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Much has been written about the beginnings of King Charles and Queen Camilla’s relationship, especially their affair while he was married to Princess Diana. Their romance became one of the biggest royal scandals of the 20th century, and now a former royal bodyguard is discussing what happened on one fateful night in 1987 when Diana confronted her husband’s mistress.
Ken Wharfe, who worked as a protection officer for the princess, told ITV (via the Mirror) that Diana had been invited to a party hosted by Camilla Parker Bowles’s sister, Annabel Elliot—but no one expected she’d actually show up.
“Diana didn’t have any particular friendships at that party but when we arrived there, it was almost like freeze-framing a scene in a movie because there was this surprise that Diana had even arrived,” Wharfe recalled.
Diana herself went on to describe the bash in Andrew Morton’s biography Diana: Her True Story. “I was a total fish out of water. But I decided to try my hardest. I was going to make an impact,” she told the biographer. But apparently, things got awkward about an hour later.
“I went out and there was Diana, who said ‘You’ve got to come with me, I can’t find my husband or Camilla,'” Wharfe told ITV, adding that the princess “was in some distress” and he “couldn’t say no.”
He continued that they “found the Prince and Camilla sat on a sofa in the basement of this property just talking.” Rather than slink away, Diana found the “confidence” to confront Parker Bowles, as the former royal bodyguard recalled.
A side profile of Princess Diana wearing a blue satin gown and diamond necklace
“I didn’t know quite what Diana was going to do at that point but, with a great deal of confidence, Diana just went up to both of them and said to Camilla ‘please don’t treat me like an idiot, I know what’s going on,'” Wharfe told ITV.
During the confrontation, the protection officer admitted that Parker Bowles’s reply to the princess mystified him. “Camilla sort of said something, to which still to this day I have never really understood what she meant by,” Wharfe revealed, explaining that the future queen told Diana, “Well you know, you have two wonderful boys.”
While he wasn’t sure what Camilla meant by her remark, Wharfe shared that the encounter “was an incredible moment for me and certainly for them as well.”
Diana—who divorced Charles in 1996—would later go on to admit in her BBC Panorama interview that “there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” But when it came to that fateful party, Wharfe said it “was a defining moment in their life because I think at that point…this was an indicator the end was nigh.”
