Princess Diana said she only met Prince Charles 13 times before they got married
Filming for season 4 of The Crown - which will star Josh O'Connor as Prince Charles and Emma Corrin as Diana Spencer - has already begun, and while we don't yet know when it will be released, one thing is certain; the interest in Charle's and Diana's relationship will be more intense than ever.
We all know the story of the young Diana, who was married to the future king at just 20 years old. But most assume that the couple had known each other and been dating for a while before announcing their engagement - and while they first met a few years before getting married, in total they only came face to face 13 times before walking down the aisle.
The pair met for the first time when Diana was 16, and Prince Charles 29.
"I remember thinking what a very jolly and amusing and attractive 16-year-old she was," Charles said in a 1981 interview with The Telegraph. "I mean, great fun, and bouncy and full of life and everything."
Three years later they met again, and it wasn't long before they became engaged. "We met 13 times and we got married," Princess Diana revealed in personal tapes recorded with her voice coach, Peter Settelen in 1992, which were recently released as part of the recent documentary Diana: In Her Own Words.
She also explained: "We had this ghastly interview the day we announced our engagement, and this ridiculous [reporter] said, ‘Are you in love?’ I thought, what a thick question. So I said, ‘Yes, of course, we are,’ and Charles turned round and said, ‘Whatever love means.’ And that threw me completely. I thought, what a strange answer. It traumatised me.”
Charles and Diana famously went on to have two sons, William and Harry, but the cracks in their relationship eventually became too great to ignore. The couple split in August 1996, a year before Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris.
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