Five hours of secret recordings Princess Diana made about the collapse of her marriage to Prince Charles will be heard publicly for the first time in a three-episode television series set to air on the 30th anniversary of her death. The series, titled "Diana: The Unheard Truth," is scheduled for August 31, 2027, and filming has already begun.
Since Diana's death, less than one hour of the tapes has reached the public. The rest has sat unheard for more than three decades. That changes with this production, which the Daily Mail reported is a collaboration between Love Monday TV, author Andrew Morton, and Dr. James Colthurst, the friend who originally helped Diana smuggle the recordings out of Kensington Palace in 1991.
The tapes are the raw material behind Morton's 1992 book, "Diana: Her True Story," which caused a scandal when it was published. Buckingham Palace denied any involvement. The Archbishop of Canterbury condemned it. Some bookshops refused to stock it. But the book endured, because the voice on those tapes was unmistakably Diana's, and what she described was a marriage in ruins after ten years.
Diana made the recordings secretly in 1991. Dr. Colthurst, her friend, handled the logistics, taping the sessions and delivering the cassettes to Morton. The content reportedly covers Diana's account of meeting Charles, the arc of their relationship, and its disintegration. She is also understood to discuss other members of the Royal Family, including Queen Camilla, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and Sarah Ferguson.
Morton, who told the Daily Mail in 2022 that he listened to the original tapes "with mounting astonishment," has described Diana's state of mind during the recording sessions in stark terms:
"Diana had a nagging fear that, at any moment, her enemies in the Palace would have her classified as mentally ill and locked away."
That fear, Morton wrote, drove Diana to act. She wanted the full story of her life on the record, not filtered through palace courtiers or tabloid speculation.
"Where to turn? It had dawned on her that unless the full story of her life was told, the public would never understand the reasons behind anything she decided to do."
The recordings were not a momentary impulse. Diana tested Morton first, according to his own account. She had Colthurst feed him small pieces of information, which Morton turned into news stories. Only after she was satisfied did she agree to the full taping sessions. As Morton told Newsmax, "She gradually started testing me out by allowing Colthurst to give me snippets of information, which I turned into news stories. Sometime later, she asked him: 'Does Andrew want an interview?'"
When "Diana: Her True Story" landed in 1992, the reaction was immediate and fierce. The palace distanced itself. The Church weighed in. But the public sided with Diana. Morton later described the shift in sympathy that followed publication.
"It soon became apparent that the book really was Diana's true story, and the princess quickly began to receive the kind of support that always meant so much to her."
Letters poured in, Morton said, "many from people who had suffered with eating disorders themselves." Diana's candor about bulimia, her emotional struggles, and the loneliness of royal life connected with ordinary people in a way that palace press offices never could. The quiet rituals and insider tests that defined royal life were suddenly laid bare by someone who had lived through them and found them suffocating.
Morton has maintained that Diana never looked back on her decision with regret. "She never regretted the taping sessions," he said. "And in the last five years of her life, the world witnessed the flowering of her humanitarian spirit."
The three-episode series will go well beyond the fragments of tape that have previously surfaced. "Diana: The Unheard Truth" will draw on the full five hours of recordings and supplement them with interviews from people in Diana's circle, some of whom have never spoken on camera.
Among those set to appear: Delissa Needham, a prep school classmate of Diana's who has not previously given on-camera interviews; Sam McKnight, Diana's hairdresser; and Penny Thornton, described as a confidant. Morton and Colthurst are also involved in the production through their partnership with Love Monday TV.
Previous documentary efforts have used portions of the tapes. A 2017 project and a later production titled "Diana: The Rest of Her Story" both drew on the Morton recordings. In excerpts released from those projects, Diana called her marriage to Charles "ridiculous" and described his reported disappointment that Prince Harry was not a girl. The New York Post reported Diana's own words on the tapes: "It was so grown up. Here's Diana, a kindergarten teacher. I mean the whole thing was ridiculous."
The emotional weight of those recordings has not diminished with time. Author Christopher Andersen, commenting on earlier tape releases, told Fox News Digital that the tapes "are a haunting reminder" of Diana's private anguish and "her urgency to have her voice heard." The new series will presumably deliver far more of that voice than the public has encountered before.
Buckingham Palace has not commented on the upcoming series. The institution's posture toward Diana-related media has been one of studied distance for decades. When Morton's book first appeared, the palace's denial of involvement was swift but ultimately unconvincing.
The timing of the release, pegged to the 30th anniversary of Diana's death on August 31, 2027, ensures maximum public attention. It also lands during a period of ongoing tension within the House of Windsor. King Charles has faced questions about the financial fallout from Prince Andrew's legal settlement and has moved to address Andrew's standing in the line of succession.
Diana's tapes reportedly touch on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, which means the series could revive uncomfortable conversations the palace would prefer to leave buried. Charles himself has navigated a careful public rehabilitation over the past decade, including a state visit to the United States and efforts to modernize the monarchy's image.
Whether the palace can maintain its silence once the full tapes air is another matter. Diana recorded her account for a reason. She wanted it heard, not in fragments, not through intermediaries, but in full. Morton understood that. "Diana's own words reveal the raw pain and unhappiness she felt inside the royal family," he has said.
Several details remain unclear. No network or streaming platform has been publicly named as the broadcaster. It is not yet known which portions of the five hours will make the final cut, or whether any direct quotes from the tapes themselves will be released ahead of the air date. The location of filming has not been disclosed.
What is clear is that the people closest to the recordings, Morton and Colthurst, have chosen to bring them forward now, three decades after Diana's death. The monarchy has its own internal pressures to manage. The tapes add another.
Diana wanted the truth told on her terms. Thirty years later, it appears she may finally get that, five hours at a time.
