Former Panorama reporter Martin Bashir’s extraordinary TV interview with Princess Diana was broadcast on BBC1 on 20th November 1995. Diana’s criticism of Camilla Parker-Bowles provided the key soundbite — “there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded” — though her comments about Prince Charles’s accession were even more remarkable. Asked whether their eldest son William should succeed the Queen instead of Charles, she replied: “My wish is that my husband finds peace of mind. And from that follows other things, yes.”
In Dianarama: The Betrayal of Princess Diana, Andy Webb calls the Panorama interview “the most momentous footage the BBC has ever recorded, or will ever record”, and he’s probably right. As we now know, Bashir obtained the interview by deception: he commissioned graphic designer Matt Wiessler to create fake bank statements, and presented them to Diana’s brother Charles Spencer, who then put him in touch with Diana herself.
The forged bank statements added credence to a series of false conspiracy theories that Bashir told to Spencer and Diana. In the weeks leading up to the interview, he was essentially gaslighting Diana — Webb describes his “wicked intent” — exploiting her paranoia about the royal family and its staff.
Dianarama is the first book on the Diana interview. It’s a fascinating and comprehensive account of the background, the interview session itself, and the consequences for Diana, Bashir, and the BBC. Webb has spoken to most of the key players — except Bashir, of course, whose only public comment on Diana came in a brief Sunday Times interview on 23rd May 2021.
Webb claims a pivotal role for himself in exposing the facts about the interview: “it was only when I was able to get hold of a formerly secret document from the BBC, after a thirteen-year struggle, that the scandal burst into the open and Bashir’s duplicity was revealed for the first time.” He also writes: “Many journalists have looked at the Bashir scandal over the last thirty years. I can say without being too swell-headed that something I did... finally brought it to light. I have studied these matters for close to twenty years”.
This implies that he was investigating the story over a period of many years, but that’s not really accurate. He submitted a Freedom of Information request to the BBC in 2007, though it was denied. He submitted another, more fruitful, FoI request in 2020, but in the intervening years he hadn’t been doggedly pursuing the truth about Panorama, he had been working on other projects. (He gives a more accurate summary of that period later in the book: “a little bit here, a little bit there, but of course I had a busy career too”.)
Most of the credit for exposing the story belongs to the Mail newspapers. On 7th April 1996, less than six months after the Panorama broadcast, The Mail on Sunday first reported that Bashir had commissioned Wiessler to create the fake bank statements. Spencer gave a series of interviews to the Daily Mail — published on 3rd, 4th, and 7th November 2020 — and it was his allegations that led the BBC to launch a formal inquiry into the interview. Webb was indirectly responsible for this, as he sent Spencer the replies to his 2020 FoI request, which prompted Spencer to talk to the Daily Mail.
Webb directed a Channel 4 documentary about the Panorama interview in 2020, one of three rival programmes on the subject. He made a follow-up in 2021.
In Dianarama: The Betrayal of Princess Diana, Andy Webb calls the Panorama interview “the most momentous footage the BBC has ever recorded, or will ever record”, and he’s probably right. As we now know, Bashir obtained the interview by deception: he commissioned graphic designer Matt Wiessler to create fake bank statements, and presented them to Diana’s brother Charles Spencer, who then put him in touch with Diana herself.
The forged bank statements added credence to a series of false conspiracy theories that Bashir told to Spencer and Diana. In the weeks leading up to the interview, he was essentially gaslighting Diana — Webb describes his “wicked intent” — exploiting her paranoia about the royal family and its staff.
Dianarama is the first book on the Diana interview. It’s a fascinating and comprehensive account of the background, the interview session itself, and the consequences for Diana, Bashir, and the BBC. Webb has spoken to most of the key players — except Bashir, of course, whose only public comment on Diana came in a brief Sunday Times interview on 23rd May 2021.
Webb claims a pivotal role for himself in exposing the facts about the interview: “it was only when I was able to get hold of a formerly secret document from the BBC, after a thirteen-year struggle, that the scandal burst into the open and Bashir’s duplicity was revealed for the first time.” He also writes: “Many journalists have looked at the Bashir scandal over the last thirty years. I can say without being too swell-headed that something I did... finally brought it to light. I have studied these matters for close to twenty years”.
This implies that he was investigating the story over a period of many years, but that’s not really accurate. He submitted a Freedom of Information request to the BBC in 2007, though it was denied. He submitted another, more fruitful, FoI request in 2020, but in the intervening years he hadn’t been doggedly pursuing the truth about Panorama, he had been working on other projects. (He gives a more accurate summary of that period later in the book: “a little bit here, a little bit there, but of course I had a busy career too”.)
Most of the credit for exposing the story belongs to the Mail newspapers. On 7th April 1996, less than six months after the Panorama broadcast, The Mail on Sunday first reported that Bashir had commissioned Wiessler to create the fake bank statements. Spencer gave a series of interviews to the Daily Mail — published on 3rd, 4th, and 7th November 2020 — and it was his allegations that led the BBC to launch a formal inquiry into the interview. Webb was indirectly responsible for this, as he sent Spencer the replies to his 2020 FoI request, which prompted Spencer to talk to the Daily Mail.
Webb directed a Channel 4 documentary about the Panorama interview in 2020, one of three rival programmes on the subject. He made a follow-up in 2021.
