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A book about the BBC’s controversial Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, is due to be published later this year.
Dianarama: Deception, Entrapment, Cover-up: The Betrayal of Princess Diana by Andy Webb will feature unseen material pertaining to the scandal over the methods employed by BBC journalist Martin Bashir to secure the interview.
A 2021 inquiry found that Bashir faked documents to obtain the landmark interview, in which Diana spoke candidly about the breakdown of her marriage and her struggles with bulimia.
The book has reportedly been written with full cooperation and support from Charles Spencer, Diana’s younger brother. According to the inquiry, Bashir showed forged bank statements to Spencer in order to gain an introduction to Diana. The statements suggested that individuals were being paid to surveil the princess.
However, in a December 1995 note, Diana wrote that she “consented to the interview on Panorama without any undue pressure” and had “no regrets concerning the matter”.
Dianarama’s author, Webb, had “unrivalled access to secret documents and key players within Princess Diana’s family as well as the BBC”, according to the publisher’s description of the book. The former BBC reporter “instigated the exposure of Bashir’s deceit in persuading Diana to be interviewed”.
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Webb previously directed a documentary investigating Bashir’s methods, shown on Channel 4 in 2020. And in 2021 he filed a freedom of information request to the BBC, for emails relating to Bashir sent between corporation bosses over a three month period in 2020. He was ultimately sent more than 3,000 messages, amounting to 10,000 pages.
In an email sent on 19 October 2019, a lawyer told an editor of Panorama that the BBC was “not releasing all of the internal investigations documents at this present time”, the BBC later reported. Webb said the broadcaster “clearly admit that documents were being withheld”, amounting to a “cover-up”.
Dianarama is the “true story of one of the biggest scandals in public life and broadcasting history, revealing a cover-up of staggering proportions, and around which questions persist to the present day,” said the publisher in its acquisition statement.
“It’s rare to come across a book that presents a radical reappraisal of a major historical event, let alone one written by the individual who, through dogged perseverance, brought that history to light,” said Daniel Bunyard, publishing director at Penguin imprint Michael Joseph, which will publish the book on 20 November, exactly 30 years after the interview aired.
“This is a ‘David versus Goliath’ tale, a lone journalist holding one of the most venerable of British institutions to account, along with very senior figures within it.”
