Princess Diana and Prince Charles “Both Cried” the Day Their Divorce Was Finalized

According to royal biographer Ingrid Seward, the former Prince and Princess of Wales “sat down together on the sofa” and let the emotions loose.

The Gist

• Princess Diana and Prince Charles separated in 1992, and their divorce was finalized on August 28, 1996—29 years ago this month.
• According to royal biographer Ingrid Seward, on that day, the former Prince and Princess of Wales “sat down together on the sofa, and they both cried.”
• Charles and Diana had married 15 years prior on July 29, 1981.

Twenty-nine years ago this month—and following an often contentious separation that began in 1992, four years prior—Prince Charles and Princess Diana finalized their divorce on August 28, 1996 after 15 years of marriage. 

Though it had been a long road to get to the end of their marriage, royal biographer Ingrid Seward said in the documentary The Royal Family at War that “Diana did tell me something quite interesting. She said that on the day of the divorce, she and Charles sat down together on the sofa, and they both cried.”

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said that, while this may be surprising for many to hear, “It seems once Charles and Diana accepted that their marriage was over, they both did have a natural feeling of sadness. But there was also a lot of mutual exhaustion after fighting their relationship battle in public for so many years that might have just caused this emotional moment.”

According to Seward, who is also the editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, once Charles and Diana agreed to end their tumultuous marriage, “It was this crazy separation, but by the time the divorce was finalized, they were on much better terms.”

Fitzwilliams agreed that after agreeing to separate and ultimately divorce, “things had calmed down a little between the two.”

“They had their own lives and their children to look after,” he added. “Their marriage was a disaster from early on, but despite the bitterness between them, they were both very good parents to Prince William and Prince Harry throughout.”

In June 1997, former Vanity Fair and The New Yorker editor-in-chief and royal biographer Tina Brown had lunch with the Princess of Wales and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour in New York City. In Brown’s 2007 book The Diana Chronicles (via TIME), she wrote about the lunch and said that “At the end of Diana’s life, she and Charles were on the best terms they’d been for a very long time. Charles got into the habit of dropping in on her at Kensington Palace, and they would have tea and a sort of rueful exchange. They even had some laughs together.”

“It was definitely calming down—the boys were older,” Brown added. “They talked about their philanthropies.” Referring to Charles’s longtime mistress Camilla Parker Bowles—now Queen Camilla—Brown said that Diana “had accepted Camilla. One thing she had finally done was really understand that Camilla was the love of his life, and there was just nothing she could do about it.”

Yet, Brown continued, Diana told her and Wintour “she would go back to Charles in a heartbeat if he wanted her,” reportedly adding that she thought that she and Charles would have made a great team. Sadly, just 368 days after their divorce was finalized, Diana tragically lost her life following a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997. She was just 36 years old.