Queen Elizabeth’s Straightforward Comment to Diana on the Buckingham Palace Balcony After She Married Charles, According to a Lip Reader
King Charles III and Princess Diana‘s royal wedding happened decades ago, but new details about the ceremony are still emerging. Not about Diana’s now-iconic wedding gown or even her back-up gown. Rather, what happened on the Buckingham Palace balcony following the ceremony. A lip reader decoded what the late Queen Elizabeth II told the bride as they greeted crowds. Hint: It’s much in line with the queen’s other balcony chitchat.
Queen Elizabeth’s advice for Diana on the Buckingham Palace balcony: ‘Look’ at the people
Diana and the then-Prince of Wales married on July 29, 1981, at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, England. Described at the time as the wedding of the century, nearly 3,500 guests attended while millions watched on TV.
After Diana walked down the aisle, and vows were exchanged, she and King Charles headed to Buckingham Palace, where they waved to well-wishers and kissed amid cheers.
A lip reader took a closer look at the interactions on the balcony and, according to the Daily Mail, determined what was said. The queen pointed to the crowd, telling Diana to “look” at the people who had “been there all day” to see her.
When fellow British royals joined the bride and groom, including Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, and Princess Anne, among others, the now-king remarked: “It’s an awful long time. We need to eat.”
The lip reader also shared that the groom appeared to say to Diana, “You look perfect,” after she walked down the aisle.
What King Charles told Diana the night before they got married
The outlet also reported that the night before getting married, the groom sent a note with advice for the bride.
“The night before the wedding, which Diana spent at Clarence House with her sister, Jane, he [Charles] sent her a note, along with a signet ring bearing the Prince of Wales feathers,” Penny Junor, a royal author, wrote in The Duchess: The Untold Story.
In it, the now-75-year-old king wrote: “I’m so proud of you, and when you come up, I’ll be there at the altar for you tomorrow. Just look ‘em in the eye and knock ‘em dead.”
That wasn’t all King Charles told his fiancée the night before their wedding. Penny Thornton, Diana’s astrologer, recalled learning from the late royal that the groom didn’t want to enter the marriage “on a false premise.”
So, he told her the “devastating” truth. “One of the most shocking things that Diana told me was that the night before the wedding, Charles told her that he didn’t love her,” Thornton said in The Diana Interview: Revenge of a Princess.
“I think Charles didn’t want to go into the wedding on a false premise. He wanted to square it with her, and it was devastating for Diana.”
Queen Elizabeth didn’t have any advice for Diana years later
According to royal author and expert Ingrid Seward, Queen Elizabeth was speechless when “hysterical” Diana vented about her crumbling marriage. The now-king and Diana divorced in 1996 after making their separation public in late 1992.
“Diana used to go to her private room in between appointments that the Queen had, which were every 20 minutes, and burst into tears,” Seward told OK! Magazine. “[She would say] ‘Everybody hates me, mama, and I hate my husband. He’s a nightmare.’”
A “very low point,” in Majesty Magazine Editor-In-Chief’s opinion, “the queen would just stand there, and Diana would be getting more and more hysterical.”
Queen Elizabeth, who died in September 2022 at the age of 96, “didn’t know how to handle it. But she thought Charles should know how to handle it. That was a very low point in the relationship.”
The monarch “didn’t understand because she didn’t have the experience to understand something like that,” Seward explained. “Remember the cloistered world of the royal family, especially in those days.”
“They didn’t have to ever deal with moral conflict because there was always someone else to do it for them. If you didn’t want to talk to someone,” she said, “the switchboard at Buckingham Palace would just not put them through. So, you never had to take on things. And the queen wasn’t used to doing this.”
