BBC Martin Bashir - Diana shocked.

[justasking111]

The more that comes out about the panorama interview and the way things were invented/forged. Bank statements, telephone records, stories about the family to encourage Diana to talk to Bashir. I just cannot believe what is emerging from this, things that would have influenced me if I had been Diana and no-one verified it independently.

*Oh I'm sure MJ would have loved going to Africa to "visit the children" hmm

Please don't compare this to the MJ interview.*

Well the OP wondered how Bashir handled the MJ interview so I answered-it shows a pattern of behaviour and deception that this guy will do anything to get an interview, regardless of anyone's feelings regarding MJ, Bashir is despicable.

There's a lot of re-writing of history going on here and a false narrative being created. Yes, Bashir manipulated Diana, isn't that why people in her position are taught not to trust the media?

Diana fired the first shot by collaborating with Andrew Morton. Charles hit back and that possibly, lead to her trusting Bashir when she shouldn't have. William is desperately looking for someone to blame for his mother's death but in reality it was tragic accident, a chain of disastrous events that ended with three people's deaths. Charles Spencer is looking to reinvent himself as Diana's saviour, he hasn't treated his own ex-wives too kindly.

I agree with this really. Martin Bashir and the BBC staff involved with him deserve some kind of punishment, they've behaved atrociously but I don't see how there's a direct link between the interview and Diana's death.

And Charles Spencer treated his sister pretty badly before her death. That speech at her funeral was so shitty (IMO).

They are trying to rewrite history and ensure saint Diana lives on with no recriminations against our future King. It is making the BBC the scapegoat for their utter failings .

It is well documented DIana wanted to do an interview. She had approached Max Hastings. She had told him everything. He decided to pass up the opportunity. Bashir saw the opportunity. So did the BBC. Others would have done exactly the same had they got the chance.

Diana’s main issue was Charles and Camilla. To a large extent the royal family too. William, has gone too far saying her death stemmed from this. Everyone with any common sense knows this cannot be true. He sees his mother, and now his father, as blameless. Earl Spencer and Diana’s mother were not blameless either. Who lets their daughter get married so quickly at a very young age in what was an arranged marriage? Madness. They were not remotely close to Diana.

So they are the big issues. Not Martin Bashir. It is our messed up Royal Family.

No one knows what could have happened if those around her who had advised her hadn’t been removed because of the lies.
Would Diana have even been in that car on that night.

The only things we do know is that a series of events was set in motion and left isolated and paranoid there was no one to advise her to not get in that car.

@Supersimkin2

The BBC behaved far worse than the Sun ever could. They faked and faked and faked documents and allegations for months and months to trick Diana into talking.

The Sun's phone hacking scandal has nothing on BBC behaviour - that's about revealing the truth celebs don't want you to hear, not creating systematic forgeries and false narratives to frighten and deceive a lone woman.

I'm not sure that any of that is worse than the Sun's Hillsborough headlines, their vilification of Christopher Yeates and the Birmingham Six, their persecution of gays, the phone hacking, their glorification of domestic violence in relation to J K Rowling, and constant publication of outright lies. And no, the phone hacking was certainly not limited to finding out trivial celebs' secrets. They might not have hacked into a murdered girl's phone, but their sister paper certainly did.

Although I feel for both brothers, there's something about William's speech that didn't sit quite right with me. I was trying to articulate how I felt and then found this Twitter thread which does it for me!

I also suspect that had Harry given the same speech then today's front pages wouldn't have been as kind to him.

People on here calling him a disgrace, a slimeball, scum etc.

I think those are all reasonable descriptions for the methods Bashir used to secure the interview.

Journalism should be about truth-telling and shining light into dark places. Not manipulating fragile people to boost your own career.

Bashir is I suspect a compulsive liar, I do wonder about his mental health to be honest, to do what he did to his interviewees, his bosses, nothing stood in the way of his ambition.

His extraordinary remarks about Sarah Palin finished him in the united states

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/martin-bashir-resigns-msnbc_n_4385884?ri18n=true

@AnnunciataZ

Although I feel for both brothers, there's something about William's speech that didn't sit quite right with me. I was trying to articulate how I felt and then found this Twitter thread which does it for me!

I also suspect that had Harry given the same speech then today's front pages wouldn't have been as kind to him.

I agree Annunciata. He wants to expunge the entire interview from the national consciousness it seems. Very odd, and quite enlightening wrt his character IMO.

I thought it was from the heart, but factual and balanced.

He, probably more than anyone, was aware of how his mother was handling the situation, as she (wrongly imo) used him as a confidante. The fact that this responsibility, when he was only a young teenager, hasn't tipped him into mental illness is remarkable - and I suspect a credit to the Middleton family, who are strong and supportive, and not afraid to seek help when it is needed.

More of the same from over the pond!

I think the Diana TV interview was watched by 23million people. If the public hadn't been so hungry for any details of her life, including her marriage troubles and mental health issues, then there would have been no advantage in Bashir going all out for a massive scoop.
All those Diana fans/obsessives who insatiably gobbled up every morsel of gossip about her are, arguably, complicit in the whole frenzy which led to her death. It's still continuing now all these years later.

I think that this interview was in a chain of causation that led to her death in a Paris underpass less than 2 years later.

I honestly couldn't live with myself if I had been involved in any aspect of this interview. And yes I did watch it.

But the thought of a lonely and insecure woman being duped by the BBC is utterly disgraceful.

@dogsdinnerlady agreed. I didn’t watch it, didn’t watch the funeral either

I don't agree that fans of Diana were complicit in her death. Were Elvis fans complicit in his early death? Marilyn Monroe, similarly?

Diana sought the limelight - journos on record have said this. However, I agree she was very ill used by those in her life.

In 1992 The Sun set up a phone line so that "fans" could listen to her half hour phone call to James Gilbey - "accidentally recorded" by a random radio enthusiast.

I dont think she was seeking the limelight there was she?

I'm not convinced we've moved on a great deal from those times to be honest.

Williams statement kind of reads shut the fuck up about my mom he should be free to remember her and have his children know all the nice things about her dredging up the interview will only bring back bad memories from the past im sure he doesn't want to think about

William blaming the BBC. Harry blaming the Royal family. Between the two of them they have covered all the bases.

In my view Bashir should be in prison. What a shit.

Poor Diana; she was so ill used all her life- this somehow makes it all worse.

I’ve always liked and defended the BBC; but this is abominable, not to mention the other careers they ruined when they hung the whistleblowers out to dry.

I don’t think it’s far fetched at all to draw links between this and her tragic early death. Had the interview not taken place her divorce would not have taken place as soon as it did, as others have said she might have retained police protection and drivers, and she might never have got with Dodi Fayed or been with him that weekend.

The poor woman. And poor William and Harry. They must feel sick and devastated. I feel horrified by it and I didn’t know her. I hope the book gets thrown at Bashir.

@Theunamedcat

Williams statement kind of reads shut the fuck up about my mom he should be free to remember her and have his children know all the nice things about her dredging up the interview will only bring back bad memories from the past im sure he doesn't want to think about

spot on, agree with what you say.

I think William is focusing not just on her death but on the last years of her life. Imagine thinking that people in your house, that you see every day, are spying on you? What would that do to anyone's mental health?

I can understand her writing that she didn't see any documentation. She's been led to believe she's being watched and Bashir is the only one who will give her the truth. Of course she's not going to blow his cover.

She was clearly encouraged into the state of mind she was in for that interview using heavily manipulative techniques. There is no knowing how she would have been feeling or what she would have felt compelled to say if she hadn't been shown evidence that she was being spied upon. To feel you can't even speak freely with your own son would be devastating and we would all speak from a place of desperation in that position.

To think that she didn't need to be that scared and paranoid is extremely sad. Who knows what 'truth' she would have chosen to tell I'm different circumstances.

The interview also led to a bad marriage ending chaotically and with bitterness stoked with distrust. Perhaps it would have done so anyway but the Panorama interview and Diana's state of mind doubtless altered the speed at which it happened and the communication between the parties. Given how difficult it was for Diana to do anything as a normal person and how much support (security) she required to get through a day safely, a chaotic departure held risks in terms of potentially dodgy security which were ultimately played out in a catastrophe.

I do find it ironic that all the hate gushing out of Harry will be read by Archie and their daughter one day. How will that make them feel I wonder.

The divorce took place because Charles was shagging Camilla! For heavens sake. There were three of them in that marriage and it never stood a chance. It wasn’t anything to do with her interview! Charles had already been interviewed by Dimblebee and admitted adultery! What damage had he already done to his marriage and Diana? Immense by anyone’s judgement.

What about the elderly dowagers who picked Diana out for marriage to Charles as no one his own age would have him? The Queen Mother went along with it. Diana’s own mother had run off and left her appalling father. Who then married Acid Raine. That left Diana very vulnerable at a very early age! Honestly, lots of us at the time thought the marriage was doomed from the start. Charles couldn’t even say he loved her when they got engaged. She was manipulated by all of them.

By the time Bashir arrived she wanted to spill the beans in reply to Charles who got in first. Rewriting history might be convenient for the royals but it’s not defensible.

William doesn’t want anyone to hear the interview again. So we are not allowed to hear about her bulimia, her loneliness, her betrayal, her post natal depression and her mental health because it doesn’t suit them. But we can hear Harry bleating on every week about mental health and William paying lip service to it. Diana said a lot that we needed to hear. Shame on William for closing down her brave words and censoring his mother.

@justasking111
Harry is a complete idiot to go public on this. He’s not the brightest and is manipulated. Get the therapy but shut up! Keep deep issues private.