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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Entertainment
Christopher Megrath

Did Diana really work with Andrew Morton and James Colthurst for book?

Fans of The Crown are now questioning Princess Diana's involvement in Andrew Morton's book.

Season five of The Crown kicked off last night and brought some of the ugly histories from the royal family's archives. Netflix has continuously stressed that the show is a dramatisation, but recent scenes have viewers questioning what's fact and fiction.

One focal point was Diana possibly having a direct hand in the creation of Andrew Morton's book, a journalist penning a tell-all biography of her life. The Crown suggests she secretly recorded private conversations she held with the family concerning her life as a royal, her crumbling marriage, and battles with bulimia and depression.

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Viewers watched as word got out about Diana's involvement which led to a fiery confrontation with her father-in-law, Prince Phillip, effectively putting the project to an end. With such a pinnacle moment in the Princess of Wales' life possibly being rehashed, viewers are wondering whether or not it really happened.

According to Mr Morton himself, he and Diana did indeed work together on the book. He accredited Diana's involvement to the bond he formed with one of the royal's close friends. Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said: "I was keen to talk to the Princess directly, but this was simply out of the question. At 6ft 4in tall and as a writer known to Palace staff, I’d hardly be inconspicuous.

"So I interviewed her by proxy — giving my questions to James Colthurst [the pair's mutual friend], who then conducted six taped interviews with her in her sitting room at Kensington Palace."

He said Diana went into great detail about her life and essentially shaped the biography far beyond his own expectations. He added: "Turning on a battered tape recorder, I listened with mounting astonishment to the unmistakable voice of Princess Diana. She was pouring out a tale of woe in a rapid stream of consciousness."

"I felt I’d been transported into a parallel universe. The Princess was talking about her unhappiness, her sense of betrayal, her suicide attempts — and two things I’d never previously heard of: an eating disorder called bulimia nervosa and a woman called Camilla."

Andrew Morton's book, Diana: Her True Story, was released in 1992.

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