Prince Charles was interviewed by investigators in 2005 about Diana’s death

Charles and Diana Visit Canada

Immediately following Princess Diana’s 1997 death in Paris, there were various conspiracies and reports popping up throughout the European media especially. There were significant questions about the French ambulance carrying Diana and why it stopped several times before they reached the hospital. There were questions about just how drunk Henri Paul was when he got behind the wheel. There were stories about a blinding flash in the tunnel that night. And there were Diana’s own fears, many of which she put in writing, about what the Windsors would do to her as she was on the edge of escaping. Those questions and conspiracies percolated throughout the media for years before British authorities put together Operation Paget, which was supposedly the definitive investigation into Diana’s death and the events around her death. Apparently, Operation Paget did “question” Prince Charles about a note Diana had written, suggesting that Charles would organize her death by car crash.

Prince Charles was questioned by the U.K. police in 2005 about the death of his ex-wife, Princess Diana, according to a new report. The probe was part of Operation Paget, the investigation into the various conspiracy theories surrounding Diana’s death launched by the British Metropolitan Police in 2004.

Former head of Scotland Yard John Stevens told the Daily Mail that he spoke to Prince Charles about a note that Princess Diana wrote in 1995 which said, “My husband is planning ‘an accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head injury,” so that he could marry Tiggy Legge-Bourke, a nanny for Prince William and Prince Harry. Charles and Diana divorced in 1996. Prince Charles was interviewed at St. James’s Palace as a witness two years into the investigation, after the note became public in 2003.

“Yes, allegations had been made about the Prince of Wales and other royals but we had to find or examine the [existing] evidence before we approached him with formal questions,” Stevens told the outlet. “We found no other evidence to support the scenario suggested in Diana’s note.”

“We were left with the note, which in itself was not enough to make Charles a formal suspect,” he continued. “If he chose to assist [Operation] Paget, he would be doing so voluntarily as a potential witness. We would not be interviewing him under caution.”

Stevens reportedly read the note to Prince Charles then asked him: “Why do you think the princess wrote this note, sir?”

The royal replied, “I did not know anything about [the note] until it was published in the media.”

“You didn’t discuss this note with her, sir?” Stevens asked, to which Charles said, “No, I did not know it existed.”

When asked, “Do you know why the princess had these feelings, sir?” Charles replied, “No, I don’t.”

“At the end of the day he was incredibly cooperative because he had nothing to hide,” Stevens told the Daily Mail.

Although Prince Charles, now 72, cooperated with the investigation, his father, Prince Philip, declined to assist in the investigation. He returned a request to comment on the allegations with three words, “No, thank you.”

[From People]

So, people would only speak to investigators voluntarily and Operation Paget had no “subpoena power” or whatever the British equivalent is. And it took them two years after the note was revealed to speak to Charles, and they just took his word for it, that he had no idea what Diana was talking about. Sure. Really top-level investigating, peeps. It’s no wonder that this level of investigation has never turned up anything on Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein! I mean, I’ll be fair – I don’t think Charles organized a hit on his ex-wife. But Diana was pissing off so many establishment figures, and there were so many toxic players in this drama. Interesting that Philip declined to be interviewed too.

Charles and Diana Visit Canada

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

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61 Responses to “Prince Charles was interviewed by investigators in 2005 about Diana’s death”

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  1. Noki says:

    Charles is too much of a weasel to organise an actual hit job. Now Phillip i can see it.

    • Seraphina says:

      I can see Philip eluding to the thought that Diana needed to be dealt with and undertones of her demise. If he declined “interviews” it was because he knew what he had said could be released and those not so fond of the BRF and half a brain would see the implications. He was no fool.
      I agree that Charles is too much of a weasel. But I can also see him leaving it up to others and not taking a stand to protect Diana.

    • Snuffles says:

      Or one of the little gray men.

    • Eurydice says:

      Something like – “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”

    • JanetDR says:

      I always thought it was Philip!

      • Virginia says:

        If it was Philip then the Queen is his accomplice! Harry, she is not as sweet as you think. They just got rid of a problem for the Monarchy (your mom) they can do the same to you and your beautiful family!

      • Mooney says:

        Philip? Wasn’t he supportive of Diana when she was dealing with her marriage struggles?

    • BABSORIG says:

      I don’t think Charles is as much of a weasel as people think. I see him more of a 🐍in the grass kind of person. Charles is a very ruthless man with 2 personas, on the outside he deliberately portrays himself as a weasel but on the inside he is the man that easily and repeatedly sacriced his young child to the wolves just to redeem his image. Yeah THAT Charles is NOT a weasel. Remember how Charles intentionally and abruptly pulled security away from his son and his little family while at the same time leaking that he is paying for security around the Sussexes? Yeah, that Charles is not a weasel. I will always be convinced that Charles pulled Diana’s security and exposed her to all kinds of danger. THEN he made it a point to leak that Diana refused said security. This was all a plan to lay all the necessary groundwork so that when he organized the hit on Diana, all blame would be placed on someone else. And remember, the media AND the Scotland Yard are all on the BRF side so the leaks that Diana refused security (and there being no reporting of any denial of that claim from Diana) and the subsequent refusal on the SY to investigate this case till almost a decade later were all deliberate. Justike they’ve repeatedly refused to investigate prince Andrew and his rape and human trafficking, SY is there to protect and cover for the BRF, not to bring them to justice. When Harry said the Firm (prince Charles and prince William) were planning to kill his wife like they killed his mother, I believed him.

    • FC says:

      I agree the queen and Phillip could have “handled” it for Charles. The monarchy has a long history of knocking off their adversaries, and Phil’s generation was closer to that history than anyone.

    • February-Pisces says:

      Here’s my Theory. I think if a hit was ordered on Diana’s life that came from within the royal family/palace then it would have been done in such a way that none of them would have known any of the details. For example if Phillip discusses this with Charles and the courtiers that ‘something must be done about Diana”, the courtiers would have just said ‘leave it with us”. I think there’s a chain in things like this where no one person knows the entire picture.

      If Charles and Phillip discussed bumping off Diana, then when she actually died, they might have been told it wasn’t them, but a genuine accident. That way they can genuinely live guilt free when Diana’s sons demand answers from them. The same with the people who would have carried out the order, they wouldn’t have known where it came from ( although not that hard to guess).

      Charles always looks torn between looking like he’s guilty, and thinking he’s innocent at the same time. Whatever happened, I don’t think he was told anything.

  2. girl_ninja says:

    I suspected him and wouldn’t be surprised at all if he is found to have his hands all in this. That man is wicked and will destroy anything that gets in the way of him and that damn throne.

  3. Lizzie says:

    Is this the crack team who investigated racism in the U.K. and found none exists?

  4. Lauren says:

    There were some hush-hush talks that Chuck was covering for several well-known, powerful pedophiles and that Diana had become aware and wanted an investigation done and then the accident happened. Whatever the truth is these people have no interest in turning in one of their own. Andy is well protected, not so much by his mother, but by the people that don’t him to quack in exchange for immunity on anything. If push comes to shove they might give him up in exchange for the more powerful people that Maxwell is covering for.

    • pottymouth pup says:

      Lord Mountbatten was rumored to have been a pedophile (alleged fetish for schoolboys in uniform) related to his friendship with Jimmy Savile and the investigation of an Irish boys’ home

      • Eurydice says:

        Not just rumors, but actual allegations by people who knew him and boys who had been residents of the home.

      • ArtHistorian says:

        Yep. One of Mountbatten’s biographer spoke to the men that said they were abused by him and he found them credible. He didn’t see any reason for those men to lie.

        On another note, the author said in a podcast that a member of the BRF did confirm to him that Mountbatten was bisexual. He had a habit of making passes at younger officers under his command (and that was pretty much an open secret in military circles) – so we can add work place sexual harassment to the list.

    • Demi says:

      https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/mar/15/monarchy.davidleigh
      Just found this article.. So Diana recorded on tape (that gone missing)that there was an allegation of a valet being raped by people connected to Charles?!!

      “The Diana videos are completely separate from the so-called audio “rape tape” which Diana made of allegations by a former valet George Smith that he had been raped by a “powerful” member of Prince Charles’s household. That tape has disappeared.”

  5. Delphine says:

    I don’t think Charles would have been the one to set that up but It’s still highly suspect and always will be. It’s uncanny and surreal actually that she wrote that note and then died in a car crash. The level of silent power that family wields is formidable. They may seem benign but they are not. I wouldn’t be surprised if they offed Epstein. He supposedly worked for Mossad now we’re finding out he was also maybe a US informant. How many generations has it been since the royals were chopping off heads? Who had the most to lose if Epstein spoke out? We know he had dirt on countless people but Andrew is the one who would tarnish the entire monarchy. I know this all sounds very much like a conspiracy theory and I totally agree but crazier things have happened.

    • Myra says:

      It doesn’t matter whether Charles can set up a hit job. What matters is whether he wanted her dead and if he knows someone that knows someone that can make it happen. It also highlights the comfortable relationship between the UK press and the Firm. A future head of state is investigated/questioned by the police in the death of his wife and nothing. Had Meghan Markle been questioned by someone in the death of a person, we know how the media and the public would have reacted.

    • CC says:

      When the hysterical rumors were flying that the Clintons were involved in Epsteins’ death I was thinking at the time that there were certainly more likely, and way more well funded, suspects like The Firm that wanted him silent.

    • Lyds says:

      If you read into his response, Charles could very well be telling the truth: no, he did not know about the existence of the note. No, he read it’s contents for the first time in the media.

      Okay…doesn’t mean the note is untrue or that he had no part planning the accident. Nowhere does he display any incredulity. If someone asked me why she wrote it, my answer would be, “I don’t know. It’s deeply distressing why she would think that,” not, “I was unaware she wrote this note”….

      This investigation should’ve been Charle’s Pizza Express/defective sweat-glands reveal…however, the investigators lobbed him some softballs and he aced it.

  6. Woke says:

    I honestly don’t believe they had anything to do with her death. However they did create an environment where her life was in danger just like what they’re doing with Harry and Meghan right now.

    • SomeChick says:

      So… how is that “not having anything to do with her death” then? purposely creating an environment where her life was in danger and sitting back and watching it play out is not nothing!

      I think it was a setup.

      and I also think that the little games they were playing with refusing to provide security for Meghan and then yanking it away from Harry on very short notice were the same sort of thing. a straight up threat.

      protect the monarchy at all costs!!!

  7. Em says:

    A basic “who done it” question is to ask who had the most to gain with Diana out of the picture? My money has always been on Charles & Camilla.

    • NotSoSocialButterfly says:

      But Diana and Charles were already divorced when she died?

      • harperc says:

        Charles married Camilla in 2005 and have spent years doing PR to make Camilla queen. With Diana alive, none of that happens.

        Charles has spent *years* dealing with the fallout from one interview Diana did with Bashir. Imagine if Diana had done anymore interviews, if she had sat down and really talked about the dirt on the royal family with Oprah.

        Harry talked to Oprah, but overall he was relatively discreet, because this was his dad and family. Now imagine someone talking about the BRF who wasn’t a disappointed and hurt son but a ticked-off ex-wife.

        All she would have had to do was a couple of those interviews, and then every time Charles and Camilla appeared in public, just walk outside in another revenge dress, and all the talk would be about whatever she said in that interview.

        Yeah, the memory of Diana is still strong, but it’s nothing compared to what she could have accomplished if she had still be alive. Charles would have had no chance.

  8. STRIPE says:

    I think we’ve learned in the last few years that nobody in the royal household is anywhere near competent enough to arrange a hit in another country. They did help create an environment that was unsafe for her, but I’ve never believed they specifically killed her that night.

  9. Golly Gee says:

    If she was in fact murdered, I think it would’ve been carried out by MI5 at the direction of the government. There was a rumor that she was pregnant with Dodi Fayed’s child. I can see the power-wielding white male establishment ordering a hit under these conditions. Can’t have the future king related to a POC as this could potentially undermine the white power base.

    • Delphine says:

      This. MI5 is very capable of a hit. Whether at the direction of the government or secretly by someone like Phillip, for example. The royals’ hands would be kept as clean as possible no matter what, to the point that Charles would know nothing. We’re also discovering just how much power the courtiers have. I wouldn’t be surprised if undercover MI5 agents were among the palace staff.

      • SnoodleDumpling says:

        I mean, a lot of the staff (office & household) have extensive military and/or government backgrounds, would it even have to be undercover or a secret?

        I would be surprised if a lot of the staff WEREN’T MI5 and other government men who moved to a working retirement in a relatively cushy royal household role…and maybe every couple of weeks they meet up with old coworkers still in the business for a few drinks and some chat. God knows somebody has to keep an eye on who those semi-delinquent royals socialize with, and what idiocy they’re up to now.

  10. Steph says:

    I don’t think Charles has the stones to organize a hit. I also don’t think he’d have the stones to stop one that the ppl around him might have been organizing

  11. Becks1 says:

    I think her death was a terrible accident. I can understand why there are so many conspiracy theories around it, but it really was just an accident. To me ultimately the people to blame are the drunk driver and the paparazzi for chasing them so aggressively. We can debate other aspects – Diana should have worn her seatbelt, they should have stayed at the Ritz (or gone straight to Dodi’s apartment and never gone to the Ritz that day), etc. But I think without the drunk driver and the paparazzi it would have gone very differently. Even just without the drunk driver.

    • Digital Unicorn says:

      Even with the paps, if they had stuck with the original driver and security team it would have went differently. Dodi at the last min decided that he wanted to leave the hotel in a car with just him, Diana and the drunk driver. It was only after a heated discussion with the Ritz security that it was agreed that a bodyguard would accompany them. It also didn’t help that the driver not only gave the game away with the decoy but he goaded the press into chasing him.

    • Betsy says:

      Yes to both you and Digital Unicorn. It could have been a hit – Philip declining to be interviewed could be viewed as a snob not stooping or it could be a guilty person not wanting to incriminate themselves – but it just seems like all accidents. A series of small failures culminating into a gigantic tragedy.

      • Kelly Sunshine says:

        I agree, so many small failures ended in this tragedy. Had Diana been wearing her seatbelt, she would’ve lived. She hit the seat in front of her in such a way that her heart was displaced to the other side of her chest. Even if she’d arrived at the hospital quickly, she most likely wouldn’t have survived that type of injury.

        I remember when she first died, I thought that she had been murdered, but now I believe it was a horrible (and preventable) accident. The driver was drunk and speeding. Paparazzi were chasing them. Diana didn’t wear her seatbelt. She didn’t have the royal security. If she had, could they have forced her to wear the seatbelt, would she have had a different driver? So many unanswered questions.

  12. Amy Bee says:

    Even if Charles was found to be involved he would not have been arrested anyway. The Met still refuses to investigate the Andrew allegations. But I do believe that the Charles got the Queen to take away her royal protection officers.

    • Digital Unicorn says:

      You are wrong about Diana’s royal protection officers – Diana herself requested that they be taken away as she was convinced they were spying on her. As the mother of the future King she would def have had royal protection for the rest of her life – plus it was also part of the divorce agreement.

      • Amy Bee says:

        After finding out from Harry and Meghan that the Palace lied to the press about them not wanting a title for Archie and the issues surrounding the photo call, I don’t take anything coming out of the Palace as the gospel truth. I need actual evidence of Diana saying she didn’t want royal security to believe that. Unfortunately she’s not here to confirm or deny the story. And the fact that Charles took away Harry and Meghan’s security means he could have done and likely did the same to Diana.

      • Snuffles says:

        @amybee

        I’m with you. I think Charles is that petty and would do it without thinking through the potential consequences of such a move. Like I’ve been saying, the royals are very reactionary and short sighted.

      • Betsy says:

        @Amy Bee – Tina Brown’s biography of Diana covered it, I think.

  13. Nick G says:

    I don’t think she was murdered, honestly, this might sound weird but I think she was very, very intuitive, being a Cancerian and all.

    I remember years ago she spoke of her wedding and the whole virginity business, and she said she had just known, growing up, that she had to keep herself completely “pure” or something like that, don’t remember the exact words.
    Then just after her death someone quoted her as saying Dodi was “the person who will take me from this life to the next”…. I know she just meant her non royal life, but I found this chilling. There were other examples (like the car crash comments) I don’t remember but by then it really felt that she could, quite innocently, be very prescient with comments.

    • Snuffles says:

      Yes, I have heard the same. Prescient or a bit psychic. She was known for making statements that eerily came true. It wasn’t frequent but happened often enough to become a pattern.

      Coincidentally, she always thought that Harry had a better temperament to be King than William and nicknamed him “Good King Harry.” Makes you wonder! 🤔

    • Ann says:

      The word she used was “tidy.” She had to keep herself “tidy.”

    • snappyfish says:

      she used the word “tidy”

    • Sue Denim says:

      v interesting, and good examples to pull together, she also said she didn’t think Charles would ever be king, and w brexit, sussexit, etc. it’s more of a question than she could have ever known then. also, watch clips of her w people, all kinds of people, how she gets genuine laughs going, there’s some kind of keen intuition and connection there.

  14. Savannah says:

    Given the circumstances around her death, it’s hard not to suspect something. However, there were so many decisions that led to that moment. Hard to imagine all of them being staged.

    One thing I read (years ago) was that a large sum of money had appeared in the driver’s bank account. That, combined with the pregnancy rumors, are what made me a conspiracy theorist. But in the end, it’s just so many factors.

  15. bitchyarchitect says:

    I never believed in the conspiracy UNTIL visiting Paris with friends in 2006..
    we took a cab to the Eiffel tower at night-there were 4 of us in 1 taxi so I sat up front with the driver who was french Algerian and he and I were chatting. At some point he asked if we wanted to take the “Diana’s last nite in Paris” tour. When I translated to the peanut gallery in the back seat everyone yelled yes. When we got to the tunnel he pointed out the column (which is still damaged, the FR. govt. never repaired it) I said in French- wow you’d really have to aim to hit that column. its a total straight shot, lots of room you could literally drive blind and not hit it. The cabbie exclaimed “Exactement!” in French which greatly amused the back seat. He then mentioned the theory that she was pregnant with Dodi’s child… he went into a lot of other detail as well about the car that she was in etc. After a couple of years I was like NAH- but now with the crazy and disgusting racist hysteria and smears over M+H’s mixed race children… I believe they had her killed.

    • candy says:

      I grew up in Paris and many people reacted like that. The bridge where she died is quite well known. It’s an underground pass where people generally slow down.

      • bitchyarchitect says:

        so do Parisians think she was killed? And why did the French govt. never repair the column? To me that seems really odd, and definitely a statement.

      • candy says:

        The reaction at the time (from what I remember, I was only 11) was utter shock. But in passing people made comments about driving so fast in the pont de l’alma, at twice the legal limit, like why? That is something people also found shocking, and remember parisians drive fast so you’d have to be going really fast to shock them. As you probably saw, Paris is full of tunnels like that.

        From what I understand, they never repaired the column as a memento to her. French are very sentimental like that, it wasn’t to be crass. More like, we will not erase that this happened.

      • Digital Unicorn says:

        That underpass is/was an accident hotspot IIRC.

        Plus didn’t Henri Paul drive into that tunnel at around 65mph?? He egged the paps on telling them to ‘catch him if they can’.

  16. candy says:

    Dodi was sketchy from the start. The fact that he insisted on them leaving and driving out so late at night (after midnight), for who knows what reasons, seems abusive to me. Diana was in such a vulnerable place too. I think she leaned on him because he was the only person there for her and I think that influenced her to behave recklessly. The whole group was irresponsible. Even though it was a most tragic outcome, they could have killed people in other vehicles and fortunately they didn’t. People viewed DUI differently back then, but not so forgiving today. Paris is a city with tons of transportation options, especially for the wealthy. There were many bad choices leading to this tragedy.

  17. Diana says:

    Yeah I mean as eerie as this sounds. I think it was just a tragic accident. Besides weren’t Charles and Diana getting along better the last year of her life?

  18. Sunday says:

    To me, the smoking gun has always been the note. It’s really striking in hindsight, and some even say she must’ve been psychic. But what if it’s the reverse? What if someone found the note, while Diana was still alive? What if someone (my money is on team Philip, team Andrew, or a courtier) found the note and wanted two birds, instead of one? To them, whether it actually came out in the investigation or was just used behind the scenes to force an abdication, I think someone wanted to use that note to get rid of Diana, yes, but to get rid of Charles too.

    As others have pointed out, for centuries the monarchy has offed whoever they saw fit in preservation of power. The callous reptiles at the palace would have undoubtedly thought that Diana had to be dealt with, that the situation was out of control. But maybe they weren’t too thrilled with Charles, either. There have always been rumors that the Queen doesn’t like him, Philip couldn’t stand him, Andrew thinks he should be king, so why would they continue to place the fate of the monarchy on Charles’ weak shoulders at a time when they felt he was actively destroying it, if there was an opportunity to create a different path? I think whoever found the note intended to pin Diana’s death on Charles, and while they succeeded in killing her, the delayed (and corrupt) investigation failed to successfully tie Charles to her death, and that public failure removed the private pressure behind the scenes.

    I also think that’s why Philip seemed to actually welcome Meghan. Whether he was actively involved in the Diana operation or not, he definitely knew about it and knew how spectacularly it had failed and how badly it had damaged the monarchy. I think he wanted absolutely no part in a round two, this time against Meghan.

    • ElleE says:

      The note, the driver of the white Peugeot killing himself, the ambulance driving by one hospital to go to another, the delays at the scene-in Paris! Not some remote location. The weirdness of them leaving the hotel in the first place, Charles going to get her body a week later.

      Like the man she divorced was the only person in England that could come claim her body, and he didn’t even go to Paris right away. I remember my brother saying, “She’s been dead almost a week aren’t they going to get her and take her home?” And my brother is not a royal watcher-it was that weird.

      It was like the royal family wanted it to go away, but her family wasn’t doing anything. No one wanted to be associated with her death, no press conferences from the French police, that I remember (just the hospital doctor?) no one claiming her body, neither of the families-the public forced the family reaction every step of the way, Charles had to talk to Tony Blair to get the government to do something to help, maybe get her body back? No one was falling all over themselves to get involved – all the pressure lead to that public funeral, which no one in the family wanted her to have. It still doesn’t make any sense, unless 1) the family really hated her or 2) her shocking death scared the hades out of them, they wondered who killed her and were frightened for their own safety and wanted to lay low.

      No one thought anything untoward at the time. Just Dodi’s father. Now? If someone told me, oh Diana was wearing her seatbelt, and her injuries were survivable, Ii would not ask “what changed”.

  19. Thirtynine says:

    I’m surpised they spoke to him at all.

  20. NariB says:

    This sites comments have gone full QAnon lol!

  21. jferber says:

    I think the same team that interviewed Philip must also have investigated the JonBenet killing and the Natalie Wood drowning. Rich, influential people can wriggle out of punishment for their crimes with deference and foot-dragging by the police. Evidence can get “lost” and leads not followed up. I was actually shocked by this Diana memo. I believe Charles pulled Diana’s royal security without telling her, informed the French paparazzi where she’d be and hoped for the best (meaning the worst). It’s a close cousin to premeditated murder, in my opinion. Amy Bee, what you said. I don’t believe a blessed word that the royal family says.