Prince Charles Married Princess Diana But Not Out Of Love

Prince Charles’ marriage to Princess Diana was dubbed then as the fairy-tale wedding of the century. However, that perfect wedding resulted in divorce just a decade later. There were actually hints that trouble loomed on the horizon even before the royal couple got married.

Prince Charles’ Surprising Answer

One major clue that revealed Prince Charles’ real feelings for Princess Diana actually came from his own mouth. In one of the tapes recorded by Peter Settleten, Diana’s tutor, between 1992 and 1993, Diana narrated that on the day of the announcement of her and Prince Charles’ engagement, someone asked them in an interview, “Are you in love?”

‘Yes, of course, we are,” Diana quickly answered. But then Prince Charles turned around and added, “Whatever in love means.”

“That threw me completely,” Diana told Settleten. “I thought what a strange question and answer. God. Absolutely traumatized me.” While the question unsettled Princess Diana, she said she was frightened to confront him about his surprising answer.

They Only Met 13 Times Before They Got Married

One possible reason that Prince Charles did not really get to develop feelings for Diana is that they did not really get to know each other for a long time. Diana first met Charles in 1977, when he was still dating her older sister. However, she later revealed that she hadn’t been with the prince that much at all until their marriage in 1981.

“We met 13 times before we got married (laughs),” Princess Diana told Settleten. She also recalled that Charles was not the consistent type of suitor. “He wasn’t consistent with his courting abilities. He’d ring me up every day for a week and then he wouldn’t speak to me for three weeks, very odd,” she revealed to Settleten.

Prince Charles Had His Doubts

Even Prince Charles had his doubts about whether marrying Diana was the right thing to do. In fact, it came to a point where he even entertained the possibility of calling off their wedding.

“I desperately wanted to get out of the wedding in 1981, when during the engagement I discovered just how awful the prospects were,” Charles told his friends. Despite knowing their incompatibility, he ultimately decided to go ahead with their doomed marriage as he felt that the consequences of breaking off their engagement would be “cataclysmic.”

Charles Still Loved Camilla

But perhaps the biggest reason why Prince Charles could not give his heart fully to Princess Diana was that he was still deeply in love with Camilla, whom he dated in 1970. Diana already felt this to be the case and later revealed this in a 1995 BBC interview. “Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” she said.