once Charles proposed, nothing much changed in the couple’s relationship. Diana told biographer Andrew Morton that she left for Australia with her mother two days after the engagement — and never heard from her fiancé. “I pined for him but he never rang me up,” she told Morton, as published in her biography “Diana: Her True Story In Her Own Words.” Diana also said that whenever she called him, “he was out and never rang me back.”
The two had breakfast the day after their wedding — in silence
Their engagement wasn’t the only time there was deafening silence between them. The day after the wedding, Charles and Diana had breakfast together and once again did not speak. “Sat next to him at the wedding breakfast, which was a lunch,” Diana said in her recordings. “Neither of us spoke to each other — we were so shattered. I was exhausted at the whole thing.”
Diana had wanted to call off the wedding the day before, and there have since been reports that Charles did, too. However, both were too far into it to back out, so they went through with it despite the sinking feeling of knowing they were not in love.
Diana reportedly did not want a divorce
Years after the wedding, once Charles’ affair with Camilla came out, he and Diana separated. Ultimately, though, the princess did not want a divorce. She reportedly hoped that she and Charles could live civilly and raise their children despite their differences.
Diana outwardly spoke about Charles, which angered the queen, who later requested that the couple divorce; they consented.
