Prince William, Harry and Charles receive formal apology over the controversies created in the interview with Princess Diana

The interview in 1995 that happened with Princess Diana left a lot of chaos behind which is now cleared by BBC which had aired the interview at that time.

Updated on July 25, 2022 12:56 PM by Sally Harbor

The historical controversy

BBC has issued an formal apology to Prince Charles, Prince William, and Prince Harry over Princess Diana’s infamous interview with journalist Martin Bashir which happened over three decades ago and was historical.

Years later Tim Davie, who is the Director General of BBC, released an apology statement via the network's website on Thursday. The apology has been issued after more than a year after an independent investigation had looked into the tactics used by Martin Bashir to secure Princess Diana’s “Panorama” interview of 1995.

The Apologies In the statement, the Director General wrote about how the matter is of unfortunate regret that BBC could not get the facts straight immediately after the aftermath of the program when there were warning signs that the interview might have been obtained using illegal ways.

Duke of Cambridge is always right

Tim Davie also mentioned the Duke of Cambridge in his statement and said that the Duke was right when he said that BBC failed to ask the tough questions. He said that if they would have done their jobs properly, Princess Diana would know the truth during her lifetime.

He apologized for letting the royal family and Princess Diana down. No more He also added in his statement that now the shocking truth has been found out, the show will not be aired anymore on the network nor will the network license it in whole or parts to other broadcasters.

The reason the apology came right after Tiggy Legge-Bourke, who was a childhood nanny of Prince William and Prince Harry, won a defamation case against the broad network BBC in the London High Court on Thursday.

The winnings

The 50 above firmer royal caretakers sued the network over claims based on the 1995 interview that she had an interview with Prince Charles and also received a substantial amount from the network in return.

All publicly Tim Davie in his statement mentioned that he would like to publicly apologize to Princess Diana, The Prince of Whales, and to the Duke of Cambridge and Sussex, for the way Princess Diana was deceived which led to a subsequent impact on their lives.

Part of the historical records

But along with the apology, the Director General also mentioned that the interview will remain in the historical records but there might be some occasions in the future when it will be justified for the network to use short extracts for journalistic purposes which will be only a few times and will also be needed to agree upon by the Executive Committee level.

The 1995 interview In the interview which took place in1995, Princess Diana opened up about her battle with Bulimia, which is a type of eating disorder, and also shared some details about her tense marriage with Prince Charles. The former couple had separated in 1992 and finalized their divorce in 1996 which was one year before the Princess of Wales was killed in a car crash in Paris.

The investigation

In November 2020, BBC announced that they had appealed to the former British Supreme Court Judge John Dyson to start an independent investigation into the 1995 interview. To which the findings came out to be that the journalist, Bashir had acted in a deceitful way and fabricated documents including bank statements to obtain the interview from the Princess.

Bashir had shown the documents to her brother, Earl Spencer so that he would introduce him to his sister.

The reception Both Prince Harry and Prince William have received letters of apology from the BBC over their journalist’s conduct and subsequent cover-up 25 years later.

In response to the findings of the investigation, the Duke of Sussex revealed that his mother was exploited while the Duke of Cambridge told that the Princess was failed by a rogue reporter and asked for the interview to never be aired again on the network.