King Charles and Princess Diana’s fights could get messy — and Paul Burrell was often left to clean up what was left behind.
The former butler to the late Princess of Wales and footman to Queen Elizabeth II has written a new book, “The Royal Insider.” Behind palace doors, the now 67-year-old was a witness to what was once dubbed “The War of the Waleses” and became a trusted confidant to the princess as her marriage publicly unraveled.
Fox News Digital reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment. A spokesperson for the palace previously told Fox News Digital, “We don’t comment on such books.”
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According to Burrell, tensions between Charles and Diana didn’t just simmer — they boiled over behind palace walls. In his book, Burrell claimed he once found the then-Prince of Wales wearing a silk dressing gown “covered in salad dressing.” Burrell had earlier helped set up what was meant to be a candlelit dinner for Charles and Diana.
“One evening, he rang the bell, and I went through after hearing this almighty row from the other side of the door, knowing I shouldn’t intrude until it went quiet,” Burrell told Fox News Digital.
“The dinner table was upside down, broken china everywhere, food everywhere. And he was covered in salad dressing. He looked up at me in a rather sheepish way and said, ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I seemed to have caught my sleeve on the edge of the table, and everything just tipped up.’ ‘Of course.’ He knew, and I knew the real reason was that there’d been an almighty row and Diana had fled upstairs in tears.”
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It was one of many arguments between the couple, Burrell said, that didn’t end neatly.
“Of course, they would argue, and I was there,” he recalled. “I stood there and watched them shouting and screaming, and I cleaned up the messes. I brushed up the broken china.”
“Charles never hurt Diana physically,” Burrell stressed. He did note that Diana was “mentally tortured” by the breakdown of what should have been her happily ever after.
“The king is not a conciliatory man,” Burrell wrote. “He certainly wasn’t in the Diana years. I witnessed many arguments and fights between Charles and Diana behind closed doors. At times, they were more than a shouting match. Plates were smashed, tempers raised and even tables overturned. … When the prince lost his temper, which he often regretted, he was contrite and apologetic.”
An exhausted Charles would often retreat to Highgrove House, a home he purchased in 1980, shortly before his engagement to Diana. Burrell noted that the property was relatively close to Ray Mill House, where his longtime love, Camilla Parker Bowles, lived.
“On weekends, Diana would come and spend family time with her husband,” Burrell told Fox News Digital.
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“She tried so hard to make it work, but during the week Charles was a free agent. Then he could go and see Camilla, who lived close by. I think the reason he bought Highgrove in the first place was because it was very close to Ray Mill House, where Camilla lived with her husband, Andrew Parker Bowles. On weekends, Diana would come with their boys, and they would be a family — not always a happy one.”
“I think that in the very early days, Prince Charles, now our king, tried his hardest to make this marriage work,” said Burrell.
“And although Diana was only 19 years old, he was much older than her. He tried to help her along the way, but the gap was far too wide. There were too many years separating them. And also, Charles had never let go of his true love, Camilla.”
“But he tried,” Burrell continued. “He tried with the help of his family to make this family survive. But what’s interesting is, when I stood there all those years ago, I saw how hard our dear late queen and Prince Philip supported Princess Diana in her hard times, not necessarily their son, Prince Charles, who would be king.
“The queen said to me when I left her service in 1987, ‘Paul, one day you’ll be back here at Buckingham Palace looking after a king and queen, Charles and Diana.’ She had every hope that Charles would make the marriage work. But of course, it couldn’t.”
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“We all know that Charles’s great love was Camilla, and he never really let go of that,” he added.
Diana was determined to be a devoted royal wife and mother, Burrell said. But by the time Charles and Diana’s separation was announced in 1992, the marriage was widely seen as beyond repair.
“She couldn’t always reach him,” Burrell reflected.
“She couldn’t always understand the way he lived his life because his life was one of a prince and would be, one day, one of a king. She didn’t fit into that world where a prince could have everything he wanted, and a king could make the rules and make everything happen. She realized that she didn’t have the power. He did.”
Burrell isn’t the first to describe how Charles and Diana’s seemingly storybook romance became a nightmare.
In 2022, author Christopher Andersen’s book, “The King: The Life of Charles III,” was published. He spoke with numerous palace insiders, as well as those who knew or worked closely with the former Prince of Wales.
Andersen wrote that during the marriage, Charles “had sunk into a deep depression” and believed he “was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.” He turned to one of his confidants, Arnold Goodman, and reportedly said, “I have nothing to live for.” Goodman, Andersen noted, believed Charles was “showing the classic signs of depression.”
Charles not only felt trapped in a loveless marriage, Goodman believed, but he also feared that a divorce — if it could even be granted by the queen — “would have grave repercussions for his children, the royal family and the monarchy itself.”
According to Andersen, Goodman shared his concerns with royal protection officers. Ken Wharfe, Diana’s former protection officer, described the atmosphere as “highly combustible.” Housekeeper Wendy Berry recalled witnessing “slammed doors and pitched battles” that became “the hallmarks of day-to-day life.”
The trouble between Diana and Charles began long before their so-called fairy-tale wedding.
Charles, as heir to the British throne, was reportedly urged to either end his relationship with then-Lady Diana Spencer or propose.
Before the wedding, Diana expressed doubts about going through with it — especially after discovering a bracelet Charles made for Camilla. The marriage grew tumultuous, and both later engaged in extramarital affairs.
During her headline-making 1995 interview on the BBC program “Panorama,” Diana famously told journalist Martin Bashir, “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”
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Their divorce was finalized in 1996. A year later, Diana died from injuries she sustained in a Paris car crash. She was 36.
Charles and Camilla married in 2005. After the queen’s death in 2022, Charles ascended the throne, and in 2023 he was crowned king with Camilla at his side.
“Charles certainly hasn’t always been popular with the public, but I think they have warmed to him since he became king,” Burrell wrote. “I would credit his mother’s legacy for that to a certain extent — but there are people who will never forget Diana.”
