Princes William and Harry pressed for higher standards in the news media following a BBC investigation that found the journalist Martin Bashir used “deceitful behavior” to secure a landmark interview with Diana, Princess of wales.
William, Duke of Cambridge, said it brought him “indescribable sadness” to know that lies presented to his mother contributed to the “fear, paranoia and isolation” that plagued her in the years prior to her death.
“But what saddens me most, is that if the BBC had properly investigated the complaints and concerns first raised in 1995, my mother would have known that she had been deceived,” he said.
An independent report published Thursday after a monthslong probe found that Bashir acted inappropriately and breached the publicly funded broadcaster’s editorial guidelines in order to gain access to the royal, who famously told him in the November 1995 interview that “there were three of us in this marriage.”
The line referred to her husband, Prince Charles, having an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, whom he would go on to marry in 2005, eight years after Diana’s death in a car crash in August 1997.
