Prince William Was "Mortified" by Princess Diana's Tell-All BBC Interview

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 23 February 2019

Every kid struggles to watch their parents go through a divorce. That is especially true when the divorce turns ugly and it's especially especially true when said ugly divorce is going down between two high-profile parents and one of them decides to give a tell-all interview about the ~drama~.

Prince William dealt with that exact situation as a teen. Will was 13 when Princess Diana gave her infamous tell-all interview on the BBC's Panorama, in which she spoke candidly about the breakdown of her marriage to Prince Charles and his affair with his mistress/future-second wife, Camilla Parker Bowles.

"There were three of us in this marriage," Diana told the interviewer, Martin Bashir. "So it was a bit crowded."

OUCH.

Zingers like that didn't just sting Charles though. They also took a toll on Will, who was "mortified" by the interview, according to royal expert and biographer Katie Nicholl. In her book, Kate: The Future Queen, Nicholl breaks down how things were at school for Will during this time, writing:

And:

BUY KATE: THE FUTURE QUEEN

In addition to just being an embarrassing and distressing situation to live through on its own, the divorce and the press surrounding it also added to Will's stress with the paparazzi at school. Per Nicholl:

Everything about this makes our hearts ache for Will.

Kayleigh Roberts is a freelance writer and editor with more than 10 years of professional experience. Her byline has appeared in Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, The Atlantic, Allure, Entertainment Weekly, MTV, Bustle, Refinery29, Girls’ Life Magazine, Just Jared, and Tiger Beat, among other publications. She's a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.