Were Prince Charles and Princess Diana Actually in Love Once?

Gettyimages | Princess Diana Archive

Princess Diana and Prince Charles got married in 1981. The wedding was like a fairytale. However, the smiles on the lips of Prince Charles and Princess Diana were not as real as everyone thought they were at the time.

Everyone knows by now that the Prince and Princess of Wales were having a hard time in their marriage almost all throughout it. For one thing, there was a major age difference between the two. She was 18 and he was 30 by the time they got married.

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They also barely knew one another. Charles was also still in love with his ex-girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles. Camilla got married to Andrew Parker Bowles while Charles was off fighting with the Navy.

However, the newly married Prince and Princess of Wales did try to make it work with each other for a while. But, with the Princess being so much younger, being in the spotlight so much, and with how much their personalities clashed, they weren't able to make it work after all.

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Prince William was born to the couple in 1984 and by then, their marriage was hanging on by a thread. However, the couple may have actually been in love with each other once.

In the beginning, Princess Diana admitted to Andrew Morton that she was not impressed by the Prince. After all, she was 18 and he was in his early 30s.

She said, "God what a sad man. I was asked to stay with some friends in Sussex, and they said, ‘Oh, the Prince of Wales is staying,’ and I thought I hadn’t seen him in ages. He’d just broken up with his girlfriend, and his friend Mountbatten had just been killed. I said it would be nice to see him. I was so unimpressed. ”

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The Princess knew her marriage to Charles was over by the time Prince William was born. Charles was having an affair with Camilla by then and although they tried to hide it, it wasn't too long before Diana found out.

In fact, Diana told BBC during an interview in 1995, "There were three of us in the marriage, so it was a bit crowded."

She also told her butler, Paul Burell, the same thing. Paul said about Diana during the channel four documentary, Princess Diana's "wicked" stepmother, "I could see the cracks in the marriage between Charles and Diana getting wider and wider. Diana confided in me that on the night Harry was born, she cried herself to sleep. She says I knew my marriage was over and the Prince told the Princess that his duty was now done, he had provided the country with an heir and a spare and he could now resume his relationship with Ms. Parker Bowles.”

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At the end of her marriage with Charles, the Princess was very disappointed with what happened. The couple never stood a chance in the first place. However, Diana admitted that she did love Charles. Even after their marriage was still over, she told her photographer, Kent Gavin that she still loved him.

Gavin said during the 2013 documentary, Royalty Close Up: The Photography of Kent Gavin, "She said to me after all the rumors of the marriage and everything, she said on a flight somewhere, ‘Kent, you won’t believe it, but I still love him.' Just came out with it, not sponsored, she just said it.”

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Although they had a really rocky marriage almost the entire time they were together, there were a few happy moments between the couple.

Kent said, "One has to remember and recall that there were happy times with Charles and Diana, they were very much in love. The honeymoon pictures – there was a look of love about both of them. That picture [Charles kissing Diana’s hand] just captured everything that that fairytale wedding was about. And there were occasions, again, after that when you just thought that the marriage and this family had everything – and these pictures show that. There really were great days. Of course, people tend to think of the bad days because of the divorce and it all going wrong, but if you look back at all those pictures that we did in the early days, it tells a different story.”