Why Princess Diana Was ‘Damaged’ And Always Felt Unwanted

Princess Diana, the Princess of Wales, had a very tumultuous marriage, and because of this, she gained the sympathy of the media and the public. She made known to everyone the difficulties she had experienced upon entering the royal family, much to the dismay of her in-laws. To top it off, her own husband, Prince Charles, was having an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, making it quite clear that she was not really wanted.

Her problems did not start there, however, as her feeling of being out of place seems to have stemmed from her own family. According to sources, her father and mother — Earl John Spencer and Lady Frances Shand Kydd — had wanted a baby boy for quite some time and were alleged to be quite disappointed when Diana, as a baby, turned out to be a girl. The family had been anticipating a male heir, and as the third girl, Diana allegedly felt unwanted.

According to some fans who have been looking into their family situation, Diana as a baby was not unwanted, but her gender made her unfavorable. “She was supposed to have been a boy,” said one fan. “The Spencers needed a male heir,” she continued.

“No, she wasn’t an unwanted baby, she was just born the wrong sex,” explained another. “Her parents had two daughters before her and desperately wanted a son, so that on her father’s death he would inherit the Earldom.”

To make matters worse, her parents’ marriage fell apart, leading to a divorce that weighed heavily on the young Diana. In the 2018 television documentary program “The Royal House Of Windsor,” narrator Gwilym Lee recounted how Diana felt when Lady Frances gave up her children following the divorce.

“A witness to her parents’ acrimonious divorce, she and her siblings were the subjects of a bitter custody battle,” Lee said. “As a result, Diana’s mother had to give up her children. Diana later admitted she had been haunted by the crunch of the gravel as her mother departed.”

This, Lee explained, contributed to Diana’s “neediness,” which ended up affecting her marriage in the future. Royal biographer Penny Junor explained that her parents’ divorce coupled with the pressure caused by entering the royal family was the “worst possible scenario” for the Princess of Wales.

“She was damaged, mentally, by her experiences,” Junor said. “And then moving into the royal family was the worst possible scenario that she could have found for herself.”