The BBC destroyed Princess Diana's life with lies and manipulation.
A bombshell revelation just exposed what she really thought about that infamous interview.
And Princess Diana's friend revealed one heartbreaking regret she carried to her grave.
Diana's final confession about Prince William and Prince Harry
Rosa Monckton took one last vacation with Princess Diana in Greece during August 1997.
Diana made a devastating admission during what would be their final time together.
"She told me she regretted doing it because of the harm she thought it had done to her boys," Monckton told PEOPLE Magazine.¹
Diana wasn't talking about what she revealed to the world in the 1995 Panorama interview with journalist Martin Bashir.
She regretted how the interview affected Prince William and Prince Harry.
Diana discussed her bulimia and self-harm struggles on camera, admitted to her affair with military officer James Hewitt, and delivered the famous line about Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles: "There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."
About 200 million people across the globe watched Diana bare her soul.
But Diana died without knowing the truth — Bashir had used forged bank statements and outright lies to manipulate her into doing the interview.
"She was frail and that made her susceptible to Bashir," Monckton explained, adding that Diana "kept it all in" because Bashir told her she couldn't talk about the interview preparations.²
Diana believed Bashir was honest with her right up until her death.
Journalist spent 20 years exposing BBC's massive cover-up
Andy Webb dedicated nearly two decades to uncovering the full truth behind the Panorama scandal.
His new book Dianarama: Deception, Entrapment, Cover-Up — The Betrayal of Princess Diana exposes the shocking extent of Bashir's manipulation and the BBC's decades-long cover-up.
Webb battled the BBC in court using Freedom of Information requests to force the release of thousands of documents — though many remain heavily redacted.
Bashir didn't just forge bank statements to convince Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, that royal employees were spying on Diana.
He fed Diana a web of lies designed to isolate her from everyone she trusted.
Bashir told Diana that Prince Charles wanted her killed, that Prince William's watch had been turned into a spying device, that Prince Edward had AIDS, and that Charles had gotten the nanny pregnant and forced her to get an abortion.³
"Her life became untethered," Webb told PEOPLE. "It was frenzied between the interview and her death."⁴
Diana fired her trusted private secretary Patrick Jephson in January 1997 because Bashir convinced her he was betraying her.
She dismissed police protection after her divorce in August 1996 because she believed the lies about surveillance.
Diana's spiritual healer Simone Simmons told Webb she holds Bashir fully responsible for what happened in Paris.
"If it wasn't for him, she would still be alive," Simmons said.⁵
Prince William left in tears after watching the broadcast
The interview devastated 13-year-old Prince William just two months into his first term at Eton College.
Queen Elizabeth was so concerned about her grandson that she told palace insiders she feared William "might have a nervous breakdown," according to author Tina Brown.⁶
William's housemaster found him "slumped on the sofa, his eyes red with tears" after watching the broadcast, author Robert Lacey reported.⁷
William barely spoke to Diana afterward — he felt betrayed that she hadn't warned him properly and embarrassed that she made such personal confessions on national television.
Prince Harry, who was 11 at the time, refused to watch the interview at all.
A 2021 inquiry led by Lord Dyson finally exposed Bashir's deception.
Both princes issued devastating statements condemning the BBC.
"The interview was a major contribution to making my parents' relationship worse and has since hurt countless others," William said. "It brings indescribable sadness to know that the BBC's failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her."⁸
Prince Harry directly connected Bashir's manipulation to Diana's death.
"Our mother lost her life because of this," Harry declared.⁹
Webb's book reveals that William remains convinced the BBC is still hiding something — and he has "people on the case" to uncover the full truth.
"It's an open wound which will not heal" for the future King, according to Webb's sources close to Prince William.¹⁰
Earl Spencer told Webb that Diana would still be alive if she'd been warned about Bashir's deception.
"I think she'd have had a much more secure team around her as she progressed into that phase of her life," Spencer explained. The interview left "her exposed when she needed proper safety."¹¹
BBC executives knew Bashir was a fraud but protected him anyway
BBC executives knew about Bashir's forgeries within months of the interview airing — and deliberately covered it up.
In April 1996, BBC graphic designer Matt Wiessler revealed that Bashir had him create the fake bank statements.
When confronted, Bashir admitted to the forgery but lied to managers, claiming he never showed the documents to anyone.
Only when it became impossible to hide did Bashir confess he'd shown the forgeries to Earl Spencer.
Instead of warning Diana she'd been manipulated by a fraud, the BBC launched what was later condemned as a "woefully ineffective" internal review that cleared Bashir of wrongdoing.
BBC executives prioritized protecting the corporation's reputation over telling Diana the truth.
"BBC bosses knew enough to warn Diana that she had been dealing with a fraudster," Webb wrote. "Her life would have followed a different path if she'd been warned."¹²
The cover-up lasted 25 years.
Senior BBC executive Tony Hall — who later became Director-General — wrote internal memos in 1996 that deliberately obscured what happened.
Hall even punished whistleblower Matt Wiessler instead of Bashir, ensuring Wiessler would "not work for the BBC again."¹³
Earl Spencer believes the BBC's deception created the conditions that led to Diana's death in Paris.
"There is a line that can be drawn between Panorama and Paris," Spencer told Webb, because Diana had been manipulated into pushing away the people who could have protected her.¹⁴
The BBC has paid substantial damages to multiple people Bashir lied about — including £100,000 to Patrick Jephson and £200,000 to nanny Alexandra Pettifer.¹⁵
But no amount of money can undo the damage done to Diana, William, and Harry.
Attorney General Pam Bondi should be launching a criminal investigation into whether Bashir's forgeries and the BBC's cover-up constitute racketeering under RICO statutes.
If Earl Spencer is right that there's a direct connection between the Panorama deception and Diana's death, the BBC's executives who protected Bashir should be facing charges for their role in one of the greatest scandals in broadcasting history.
¹ Simon Perry and Erin Hill, "Princess Diana Revealed a Private 'Regret' About Prince William and Prince Harry 10 Days Before Her Death," PEOPLE Magazine, November 24, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ "Shocking New Claims About Diana's Panorama Interview," Cosmopolitan, November 22, 2025.
⁴ Perry and Hill, PEOPLE Magazine.
⁵ "Princess Diana's Friend Says She Holds BBC's Martin Bashir 'Fully Responsible' for Royal's Death," Marie Claire, November 20, 2025.
⁶ "Queen Elizabeth Feared Prince William 'Might Have a Nervous Breakdown' After Diana's Panorama Interview," Marie Claire, November 19, 2025.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ "Prince Harry says 'our mother lost her life because of this' after investigation into Diana's 1995 BBC interview," CBS News, May 21, 2021.
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ "The BBC's Princess Diana 'Panorama' Coverup Is 'An Open Wound Which Will Not Heal' for Prince William," Marie Claire, November 20, 2025.
¹¹ "Princess Diana's Friend Says She Holds BBC's Martin Bashir 'Fully Responsible' for Royal's Death," Marie Claire, November 20, 2025.
¹² "How Princess Diana Was Betrayed: New Revelations Expose 'Panorama' Interview Lies," Yahoo News, November 24, 2025.
¹³ "BBC's Diana Cover-Up Exposed: How Martin Bashir's Lies Were Concealed for 25 Years," Brit Brief, November 2025.
¹⁴ "Prince William's quest for the truth over 'tragic betrayal' of Princess Diana," HELLO!, November 24, 2025.
¹⁵ "An Interview with HRH The Princess of Wales," Wikipedia, November 2025.