Princess Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, has recalled how Charles was left "covered in salad dressing" after an explosive argument between the couple. Mr Burrell said he saw broken china and food "everywhere" after checking in on Diana and Charles, following a candlelit dinner he had helped set up for the Prince and Princess of Wales, as they were at the time.
Almighty row recalled
Mr Burrell, author of 'The Royal Insider', said the incident was one of many heated rows between the future King 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," he recalled earlier this year.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Mr Burrell added: "The dinner table was upside down, broken china everywhere, food everywhere. And he was covered in salad dressing."
Charles's sheepish explanation
He continued: "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.'"
Mr Burrell said: "He knew, and I knew the real reason was that there'd been an almighty row and Diana had fled upstairs in tears." He also recalled seeing Charles and Diana "shouting and screaming" in other tense rows.
Marriage breakdown and later claims
Mr Burrell said "Charles never hurt Diana physically" but the mother-of-two was "mentally tortured" by the breakdown of their marriage. Charles and Diana were married at St Paul's Cathedral, central London, on July 29 1981. She died, aged 36, in a car crash in Paris in August 1997 — five years after separating from Charles and a year after their divorce was finalised in 1996.
Charles and Diana's relationship has come under the spotlight again after Earl Spencer — Diana's younger brother — made a series of bombshell claims about the King in a new memoir of his sister. Among the claims made by Earl Spencer is that Charles said "we'll forget her soon enough" days after Diana's death. The Earl also alleges the King sounded "giddily elated… like a lottery winner" when he rang him following the car crash in 1997.
In response to the claims made in the 'Swan Song: Diana, My Sister' memoir, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson last week said: "While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss."
