Diana (36 page)

Having been accused of making nuisance phone calls to art dealer Oliver Hoare—hanging up if his wife answered, and so on—Diana told the
Daily Mail’s
royal correspondent, Richard Kay, that she had been framed. “What are they trying to do to me? I feel I am being destroyed. There is no truth in it…. It is true that I have called Oliver Hoare, but not in the way alleged.”

On the Oliver Hoare phone calls: “I was reputed to have made three hundred telephone calls in a very short space of time which, bearing in mind my lifestyle at that time, made me a very busy
lady. But that … was a huge move to discredit me, and very nearly did me in, the injustice of it, because I did my own homework on that subject, and consequently found out that a young boy had done most of them.”

On the notion of making the Hoare annoyance phone calls from public telephones: “You cannot be serious. I don’t even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box.”

On Oliver Hoare himself: “They are trying to make out I was having an affair with this man or that it was some sort of
Fatal Attraction.
It is simply untrue and so unfair. Do you realize that whoever is trying to destroy me is inevitably damaging the institution of monarchy as well? I know there are those whose wish is apparently to grind my face in it. I knew I could not rely on anyone sticking up for me, but nor could I allow such hurtful things to be said about me in silence any longer.”

She once told her lover James Hewitt: “I am surrounded by people but so alone.”

Also to James Hewitt: “My God, if you go ahead with this book [about their affair], it’s going to kill me.”

When Anna Pasternak’s book,
Princess in Love,
written with James Hewitt, was published, the only official comment from Diana at the time: “[I am] extremely upset by the book’s account of [my] friendship with Mr. Hewitt. It is simply not true that we ever had sex. He wanted to, but I never let it happen. He lives in a fantasy world.”

To deflect the Hewitt rumors, at her birthday luncheon she said: “I’m going to celebrate my birthday at home alone with the only man in my life tonight: Prince Harry.”

In 1990, a taped telephone conversation held on New Year’s Eve 1989 between Diana and her dashing friend James Gilbey, a one-time secondhand car dealer, was leaked to the press, where it made headlines for what seemed weeks. These excerpts should demonstrate why, in addition to the profusion of exchanged kisses during the conversation.

On a luncheon with members of the royal family: “I was very bad at lunch. And I nearly started blubbing. I just felt really sad and empty, and I thought, Bloody hell, after all I’ve done for this fucking family.”