Prince Charles' Proposal To Diana Was Far From Romantic— And Her Reaction Was Just Priceless

When Prince Charles started pursuing Lady Diana in 1981, he was under a lot of pressure to find a suitable bride. They had only met 13 times before he unromantically proposed to her. Ingrid Seward, the editor of Majesty Magazine, revealed in the 2019 documentary Charles and Di: The Truth Behind Their Wedding that Diana was least impressed with Charles' impromptu proposal and 'burst out laughing'. "In response to Charles asking for her hand in marriage? Diana “burst out laughing,” Seward said. “I think that was probably just her nerves. She didn’t think it was the most romantic of proposals, but she had the proposal.”

According to Marie Claire, when Diana arrived at Windsor Castle on the fateful day, she was barely 19 years old and had no inkling that the future king, who was 32, would pop the question. Charles greeted her and confessed that he had "missed her so much" before taking her into the nursery, where he proposed. Seward explained that he picked that specific area "because the nursery is like a home." Diana provided more information on Charles' proposal in a subsequent interview, saying. “He said ‘Do you realize that one day you’ll be Queen?’ And I said, "I love you so much, I love you so much." He said ‘Whatever love means.’ He said it then. So, I thought, that was great. I thought he meant it.”

“Prince Charles didn’t pick her up in his arms and embrace or do any of the things we might do when we propose marriage to the one that we love,” royal biographer Christopher Wilson elaborated. “He rang his mum, simply to say ‘There, I’ve done it now. You’ve asked me to get married to somebody, and I’ve fixed it.’ What he’d done was, he’d finally found a wife.” In Andrew Morton's Diana: Her True Story, Diana herself attested to this phone conversation with the Queen, recalling that "a voice said to me inside", ‘You won’t be Queen, but you will have a tough role,’” she said. Then, she remembered, “he [Charles] ran upstairs and rang his mother.” 

According to People, the late Princess of Wales' astrologer Penny Thornton revealed in ITV's 2020 documentary The Diana Interview: Revenge of a Princess, that Charles had confessed he didn't love her the night before their fairy-tale wedding. "One of the most shocking things that Diana told me was that the night before the wedding, Charles told her that he didn't love her," Thornton said. "I think Charles didn't want to go into the wedding on a false premise. He wanted to square it with her, and it was devastating for Diana." She added, "She didn't want to go through with the wedding at that point; she thought about not attending the wedding." The ex-royal couple separated in December 1992 and finalized their divorce in August 1996, Diana tragically lost her life in a car accident in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997.