Princess Diana told how she threw herself down a set of stairs and the Queen was “absolutely horrified” and “shaking” when she found her, in a recorded interview.
The Princess of Wales made a series of tapes for biographer Andrew Morton, in 1991, ten years into her marriage with Charles where she spilled out the troubles in their relationship including her sense of betrayal and suicide attempts.
For many royal fans at the time, the marriage between Charles and Diana still appeared to be a fairy tale as it was before all the revelations of infidelity on both sides came out.
During the recordings, she referred to how the public thought of her as a “fairy princess” while she was “crucifying herself inside because she didn’t think she was good enough”.
Diana said how she was treated very differently in the “system” where she was seen like an “oddball”.
It was the “torment and anguish going on in my head” how she explained her motives for her “cries for help”, in the transcript of the interview, reported the Daily Mail.
She said: “We had a few trying-to-cut-wrists, throwing things out of windows, breaking glass. I gave everybody a fright. It was all a desperate cry for help. I [threatened to throw] myself downstairs [while at Sandringham in 1982] when I was four months pregnant with William, trying to get my husband’s attention, for him to listen to me.
"But he just said: ‘You’re crying wolf.’ And he said: ‘I’m not going to listen. You’re always doing this to me. I’m going riding now.’
"So I threw myself down the stairs. The Queen comes out, absolutely horrified, shaking — she was so frightened. I knew I wasn’t going to lose the baby, though I was quite bruised around the stomach."
Diana then said how Charles paid little attention to her when he returned.
"Charles had gone out riding and when he came back, you know, it was just dismissal, total dismissal. He just carried on out of the door. I couldn’t sleep. I just never slept. I went for three nights without any sleep at all," she continued.
In the tape recordings she also referred to Charles’ relationship with Camilla and her bulimia amidst her general unhappiness that became part of the biography.
But she held back from discussing her own love affairs, says Mr Morton, now as he reflects on the transcripts 25 years after her death in 1997.
