Princess Diana’s Former Dance Teacher Says the Royal Struggled to Understand Why She Was “Not Enough” For Husband, Prince Charles
“I think he prefers an older woman.”
Princess Diana's former dance teacher is revealing some of the late royal's most intimate confessions in a new, tell-all memoir.
In an excerpt of the book shared exclusively with People, Anne Allan—a dancer with the London City Ballet who taught the former Princess of Wales via private, secret one-hour sessions for nine years—says Princess Diana confided in her about a number of issues, including her fraught marriage to then-Prince Charles and her battle with disordered eating.
The pair reportedly met when Princess Diana was a 20-year-old newlywed. Over the years, she allegedly opened up to her dance instructor, especially when her marriage to the current King of England was ending.
“I just can’t seem to do anything right when it comes to my husband. I do love him so much and want him to be proud of me, but I don’t think he feels the same way," Allan says Princess Diana told her during one of their private dance lessons.
Then-Prince William and Princess Diana pictured with their son, Prince Charles.
The instructor went on to write that she just let the Princess "talk," and did not offer "advice" but instead just listened.
“I don’t understand why I am not enough for him," she says Diana wondered out loud. "I think he prefers an older woman."
What followed, Princess Diana's dance instructor alleges, was "alarming to hear."
“I know he is seeing Camilla again," Princess Diana allegedly told her. "Am I expected to accept that, like the other Princesses of Wales before, one just turns a blind eye to husbands having a mistress! Why does he not love me? I really don’t understand. I have tried everything, tried to conform to his wishes even though I don’t always agree. There’s no affection between us, and I am always on my own.
"I just want to be loved," Allan continues. "I can’t keep going on like this. They are really expecting me to just say nothing and keep going. How do I do that?”
Allan goes on to write that there "would be several other conversations in the future, but in this moment in 1986, I tried to help to heal a wound, to bandage it up so it could have time to heal. But it would leave a scar."
Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
During another class, at a time when the instructor writes Princess Diana was "distracted and troubled," the former royal once again confided in Allan about her marriage.
“I just don’t know what to do, Anne. I find myself in an unbearable situation. I haven’t seen Charles for weeks and he doesn’t want to talk to me," Allan writes Princess Diana said. "I thought he would come back to me, and we could work things out. How do I go on when I’m not wanted?”
The instructor went on to write that her "heart was broken" for the former royal.
Princess Diana passed away on Aug. 31, 1997, from a horrific car crash in Paris. In the wake of her passing, then-Prince Charles was said to be "absolutely distraught."
"He fell apart," Tina Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles, said. "He knew, instantly, that this was going to be a terrible thing, that...he will be blamed, that they will be blamed, for the death of Diana."
