Lady Diana Spencer had an enormous crush on Prince Charles and always dreamt about marrying the future king. “The fact that Diana had pictures of Prince Charles on her wall when she was at boarding school — she had a crush on him when she was a teenager,” Diana documentary director Jemma Chisnall told The Royal Observer . After just six months of dating, Charles and Diana announced their engagement at 11 a.m. on February 24, 1981, with the Lord Chancellor’s involvement. However, the Princess of Wales bore the ‘bitter’ emotional scar from the following awkward BBC interview for the rest of her life. Based on the then-engaged couple’s body language, a Reddit thread described the uncomfortable moment as an awful ‘tragedy’.
“What an absolute tragedy for her. To feel the pain of rejection and live in that sort of marriage is hell enough . Still even worse having to do it in front of the entire world. On top of that, she had to pretend it was wonderful and have children with him. Who wouldn’t be suicidal? I hope she was able to experience real love before her end,” an internet user commented . “He didn’t want to marry her and was told to. He was in love with someone else ( yes we all know who) and that fact that he is married to that person now says a lot,” another person criticized .
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“That awkward silence at the end said it all!” an internet user noted . “I wish she’d walked away from that engagement,” someone chimed . “You really do have to wonder why he truly felt the need to say those words out loud on camera in front of everyone like that… like I would love to ask the man his actual thought process on that. I’m so dumbfounded by this moment in time and I need some sort of explanation god dammit,” a netizen raged .
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According to People , decades later, the late princess recounted how the incident had devastated her. She later claimed that Charles’ infamous comment about the essence of love had ‘traumatized’ her. Diana later claimed that Charles’ infamous comment about the essence of love “traumatized” her. When questioned if the pair was in love, Diana gave a modest response, “Of course,” she said. The Prince of Wales interrupted imprudently, “Whatever in love means,” and glanced clumsily at the ground. After proposing to Diana at a private luncheon at Buckingham Palace three weeks earlier, Charles disclosed during the interview that they had successfully kept the engagement a secret.
Charles further made known during the interview that he wanted to give Diana time to think about her response while on a scheduled vacation to Australia. However, she agreed immediately to the proposal and left her Kensington flat where she shared a room with roommates to live in Clarence House until their big day arrived. Diana called her soon-to-be husband “pretty amazing”, while the Prince of Wales claimed he was “delighted and frankly amazed” that she was willing to take him on.
When Diana and Charles got engaged she was 19 years old, an adolescent thrust onto the world stage. Charles was a 32 year old adult man. So imagine how she felt when her fiancé was asked, are you in love? And he replied, “whatever love means.” The whole world heard. pic.twitter.com/SaQtFyVmx3
— Dr Charlotte Proudman (@DrProudman) May 8, 2023
Diana wore a 12-karat oval blue sapphire engagement ring which was sourced from Sri Lanka. It had an 18-karat white gold setting and was encircled with diamonds. The design of the ring was based on a brooch that Prince Albert had commissioned for Queen Victoria in 1840; it was not custom-made.
TV interviewer: Charles, do you love Diana? Charles: Whatever that means. He said that on TV in front of the world just after they’d gotten engaged. He assaulted the idea of love in front of millions. He deserves a good egging for that. #KingCharlesTheCruel
— Patricia Schwarz, PhD (@TessEractica) November 9, 2022
On July 29, 1981, Charles and Diana were married in front of 3,500 guests at St. Paul’s Cathedral, with almost 750 million people watching the royal union on television worldwide.