Royal Photographer Shares Why "The Kissed That Missed" Revealed the Truth About Diana and Charles's Failing Marriage

Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially announced their separation in December 1992, but rumors about their troubled marriage swirled much earlier. That winter, the couple traveled on an official tour to India, and longtime royal photographer Arthur Edwards shared that Diana tried to pull the wool over his eyes until he captured one photo.

In his new autobiography Cup of Tea, Arthur? My Extraordinary 50 Years Photographing the Royal Family, Edwards wrote that he confronted Princess Diana about the number of solo engagements she’d been taking instead of making appearances with Charles.

“I became so concerned about the amount of time she and Charles were spending apart that, at a cocktail party in Madrid, I asked her to explain,” he wrote in an excerpt shared in the Sun. When Edwards said, ‘What’s this all about you leading separate lives?’" Diana replied, "Oh, that!" and made a joke about rumors in the press.

Edwards wrote that Princess Diana wasn’t upset about his comment, blaming their solo outings on the huge number of invitations they received to make royal visits. “We couldn’t possibly get through many if we did them all together. So, we’ve decided to accept as many as we can separately,” she told the photographer. “That means we can get to twice as many places and meet twice as many people.”

Edwards added that “Diana was her usual jokey self” during the encounter, and he “believed her.” However, when the couple visited India in February 1992, one photo revealed more than words.

“When I am with the Royal Family, I am ­looking for a picture that tells you the story without a caption—a picture that screams out what it is,” Edwards explained.

While visiting the Rajasthan Polo Club, the Sun photographer captured a moment that he said “was screaming at the reader, “Our marriage is in trouble.”

“Prince Charles probably didn’t think it was a great shot when he went to kiss Diana at the polo match in ­Jaipur and she turned her head to produce ‘the kiss that missed,’” he wrote. In the photo, Diana, dressed in a pink and yellow Catherine Walker dress, turns away as Charles awkwardly plants a kiss on the side of her head.

Edwards said, “I recall being in a room with my satphone, trying to find the satellite to send that picture, which I knew would be on page one because it definitely did not need a caption.”