In the new book Dianarama, author Andy Webb details the complicated events that transpired to convince Princess Diana to give her now infamous BBC Panorama interview. In the years since, an investigation has uncovered the deceitful tactics BBC journalist Martin Bashir enlisted to schedule the exclusive sit-down. Now, Diana's former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, is reflecting on how a "chilling, creepy, and cruel" sequence of events caused his estrangement from the former Princess of Wales.
Jephson served as Diana's private secretary between 1988 and 1996. However, a breakdown of communication between the pair caused Jephson to resign from his position in January 1996. Following further revelations regarding the way Princess Diana was manipulated ahead of the Panorama interview, Jephson has reevaluated what really happened.
"It is chilling to re-run those events and feel that Diana was seeing me as the enemy within," he told People. "I had no understanding of what had changed." Tragically, Jephson has since discovered that journalist Bashir "told [Diana] I was betraying her," he explained to the outlet.
Jephson continued, "It was horrifying. I now understand the lengths he was prepared to go to." He elaborated, "It was chilling, creepy, and cruel. But at the same time, thanks to [author] Andy [Webb], I now understand what went wrong and why. For 25 years, I never understood what went wrong, and whether it was my fault."
Discussing the way in which Bashir "began feeding [Diana] alarming stories," Jephson told People, "That is what is unforgivable...It's inhumane, cruel, and calculated. It is chilling and cold-blooded."
The former private secretary also fears that Princess Diana "was putting her trust in people who were not qualified to look after her" at the time of her death. The princess died on August 31, 1997 following a car crash in Paris.
As Jephson explained, "By making Diana distrust every kind of official protection and benign, albeit sometimes irksome, oversight of her day-to-day organization, she put herself in a position where she had to accept the protection of people who were not competent to look after her."
