The Real Diana

Book excerpt: "When I met Diana at a mutual friend's house in 1990, I was astonished by her conduct. Up to this point, the Diana I had encountered was a princess who had behaved very much in keeping with the forms and traditions of royalty. In social situations, she was as circumspect as the rest of them, as indeed all ladies are.... "Now, however, she was the antithesis of circumspect. Throwing caution and reserve to the wind, she said that she wanted me to write the truth about her life 'because I feel as if the whole fairy tale is crushing whatever's left of the real me.... If you'd just write about the real Diana, it would make all the difference.'" --Lady Colin Campbell Who was the real Diana? What was it like to be so privileged yet so anguished, so beloved yet so self-loathing, so spoiled yet so despairing? The Princess of Wales was all these things--far more complicated, conflicted, and intriguing a person than the wildly disparate saint or lunatic she is frequently portrayed to be. Royal insider Lady Colin Campbell sets the record straight on many of the most controversial aspects of Diana's turbulent life: how Charles and Diana's engagement came to pass, though it seemed ill-advised to those closest to both of them; what their honeymoon was really like; the truth behind Diana's bulimia, her widely reported suicide attempts, and her obsession with Camilla Parker Bowles; Diana's search for love and fulfillment with numerous men before, during, and after her marriage; her brilliant manipulations of the press; and her relationship with Dodi Fayed. Lady Colin Campbell's New York Times bestselling biography Diana in Private was the first to expose the truth about Diana and her troubled marriage. In The Real Diana, she reveals that the reason she knew so much about what went on behind the palace gates was because Diana herself was the source. Drawing upon these confidences--as well as on conversations with countless people who knew Diana and with Diana herself in the final years of her life--Lady Colin Campbell combines true insight with true compassion to bring us the most intimate and revealing portrait of the Princess of Wales that we will ever have.