NBC to air 'hidden' Diana video
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- NBC television
network will broadcast a never-before-seen video tape of Diana,
Princess of Wales, next week in which she says she suspects a member
of her staff with whom she fell in love was "bumped off."
NBC said on Friday the two-part program starting next Monday
includes excerpts of interviews Diana recorded with communications
consultant Peter Settelen in her living room, discussing her
childhood, marriage and struggle with bulimia.
Earlier this year NBC aired audio tapes Diana secretly recorded
for a 1992 book that exposed the turmoil of her marriage to Prince
Charles, whom she divorced in 1996. The princess was killed in a car
crash in Paris in 1997.
NBC said Diana met Settelen in September 1992, in the aftermath
of the book by Andrew Morton, and had engaged him to train her in
public speaking, a process that involved an on-camera interview to
inspire confidence.
Excerpts of the program released in advance include comments by
Diana on the lack of sympathy from her mother-in-law Queen Elizabeth
when Diana went to her having discovered that Prince Charles was
having an affair.
NBC said one section of the interview was "on falling in love
with a member of her palace staff, presumed to be Royal Policeman
Barry Mannakee, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in
1987."
"It was all found out and he was chucked out," Diana is quoted as
saying. "And then he was killed. And that was the biggest blow of my
life, I must say. And I think he was bumped off. But, um, there we
are. I don't ... we'll never know, he was the greatest fellow I've
ever had."
The two-hour special, which also features an interview with
Settelen, is to be broadcast in two parts, on November 29 and
December 6.
"This unusual tape, recorded in Diana's living room, hidden for
years after her death, and fought over for months in the British
courts, offers a view of the princess quite different from the
formal public face she usually put forth," NBC said.
Copyright 2004
Reuters.
All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast,
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