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In 1981, the world was mesmerised by Princess Diana and her fairytale romance with Prince Charles. She was an audience favourite – a beautiful, shy girl who won the heart of the Prince of Wales.
But behind the scenes, things were not as perfect as they seemed.
1981 was a landmark year for Princess Diana, a year that would change her life forever. While working as an assistant kindergarten teacher, she became engaged to the heir to the British throne, Prince Charles.
Their royal wedding in July of the same year became a worldwide spectacle, watched by millions of people, because Diana became Princess of Wales. But amidst the glamour and fairytale wedding, there were some dark, hidden problems.
At first, however, everything seemed peaceful and perfect in the newly wedded couple’s relationship. When Charles left for a five-week royal tour in 1981, cameras captured Diana crying as she said goodbye, thinking it was from the sadness of separation from her future husband.
But as it turned out, the real reason for Diana’s tears was far more heartbreaking.
The real reason for Diana’s tears at the airport
One of the most memorable and heartbreaking moments of 1981 occurred on 29 March, when Lady Diana tearfully said goodbye to Prince Charles at Heathrow Airport. The Prince was about to embark on a five-week royal tour, visiting the United States, Venezuela, New Zealand and Australia.
Dressed in a red coat, deer-coloured skirt and brown leather shoes, Diana walked alongside the prince through puddles at the airport after arriving in the Queen’s Rolls-Royce.
A few days earlier, Queen Elizabeth had given formal consent for Prince Charles to marry Lady Diana Spencer, marking the start of their fairytale engagement.
As the RAF VC 10 aircraft prepared to take off, Diana stood by to say goodbye to Charles. The prince kissed her on both cheeks on the rainy and windy airport ramp.
The painful truth
The emotional scene marked several milestones – it was the first public kiss since the announcement of the royal engagement earlier that year, and it was one of many shots that defined Diana’s early years in public.
Reports that day confirmed that Diana did indeed cry as she parted from Charles. The farewell was described as deeply emotional, and Charles himself seemed moved by the moment.
The prince tried to cheer her up, kissed her on each cheek, then stroked her left arm with a broad smile and said: ‘Take care of yourself,’ the Western Daily Press reported in 1981.
The moment was photographed and covered by journalists around the world, and the press called it a ‘tender farewell.’
Airport officials noted, ‘We have never seen such a touching farewell.’
But as we would learn decades later, the truth was far more complicated – and far more painful.
Princess Diana’s own words
In the 2017 documentary Diana: In Her Own Words, the world finally heard Diana’s side of the story. In notes she made for biographer Andrew Morton in 1991, she revealed that her tears were not caused by Charles’ departure. Instead, they were triggered by a devastating revelation she had learnt just hours before.
‘You may remember seeing the picture of me sobbing in my red coat as [Prince Charles] flew away in his aeroplane,’ Diana says on the tape. ‘It had nothing to do with his departure. The most horrible thing happened before he flew away.’
The cameras had no idea what was really going on behind closed doors.
At 19, Diana was still a young woman, inexperienced in the complexities of royal life and relationships. But Diana learnt something that would change everything: Charles’ relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles.
‘I was in his study talking to him about his trip,’ Diana recalled. ‘The phone rang, and it was Camilla, and just before he was going away for five weeks. And I thought, ‘Do I be nice or do I just sit here?’ I decided to be nice and I left them. And it just broke my heart.’
Revealing bracelet
Later, when Charles was away, Diana found out about the bracelet Charles had made for Camilla – a gift that struck at the heart of her worst fears.
One day I walked into this man’s office and asked: ‘Oh, what’s in this parcel?’. And he said, ‘You don’t need to look at it.’ I opened it up and there was a bracelet.’
‘I was devastated,’ she continued. ‘And I said: ‘Well, he’s going to give it to her tonight.’ So rage, rage, rage. You know, ‘Why can’t you be honest with me?’. But no, I was totally calm. It was like he made a decision, and if it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work.’
Despite the heartbreak, Diana tried to stay strong even when faced with the painful realities of her engagement.
Lunch with Camilla, which was supposed to be light entertainment, took on a grim meaning when Camilla subtly hinted to Charles that Diana would never be able to ignore.
‘You’re not going hunting, are you?’ asked Camilla.
‘I answered, ‘No.’’ She said: ‘I just wanted to know,’ and I thought, as far as she was concerned, that was her way of communicating,’ Diana recalls.
Another theory: Tears of rage
Royal biographer Tina Brown, in her book The Diana Chronicles, believes that the tears Diana shed at the airport were not from grief, but from anger. ‘Diana’s tears at the airport were not of grief but of rage,’ Brown writes. And rage is exactly what Diana felt. Her fiancé, the man she was about to marry, had given a deeply personal gift to another woman. In Diana’s eyes, it was a sign of things to come.
‘He found a virgin, a sacrificial lamb, and in a way he was obsessed with me, but it was hot and cold, hot and cold, hot and cold, you never knew what mood it would be in, up and down, up and down,’ Diana said, reflecting on the emotional rollercoaster that was her relationship with Charles.
Shortly before the wedding, Diana went out to lunch again – this time with her sisters.
‘I went upstairs, had lunch with my sisters who were there and said: ‘I can’t marry him. I can’t do this. It’s just unbelievable,‘’ Diana says in the audio recording in the documentary Diana: In Her Own Words.
Diana confided in her sisters, hoping for support, but they gave her the harsh reality check she needed. ‘Well, tough luck for you, Dusha. Your face is already on the tea towels, so you chickened out too late.’
The wedding took place despite the storm raging in Diana’s heart. By 1996, after years of infidelity and emotional turmoil, Charles and Diana divorced after receiving a letter from the Queen advising them to end their unstable marriage.
‘There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit tight,’ Diana later said.
When Diana confronted Camilla.
According to Charles’ authorised biography cited by Town & Country, Charles and Camilla’s affair began in 1986. At the time, Charles was still married to Princess Diana, and she found out about it.
In 1989, Diana told Camilla about her affair, advising her to back off.
‘I know what’s going on between you and Charles and I want you to know it,’ Camilla recalled Diana saying in a recording published by The Telegraph, quoted by Town & Country.
‘Diana said to me, ‘You have everything you’ve ever wanted. You’ve got all the men in the world falling in love with you, you’ve got two beautiful children, what more could you want?’
‘And I said: ‘I want my husband.’ And I said: ‘I’m sorry I’m in your way, and it must be hell for both of you. But I know what’s going on. Don’t treat me like an idiot,‘’ Camilla explained.
Princess Diana tragically died in a car accident on 31 August 1997.
At the time, no one knew how Diana felt, but looking at today’s photos from Heathrow, it’s clear they tell a very different story.
What appeared to be a sweet, emotional goodbye was actually much more complicated than that.
Looking back, it’s crazy how much more we now realise. How do you feel about that?
