The Prince and Princess of Wales divorced in 1996, after 15 years of marriage and the births of Prince William and Prince Harry. Diana famously told the BBC’s Martin Bashir that there were “three of us” in her ill-fated marriage to Charles, but a royal expert says the late royal struggled with divorce.

According to biographer Ingrid Seward, the Princess of Wales informed her that her divorce from Prince Charles had taken its toll.

The Princess’s secretary had contacted Seward with a slightly ominous message.

“The Princess would like to see you,” she spoke. I knew at once what it was about. I had written an article about Diana claiming she was hiding someone in the boot of her car to get them into her apartment unnoticed by security — or anyone else.

Diana invited the biographer to a “girlie chat” in 1997, during which she revealed, “The divorce was hell.”

“I was in pieces. I didn’t feel safe anywhere.

“I know it sounds silly now but I really did worry about the brakes on my car . . .”

Princess Diana, who would have been 60 on July 1st, walked in on a cloud of perfume, her hand extended in greeting. She was dressed in an electric blue Versace gown that reached just past her knees and was worn tight, with no sign of a panty line.

“(Diana) even thought Prince Charles wanted her out of the way and had penned a note saying as much and even suggested Camilla was a decoy and he wanted the way clear to marry their children’s nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke,” the author continued.

“But now a year later she knew all her fears sounded silly and she was full of life and vivacious, positive and at ease. By nature, she was an incredibly insecure person.

“It was one of her greatest problems — she would never outgrow the habit of dropping her eyes when she spoke in her silvery, little-girl voice, but she seemed more at ease with herself.”

Diana and Charles divorced in 1996 after their separation in 1992.

She had money, said to be £17 million from her divorce, and she was no longer lonely. She had begun to enjoy herself. Buckingham Palace did not bother her as much, and she had stopped fretting about her car’s brakes.

“How strange, I thought, I was probably the last journalist to ever ‘interview’ her,” Seward remarked after learning of her death.

Ms Seward further said that Diana was disappointed that her marriage did not work out, and that the Princess maintained that “Charles absolutely loved me.”

She was disappointed that her marriage had failed, and she felt that if she and Charles had met at different points in their life, they might have “conquered” the world together. “When we married, he loved me and I loved him,” she said. “We still love each other now, in a different way. At least I love him. He is a good person. It is incredibly sad about our marriage.”

However, the Princess said, “It was the people around us.”

“They didn’t give us a chance. Charles is surrounded by the wrong people giving the wrong advice and he’s very unfulfilled and he really doesn’t do enough.”

Seward said that she and Diana also discussed Diana’s protectiveness towards her boys, princes William and Harry.

Diana was still envious of Tiggy’s proximity to her boys, which was reasonable given that they preferred Tiggy’s presence to hers since she drew less attention.