who is his mysterious confidant, who knew all his secrets?

Season 5 of The Crown on Netflix contains its share of scandals and twists. The ten new episodes focus on the 1990s, including the terrible year 1992, considered the annus horribilis by Queen Elizabeth II. During this decade, she witnessed the separation of three of her children from their partner, the fire at Windsor Castle, but above all to the highly publicized divorce of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. The mother of princes William and Harry had forced herself for far too many years to make believe the perfect couple that they strived to represent. One day she wished drop the mask and reveal all : her husband’s affair with a certain Camilla Parker Bowles, his problems with bulimia and anorexia, his deep sadness, the truth about his relations with the royal family, the fear of being assassinated… Closely watched by the palace, she had heard of Andrew Morton’s plan to devote a biography to him.

Since it was impossible for her to meet the journalist in person, she had decided to record cassettes that she passed on to her lifelong friend, James Colthurst. He was the intermediary messenger who entrusted the recordings to the biographer. How did they become friends?

James Colthurst, Lady Diana’s Most Valuable Confidant

Born on March 7, 1957, James Colthurst is the son of Sir Richard La Touche Colthurst, 9th Baronet of Colthurst, and Janet Wilson-Wright. James attended Eton College in Windsor, but it was not there that he met the future Princess of Wales. The very first time they met, cwas in Val Claret, a ski resort in the French Alpsclose to the Italian border. “She knew several of the friends I was with, and they took her back to our flat when she twisted her ankle. They told him I would take a look at it as I was a medical student at the time”he confided to the Telegram in July 2021.

If he was a few years older than her (21 compared to 17 for Diana), they quickly found commonalities. The charm of Lady Di immediately worked: “Fun, bright and mischievous… It was hard not to get along with her right away, and so began the friendship that she and I maintained for the rest of her short life. hectic.” Over the years that followed their meeting, they are remain good friends. James Colthurst was always the shoulder Diana could lean on. She called him “between eight and ten times a day”, to talk to him about his slightest annoyances. If he were married, father of a family and busy with his job as a surgeon, he never let her down. James Colthurst knew everything about Diana Spencer, all her secrets, some of which will probably never be revealed.