Princess Diana told a royal photographer that she still loved Prince Charles after his affair became public

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Princess Diana told a royal photographer that she still loved Prince Charles after his affair became public
Prince Charles and Princess Diana after announcing their engagement in 1981. Hulton Archive/Getty Images
  • Royal photographer Kent Gavin traveled around the world with Princess Diana to take pictures of her.
  • He told Insider that she discussed the end of her marriage with him on a flight back from Pakistan.
  • She said she still loved Prince Charles despite his affair, according to Gavin.
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A royal photographer who was close to Princess Diana said she told him that she still loved Prince Charles after their marriage fell apart.

Kent Gavin worked as the royal photographer for the Daily Mirror, and he developed a close relationship with Princess Diana as he photographed her over the course of almost 20 years.

He photographed her wedding and Prince William's christening at her request, and he traveled around the world with her to capture her life.

His unique position gave Gavin direct access to the late princess, which led her to open up to him about her marriage on at least one occasion, as he told Insider.

Princess Diana told a royal photographer that she still loved Prince Charles after his affair became public
Princess Diana in Pakistan in 1996. Tim Graham / Contributor / Getty Images

"On a trip coming back from Pakistan, we got to talking about the marriage ending," he told Insider.

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The trip likely would have been Princess Diana's 1997 trip to Pakistan, as she and Prince Charles officially filed for divorce in August of 1996.

"She did say, 'Kent, I still love him,'" Gavin said.

"She said there were three of them in that marriage, and she wasn't going to have it," Gavin told Insider.

Diana made similar comments in her 1995 BBC1 "Panorama" interview with Martin Bashir. The BBC apologized for covering up "deceitful behavior" used to arrange the interview in 2021.

Details of the Charles' affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, now the Duchess of Cornwall, were leaked to the press in 1992, after which he and Diana carried out their public appearances separately, as Insider's Mikhaila Friel previously reported.

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Princess Diana told a royal photographer that she still loved Prince Charles after his affair became public
Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1992. AP

Despite her comments to Gavin at the end of her marriage, the royal photographer also told Insider that Diana was unhappy at the time of her wedding.

He was with Charles and Diana the day before the wedding at Smith's Lawn, and he said that "she was very upset and left."

Later, Diana revealed that she'd had doubts throughout her engagement about marrying the prince.

"It was a very happy occasion for everybody apart from Diana, sadly," Gavin said of Charles and Diana's wedding.

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