Secret Diana recordings expose grim truth of marriage to Prince Charles

SECRET recordings have exposed grim truths about Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles — including the fact they didn’t have sex for seven years.

Secret tapes have revealed the grim truth about Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles. Picture: Martyn Hayhow

PRINCE Charles and Princess Diana didn’t have sex for seven years, according to a new program on Britain’s Channel 4 which lays bare the couple’s marital dysfunction.

The program draws on taped sessions between Diana and her voice coach, Petter Settelen, claiming Charles was all over her “like a bad rash” when they first started dating, but their sex life fizzled out altogether after Prince Harry was born.

Diana and Charles only met 13 times before they married. Picture: Tim Graham

The Princess worked with the coach for two years in the early nineties to improve her public speaking, and their appointments became a safe place for her to vent her anxieties and frustrations about her marriage.

The show “Diana: In Her Own Words” drops a number of bombshells.

She claimed when she confronted Charles about his affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, he told her it was his right: “I refuse to be the Prince of Wales who never had a mistress”.

When she begged the Queen for marriage advice, she said she was brushed off and simply told “Charles is hopeless”.

She claimed to be “deeply in love” with her bodyguard, Barry Mannakee.

Diana was well loved by the public, but felt intensely isolated from her in-laws. Picture: Ken Goff

The program reveals the depths of her struggle with bulimia, and the intense isolation she felt from the royal family — as well as her desire to run away with her bodyguard, Barry Mannakee, with whom she was “deeply in love”.

Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, has begged the broadcaster not to air the intimate details of his sister’s sex life, claiming it’s a betrayal to her memory.

He said the videos would cause enormous distress to her sons, but Channel 4 is believed to have said the 90-minute documentary is an “important contribution to the historical record”.

Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, says it would be extremely distressing for her sons. Picture: Jayne Fincher

“We carefully considered all the material used ... the subjects covered are a matter of public record. This unique portrait of Diana gives her a voice and places­ it front and centre at a time when the nation will be reflecting on her life and death,” it said in a statement.

The tapes will be broadcast next weekend, three weeks before the 20th anniversary of her death in a car crash in Paris.