Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty ImagesIt's been 16 years since Princess Diana died in a tragic car accident, but some members of the British Royal Family refuse to let her rest in peace. In a Vanity Fair profile, Lady Pamela Hicks—first cousin to Prince Philip and a member of Queen Elizabeth II's 1947 bridal party—explains why she was never fond of Prince Charles' first wife.
"She had enormous charisma, she was beautiful, she was very good at empathy with the general crowd...and she had no feeling at all for her husband or his family," Pamela snipes of Diana. "Quite the reverse!"
According to Pamela, Diana was "really spiteful" and "really unkind" to Charles during their 15-year union. "My God, he's a man who needs support and encouragement," the 84-year-old says of Charles, who went on to marry Camilla Parker Bowles in the spring of 2005.
Pamela also claims Charles' marriage to Diana "destroyed" him. "He looked grey and ghost-like," she tells the mag of Prince William and Prince Harry's father. "Now of course he's blossomed again."
The British aristocrat—whose own fashion designer daughter, India Hicks, served as one of Diana's bridesmaids—believes the late princess reveled in the public's pity. "She made everybody believe she'd been thrown to the wolves. Such nonsense! She was given the Queen's favorite lady-in-waiting, Sue Hussey, to help her, to teach her. But she didn't want to be told anything. 'That's boring, Sue,' she'd say. Instead, she wanted to listen to her music and go disco-ing or to some jive concert," she telsl Vanity Fair. "She didn't try. She had no need to try because she saw the people admired her, then they admired her more. She reckoned she was the star."