By the time Princess Diana and Prince Charles arrived in Seoul, South Korea in November 1992, their marriage was already in tatters—but it was on that ill-fated royal tour that the true state of their relationship became impossible to hide. With icy body language, awkward photo ops and zero affection between them, the prince and princess put their fractured marriage on display for the world's media to see. What was meant to be a diplomatic visit to strengthen the U.K.'s ties to South Korea ended up as a disaster—earning Charles and Diana the nickname of "The Glums" during their trip and leading to their official separation a month later.
As the Daily Mail noted, the four-day royal tour was "dubbed the 'Togetherness Tour,'" designed to ease public concerns about the state of Charles and Diana's marriage. But at one point, Diana refused to even attend.
Charles's biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby, wrote in The Prince of Wales: A Biography that Diana "unexpectedly announced that she was not prepared to go" to South Korea. It was only when Queen Elizabeth got involved that Diana agreed to take part in the tour.
Diana and Charles are pictured at the National Cemetery in Seoul on November 2, 1992.
Diana and Charles are seen during on November 3, 1992 during a visit with South Korean President Roh Tae-woo and his wife Kim Ok-suk.
It's no wonder she didn't want to attend, because at that point, Diana and Charles were already planning to separate. Biographer Andrew Morton wrote in his book Diana: Her True Story—In Her Own Words that by the time they went to Seoul, "separation negotiations had reached a critical stage and the princess was in no mood to continue the hollow charade."
As Morton noted, Diana was "determined to show the world what was really going on" and not pretend. In short, it worked. In his Prince Charles biography, Dimbleby called the trip a "dreadful experience." As Diana and Charles stood miserably next to each other, the world saw "the marriage was a sham and the couple had come to loathe one another's presence," he wrote.
The prince and princess are pictured at a state banquet on November 3, 1992.
The photos and videos from the trip were so depressing, in fact, that the media started calling the couple "The Glums." Former palace press secretary Dickie Arbiter told the Daily Mail that Charles and Diana "were the epitome of Mr. and Mrs. Glum—her expression pinched and pale, his rigid and morose. Their body language was so hostile it was as if they could have killed each other with a single glance."
Photographer Jayne Fincher once told the media outlet that during a state banquet held in the couple's honor, Diana's "makeup was patchy" and her eyes were red. "You could tell she’d been crying her eyes out, she looked awful. My heart went out to her."
After the "dreadful" tour, it came as little surprise that the couple was officially calling it quits. About a month later, on December 9, 1992, Prime Minister John Major read a statement announcing that Prince Charles and Princess Diana had decided to separate.
