The Crown’s Panorama interview: How Diana’s emotional state was exploited by Martin Bashir, the aftermath of the deceit

Diana’s beliefs are further minimised when, in a scene, she meets Elizabeth who bluntly says that the crown, or the royal family, does not have enough time to badmouth her. She insists that whenever anyone speaks to her about Diana, she only has kind words to offer so whatever mistreatment that Diana is hinting at, is all in her head. The filming of the episode takes place on Guy Fawkes Night and the episode goes out of its way multiple times to highlight that Guy Fawkes was a traitor, and tries to imply that by giving the interview against the monarchy, Diana finds herself in the same category. It is also insisted that Diana was manipulated by Martin as she had no one in her corner while giving the interview, not even her brother Earl Spencer, who introduced her to Martin in the first place. While the show does not hesitate to paint Martin as the villain in the episode, it confidently marches ahead by saying that he single-handedly fooled the entire BBC and Diana just by printing out a few documents.

The interpretation of how these events affected the individuals connected with the story could vary, depending on who is narrating the story but the aftermath of this interview created ripples that are still being felt.

The graphic designer who says he mocked up the false documents later said that it was a tipping point for Diana. “Speaking to those in Diana’s circle at that time, you could get a sense why those bank statements were a tipping point that made her mind up to sit down and speak about her life.”

The interview gave BBC high ratings but just a year later, they were accused of falsifying the documents to score the interview by a few tabloids. An internal investigation by BBC declared that no documents were faked to secure an interview and cleared Martin Bashir of any wrongdoing. But, a decade and a half later, in 2020, an independent inquiry headed by headed by former Supreme Court judge John Dyson found Bashir guilty of deceit, even though Bashir kept insisting that he had done nothing wrong. He, in fact, said that Diana was the source of most of the information. At the time, he said that Diana had been in touch with some mystics who could have given this information to her, implying that Diana was easily manipulated.

After the Dyson report proved that Bashir had scored the interview by providing false evidence to Diana, her sons William and Harry issued their statement saying that the interview had an adverse effect on Diana as it secluded her even more. “The interview was a major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse and has since hurt countless others,” William said at the time. Later, Martin Bashir also offered an apology saying that he regretted his actions and called his actions “stupid.” William, in his statement, had mentioned that the interview “should never be aired again” but for the sake of the Netflix series, parts of it were recreated.

BBC has since issued various apologies for their part in the interview and has donated generously to charity organizations that were once supported by Diana with the money they made from the interview.