Diana: Her True Story, which revealed the details of her troubled marriage to Prince Charles, was a publishing phenomenon that drastically altered the public’s perception of the princess in the 1990s. With the help of her friend, psychiatrist Dr. James Colthurst, Princess Diana’s private life was exposed in this project, which included bombshells about the Princess’s mental health, extramarital affairs, and Charles and Diana’s wedding day (opens in new tab).
Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Morton is essentially an autobiography. It’s because Diana gave Morton her own personal cassette recordings, from which he compiled the details in the book.
Audiences were stunned by the book’s revelations about Princess Diana’s battle with bulimia nervosa and her five failed suicide attempts brought on by her emotional distress. Additionally, it brought attention to the affair between Diana’s husband Charles and his current wife, Camilla Parker Bowles.
It is stated in the book’s acknowledgements that Morton couldn’t have written “this biography’s unique story contained within its pages” without the full cooperation of Diana, the late Princess of Wales.
After Diana’s untimely passing, the book was reissued to include her contributions to Andrew Morton’s novel. Since its rebranding in October 1997, it has been known as Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words and is considered Diana’s closest thing to an autobiography. The new edition of the book features both edited transcripts of Diana’s tapes and written questions posed by Morton.
Since Diana had always denied working together in life, Morton was criticized for acknowledging her participation in the project after her death. When asked about this on the ITV show Richard & Judy in 1997, Morton said, “I’ve got a responsibility to people out there who want to understand Diana.”