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Piers Morgan has claimed that Diana, Princess of Wales, once told him she had “no regrets” over her explosive 1995 interview with then-BBC journalist Martin Bashir.
In his latest column for The Daily Mail, Mr Morgan took aim at the BBC’s “scandalous behaviour” after an inquiry found that Bashir had used “deceitful” tactics to go about obtaining the interview, while the BBC was accused of covering up his wrongdoing.
“The BBC’s scandalous behaviour over Princess Diana’s Panorama interview is obviously a shameful abuse of public money, and comically hypocritical given how sneering they’ve always been about tabloid Royal scoops and journalistic ethics,” the former Good Morning Britain host said.
“But amid all the entirely justified opprobrium being poured over the heads of the culprits, and especially Martin Bashir, one question many have been asking is whether Diana regretted doing it,” he said, before writing: “The answer is no”.
Mr Morgan, 56, said his belief that Diana held no regrets about the interview was based on a private lunch he said he had with her at Kensington Palace in May 1996 – six months after the interview aired.
He said that as he lunched with Diana, as well as with Prince William, who was 13 at the time, he asked the princess: “Do you regret doing Panorama?”
“‘No,’ she replied, emphatically,” he said.
According to Mr Morgan, Diana said: “‘I have no regrets. I wanted to do it, to put my side over. There has been so much rubbish said and written that it was time people knew the truth.”
However, he said she said she would not do such an interview again.
“’Once is enough. I have done what I set out to do’,” Diana said, according to Mr Morgan.
The former GMB host said he also asked William, who he said was “staring unhappily down at his plate” whether he believed the interview was a good idea.
The young prince said “I’d rather not say,” according to Mr Morgan’s account.
Lord Dyson’s report, published on 20 May, found that Mr Bashir had breached BBC rules by having fake bank statements forged and showing them to Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, in a bid to gain access to his sister.
The documents had falsely suggested that people around the princess were being paid to surveil her.
Meanwhile, the report accused the BBC of having fallen “short of the high standards of integrity and transparency which are its hallmark” in its own internal probe into the matter in 1996.
The report’s findings sparked widespread outcry, with both Prince William and Prince Harry condemning the BBC over an incident they said had an impact on their mother into the final years of her life.
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