Paul Burrell recalls Charles and Diana row
Former royal butler Paul Burrell has claimed that an argument between the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana escalated into a dramatic dinner-table incident, leaving Charles “covered in salad dressing”. The account appears in Burrell’s new book, The Royal Insider: My Life with the Queen, the King and Princess Diana, and revisits the intense tensions he says he witnessed as the couple’s marriage broke down in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
In an interview, Fox News reported that Burrell said he had prepared a candlelit dinner for the couple before hearing what he described as an “almighty row”, after which he entered to find the dinner table overturned, broken china and food scattered across the room.
Burrell said Charles, then Prince of Wales, looked “sheepish” and apologised, claiming he had caught his sleeve on the edge of the table, while Burrell believed the real cause was a fierce argument that ended with Diana “upstairs in tears”. He added that he often cleaned up broken plates and other damage following disputes, and said the king never physically hurt Diana, though he described her as “mentally tortured” by the marriage’s collapse.
The former butler also wrote that Charles would retreat to Highgrove House and suggested the estate’s location, near Ray Mill House where Camilla Parker Bowles lived at the time, was significant during the period when Diana would visit at weekends with Princes William and Harry. Burrell recalled Queen Elizabeth II expressing hope that the marriage would endure, but said it ultimately could not be sustained.
Burrell’s recollections arrive as renewed public interest continues in the private breakdown of the Prince and Princess of Wales’ relationship, which led to their separation in 1992 and divorce in 1996. The claims in the book are not independently verified, but add to the long-running body of accounts describing a turbulent royal marriage that has continued to shape perceptions of the monarchy decades later.
