BBC to Pay William, Harry Nanny Damages for Notorious Diana Abortion Claim

Prince William and Prince Harry‘s former nanny, Alexandra “Tiggy” Pettifer (née Legge-Bourke), is to be compensated damages by the BBC just after it was uncovered that wrong statements about her were being probably used to impact Princess Diana into offering her infamous 1995 Panorama interview.

Pettifer was used by Prince Charles in 1993 as a particular assistant who would glance immediately after his two sons right after he and Diana separated the calendar year ahead of.

In a 2021 investigation into how the BBC procured its job interview with Diana—which was viewed by over 22 million individuals in the U.K. alone—it was uncovered that a range of allegations about Pettifer, like that she experienced been conducting an affair with Charles all through the 1990s, ended up very likely used to affect the princess into filming with Panorama.

A statement examine at the higher court docket in London by Pettifer’s solicitor on Thursday, mentioned that the promises built from the previous nanny involved: “the incredibly serious and fully unfounded allegations that the claimant was getting an affair with HRH Prince of Wales ensuing in a pregnancy which was aborted.”

“These allegations were fabricated… The Claimant did not have an affair with HRH The Prince of Wales, did not develop into expecting with his child, and did not have an abortion.”

“It is likely,” the assertion also study, “that these untrue and malicious allegations arose as a result and in the context of BBC Panorama‘s efforts to procure an exceptional interview with Diana, Princess of Wales.”

Author and former editor of Vainness Honest, Tina Brown, wrote in her 2007 ebook The Diana Chronicles that the princess herself had demonstrated a belief in the rumors and addressed them at a palace workers Christmas celebration in 1995, just months right after the broadcast of her job interview.

Brown writes that the princess allegedly approached Pettifer and created the remark, “‘Hello, Tiggy, how are you?’…’So sorry to listen to about the infant.'”

The implication was, as Pettifer’s lawful counsel referenced, that a being pregnant ensuing from an affair with Charles experienced been terminated. Brown provides that Diana was educated by her brother-in-law, Lord Fellowes, the queen’s non-public secretary, that the assert was not genuine.

“Relieved” and “Without the need of Basis”

Pettfier’s solicitor mentioned that her shopper was “relieved that the BBC accepts that the allegations are totally untrue and devoid of any foundation whatsoever” and was “delighted that the BBC has agreed to apologize unreservedly… in buy to help her in repairing the significant harm it has brought on her.”

BBC Director-Typical Tim Davie offered a full apology to Pettifer subsequent the listening to on Thursday.

“Adhering to publication of the Dyson Report past calendar year we have been doing the job with these who endured as a end result of the deceitful strategies made use of by the BBC in pursuit of its job interview with Diana, Princess of Wales for the Panorama program in 1995, which include the matters that had been stated in court docket today in respect of Miss out on Tiggy Legge-Bourke, now Mrs. Alexandra Pettifer,” Davie reported.

“The BBC has agreed to spend sizeable damages to Mrs. Pettifer and I would like to choose this chance to apologize publicly to her, to the Prince of Wales, and to the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex, for the way in which Princess Diana was deceived and the subsequent influence on all their life.”

William’s Wish Denied

The revelations in the high court seem to aid a statement created by William that the procedures made use of to protected the BBC Panorama interview with his mother contributed to the breakdown of his parents’ relationship.

Even though Charles and Diana experienced divided in 1992 they did not divorce till 1996, with the Panorama job interview noted to have motivated the authorized termination of their relationship.

“It is my watch that the deceitful way the job interview was obtained considerably motivated what my mother said. The interview was a significant contribution to making my parents’ romantic relationship worse and has since harm innumerable many others,” William told reporters in 2021 following Lord Dyson experienced printed his findings that interviewer Martin Bashir experienced been “deceitful” in his attempts to encourage the princess to movie with Panorama.

“It provides indescribable unhappiness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those last a long time with her.”

He included his look at that, “this Panorama method retains no legitimacy and need to never ever be aired again. It effectively recognized a bogus narrative which, for in excess of a quarter of a century, has been commercialized by the BBC and many others.”

Despite the BBC director-general’s apology to the royals issued on Thursday he declared that the broadcaster would not bury the job interview as William experienced hoped but would workout “restraint” in broadcasting clips for journalistic applications.

“[The interview] does of study course remain element of the historical report and there could be situations in the potential when it will be justified for the BBC to use limited extracts for journalistic purposes,” Davie’s apology stated.

“But these will be handful of and significantly involving and will need to be agreed at govt committee stage and established in the complete context of what we now know about the way the job interview was acquired. I would urge many others to exercise similar restraint.”

This calendar year marks the 25th anniversary of Princess Diana’s dying at the age of 36 in a Paris motor vehicle crash. In 2021, Princes William and Harry unveiled a statue in her honor at Kensington Palace.

Newsweek has approached reps of Pettifer and Prince Charles for remark.