Princess Diana Relied on One "Mother Confessor" For Comfort and Friendship Amid Her Affair With Married Art Dealer

Princess Diana often commented on feeling isolated within the Royal Family, so it's no wonder she turned to her circle of friends for support. In her recent Substack post titled "Princess Diana and Her Mother Confessor," veteran royal journalist and biographer Sally Bedell Smith shared how the late princess had a group of "surrogate mothers" as friends, including Elsa Bowker, a woman in her eighties who bonded with Diana. Bowker was the wife of diplomat Sir Reginald James Bowker and became a close confidant to the princess, bearing witness to the details of Diana's affair with married art dealer Oliver Hoare.

Citing her 1999 book Diana in Search of Herself, Bedell Smith wrote, "Diana’s mother figures were anywhere from twenty to fifty years her senior" and "included Lady Annabel Goldsmith, Lucia Flecha de Lima, Hayat Palumbo, and Elsa Bowker—formidable women in their own right, but all living outside the conventional world in which Diana had been raised." Bowker was particularly close to the royal, as Bedell Smith noted.

According to the biographer, "Elisabeth, Baroness Ampthill, a friend of Diana’s family who had known her since her childhood" described Bowker as "an old lady" who had formed a relationship with the princess "in the later part of Diana's grown-up life." The baroness added, "She was extremely close, incredibly close. They used to laugh a lot, see each other all the time, more than anyone else I could mention."

Bedell Smith met with Bowker several times, who told the biographer that Diana "would pour out private things" and told her "so many intimate things." Among these confessions included her love affair with Hoare, who was a friend of Prince Charles and also a connection of Bowker's.

Bowker recalled that Diana became distressed when Hoare "told Diana he had to leave because he had to see his daughter, who had a fever."

"She suspected he was really going to see his wife, and nothing he said could convince her otherwise," Diana's friend shared. "She was very suspicious and mistrustful. They were in the car, and at one point she was so upset that she opened the door as if to jump out." Eventually the princess "did jump out, leaving behind her bag and her money and everything," Bowker said, sharing that Hoare "drove all over London for three hours and finally found Diana in the park near Kensington Palace, lying down and weeping."

After Hoare refused to leave his wife, Diana reportedly called his home over and over, recounting in her BBC Panorama interview (via PBS) that she called the art dealer "over a period of six to nine months, a few times, but certainly not in an obsessive manner, no."

"I was reputed to have made 300 telephone calls in a very short space of time which, bearing in mind my lifestyle at that time, made me a very busy lady," Diana said.