Documentary analyses Princess Diana’s reaction to Prince Charles’s ‘whatever in love means’ comment

Newly unearthed footage of Prince Charles and Diana’s infamous engagement interview has emerged, showing the Princess of Wales looking ‘clearly dissatisfied’ after her husband-to-be’s comments asking if the couple were ‘in love’.  

On February 24, 1981, after months of speculation, a 32-year-old Charles who had long ‘needed’ to find a bride was marrying an excited 19-year-old then known as Lady Diana Spencer.

When they were asked – at the Buckingham Palace photo call – whether they loved each other, Charles’s response to Diana’s ‘of course’ was the unforgettable: ‘Whatever in love means.’

The clip usually cuts off immediately after Charles’ comment, but new footage, airing on Channel 5 on Sunday, shows the royal’s face drop and show clear dissatisfaction at Charles’ blunder. 

Royal experts have said the footage is ‘shocking’  and ‘incredible’ forty years later.

‘The expression on her face is so eloquent. 

‘I’ve never seen her show, so clearly, dissatisfaction with him on camera before, it’s a most remarkable piece of footage,’ royal historian Piers Brendon tells the documentary. 

‘It’s incredible looking at that now, I haven’t seen it before,’ writer Richard Kay adds.

‘The silence between the two of them pays terribly heavily,’ he added.

Newly unearthed footage of Prince Charles and Diana’s infamous engagement interview has emerged, showing the Princess of Wales looking ‘clearly dissatisfied’ after her husband-to-be’s comments asking if the couple were ‘in love’.

Royal biographer Angela Levin said that the interview was one of the early signs showing the difference and potential problems between the Spencers and Windsors.

‘Diana really couldn’t be a Spencer and show what she felt she had to be a Windsor, to keep it all under wraps,’ she said.

‘Charles was baffled as to how to answer a question that was about his emotions. 

‘Don’t forget he had been brought up by the Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh to hide what they felt,’ she added.  

On February 24, 1981, after months of speculation, a 32-year-old Charles who had long 'needed' to find a bride was marrying an excited 19-year-old then known as Lady Diana Spencer. When they were asked - at the Buckingham Palace photo call - whether they loved each other, Charles's response to Diana's 'of course' was the unforgettable: 'Whatever in love means.'

On February 24, 1981, after months of speculation, a 32-year-old Charles who had long ‘needed’ to find a bride was marrying an excited 19-year-old then known as Lady Diana Spencer. When they were asked – at the Buckingham Palace photo call – whether they loved each other, Charles’s response to Diana’s ‘of course’ was the unforgettable: ‘Whatever in love means.’

‘You can actually see the light go out behind her eyes, she felt almost a world collapse,’ Diana’s biographer Andrew Morton added. 

It comes as a clip of Princess Diana‘s infamous interview with Martin Bashir in which she discusses feeling ‘unsupported’ by the royal ‘establishment’ has resurfaced and sparked comparisons to Meghan Markle’s bombshell sit-down with Oprah Winfrey

The Duchess of Sussex told the chat show host she ‘couldn’t be left alone’ and confessed she ‘didn’t want to be alive anymore’ before claiming the Buckingham Palace HR department ignored her plea for help because she wasn’t a ‘paid employee’.

The clip usually cuts off immediately after Charles' comment, but new footage, airing on Channel 5 on Sunday, shows the royal's face drop and show clear dissatisfaction at Charles' blunder (pictured)

The clip usually cuts off immediately after Charles’ comment, but new footage, airing on Channel 5 on Sunday, shows the royal’s face drop and show clear dissatisfaction at Charles’ blunder (pictured)

She claimed she was ‘silenced’ by Buckingham Palace officials, who told her to always answer ‘no comment’ because they would ‘protect’ her, adding: ‘It was only once we were married and everything started to really worsen that I came to understand that not only was I not being protected but that they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family, but they weren’t willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband.’

Meghan told Oprah she later reached out to one of Dian’a’s best friends because she felt unsupported by the palace, and said Harry had ‘saved [her] life’ by agreeing to move to Los Angeles.

After the two-hour Oprah interview aired in the US on CBS on Sunday, American filmmaker Ava DuVernay shared a clip from Diana’s 1995 interview with BBC Panorama to Twitter.

A resurfaced clip of Princess Diana's infamous interview with Martin Bashir in which she discusses feeling 'unsupported' by the royal 'establishment' has sparked comparisons to Meghan Markle's bombshell sit-down with Oprah Winfrey

A resurfaced clip of Princess Diana’s infamous interview with Martin Bashir in which she discusses feeling ‘unsupported’ by the royal ‘establishment’ has sparked comparisons to Meghan Markle’s bombshell sit-down with Oprah Winfrey

The Duchess of Sussex told the chat show host she 'couldn't be left alone' and confessed she 'didn't want to be alive anymore' before claiming the Buckingham Palace HR department ignored her plea for help because she wasn't a 'paid employee'

The Duchess of Sussex told the chat show host she ‘couldn’t be left alone’ and confessed she ‘didn’t want to be alive anymore’ before claiming the Buckingham Palace HR department ignored her plea for help because she wasn’t a ‘paid employee’

In it, the Princess of Wales explains why she felt ‘the establishment’ she married into had ‘decided that [she’s] a non-starter’ – because she did things ‘differently’.

Prince Harry’s mother told journalist Martin Bashir: ‘Because I do things differently, because I don’t go by a rule book, because I lead from the heart, not the head, and albeit that’s got me into trouble in my work, I understand that. But someone’s got to go out there and love people and show it.’ 

She adds that she suspects she doesn’t have ‘as many supporters in that environment as I did’ because the Royal Family saw her as a ‘threat of some kind’, despite the fact she is ‘here to do good’ and is ‘not a destructive person’.

When the Spencers Met the Monarchy, Saturday 13th at 9pm on Channel 5