In 1981, the world was captivated by Princess Diana and her fairytale romance with Prince Charles. She was the public’s darling — the beautiful, shy young woman who had captured the heart of the Prince of Wales.
But behind the scenes, things weren’t as perfect as they appeared.
1981 was a monumental year for Princess Diana, a year that would change her life forever. While working as a nursery teacher’s assistant, she became engaged to Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne.
Their royal wedding in July that year was a worldwide spectacle, watched by millions as Diana became the Princess of Wales. But amid the glamour and the fairytale-like wedding, there were darker, hidden struggles that no one could see.
At first, however, everything seemed peaceful and perfect between the newly-in-love couple. When Charles left for a five-week royal tour in 1981, cameras captured Diana crying as she said goodbye, thought to be from the sadness of being separated from her soon-to-be husband.
But, as it turns out, the real reason for Diana’s tears was far more heartbreaking.
Real reason behind Diana’s tears at the airport
One of the most memorable and heartbreaking moments of 1981 occurred on March 29, when Lady Diana tearfully waved goodbye to Prince Charles at Heathrow Airport. The Prince was about to embark on a five-week royal tour, traveling to the United States, Venezuela, New Zealand, and Australia.
Dressed in a red coat, fawn skirt, and brown leather shoes, Diana walked beside the Prince through puddles at the airport after arriving in the Queen’s Rolls-Royce.
Just days earlier, Queen Elizabeth had given her formal consent for Prince Charles to marry Lady Diana Spencer, marking the start of their fairytale engagement.
As the RAF VC 10 prepared for takeoff, Diana stood by to say farewell Charles. The Prince kissed her on both cheeks at the rainy and windswept airport ramp.
A painful truth
This emotional scene marked several milestones — it was the first public kiss since the announcement of the Royal Engagement earlier that year, and it was one of the many images that defined Diana’s early years in the public eye.
Reports from that day confirmed that Diana was indeed crying as she parted from Charles. The farewell was described as deeply emotional, and Charles himself appeared moved by the moment.
“The Prince tried to cheer her up, kissed her once on each cheek, then with a broad smile petted her left and said, ‘Take care,’” reported the Western Daily Press in 1981.
The moment was photographed and covered by journalists worldwide, with the press labeling it a “tender farewell.”
Airport officials remarked, “We have never seen such a touching farewell.”
But as we would learn decades later, the truth was far more complicated — and far more painful.
Princess Diana’s own words
In a 2017 documentary, Diana: In Her Own Words, the world finally heard Diana’s side of the story. In the tapes she made for biographer Andrew Morton in 1991, she revealed that the tears weren’t because of Charles leaving. Instead, they were due to a devastating revelation she learned just hours before.
”You may recall seeing a picture of me sobbing in a red coat when [Prince Charles] went off on his aeroplane,” Diana says on the tapes. ”That was nothing to do with him going. The most awful thing had happened before he went.”
The cameras had no idea what was really happening behind closed doors.
At just 19, Diana was still a young woman, inexperienced in the complexities of royal life and relationships. But Diana had discovered something that would change everything: Charles’s ongoing relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles.
”I was in his study talking to him about his trip,” Diana recalled. ”The telephone rang; it was Camilla, and just before he was going for five weeks. So I thought, ‘Shall I be nice, or shall I just sit here?’ So I thought I’d be nice, so I left them to it. And it just broke my heart, that.”
The revealing bracelet
Later, while Charles was away, Diana would learn of a bracelet Charles had made for Camilla, a gift that struck at the heart of her worst fears.
”I walked into this man’s office one day and I said, ‘Ooh, what’s in that parcel?’ And he said ‘Oh, you shouldn’t look at that.’ So I opened it and there was the bracelet.”
”I was devastated,” she continued. “And I said, ‘Well, he’s going to give it to her tonight.’ So rage, rage, rage. You know, ‘Why can’t you be honest with me?’ But no, absolutely cut me dead. It was as if he’d made his decision, and if it wasn’t going to work, it wasn’t going to work.”
Despite the heartbreak, Diana tried to stay strong, even when faced with the painful realities of her engagement.
A lunch with Camilla, meant to be a light-hearted affair, took on a darker meaning when Camilla subtly laid claim to Charles in a way that Diana could never ignore.
”You are not going to hunt, are you?” Camilla had asked.
”I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘I just wanted to know,’ and I thought as far as she was concerned that was her communication route,” Diana recalled.
Another theory: Tears of rage
Royal biographer Tina Brown, in The Diana Chronicles, believes the tears Diana shed at the airport were not of sorrow, but of anger. ”Diana’s tears at the airport were not of grief but of rage,” Brown wrote. And rage is exactly what Diana was feeling. Her fiancé, the man she was about to marry, had given a deeply personal gift to another woman. In Diana’s eyes, that was a sign of things to come.
“He’d found the virgin, the sacrificial lamb – and in a way, he was obsessed with me, but it was hot and cold, hot and cold, you never knew what mood it was going to be, up and down, up and down,” Diana said, reflecting on the emotional rollercoaster that was her relationship with Charles.
Just before the wedding, Diana went for another lunch – this time with her sisters.
“I went upstairs, had lunch with my sisters who were there, and I said, ‘I can’t marry him. I can’t do this. This is absolutely unbelievable,’” Diana can be heard saying during an audio recording in the documentary Diana: In Her Own Words.
Diana confided in her sisters, hoping for support, but they gave her the harsh reality check she needed. ”Well, bad luck, ‘Duch.’ Your face is on the tea towels so you’re too late to chicken out.”
The wedding went ahead, despite the storm brewing in Diana’s heart. By 1996, after years of infidelity and emotional turmoil, Charles and Diana divorced, following a letter from the Queen advising them to end their troubled marriage.
“There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” Diana later said.
When Diana confronted Camilla
According to Charles’ authorized biography, as quoted by Town & Country, Charles and Camilla’s love affair started in 1986. At that time, Charles was still married to Princess Diana, and she found out about it.
In 1989, Diana confronted Camilla over the affair, telling her to back off.
“I know what’s going on between you and Charles and I just want you to know that,” Camilla recalled Diana saying in a tape released by The Telegraph, as quoted by Town & Country.
“[Diana] said to me: ‘You’ve got everything you ever wanted. You’ve got all the men in the world falling in love with you and you’ve got two beautiful children, what more do you want?’”
“So I said, ‘I want my husband.’ And I said, ‘I’m sorry I’m in the way and it must be hell for both of you. But I do know what’s going on. Don’t treat me like an idiot,’” Camilla explained.
Princess Diana would tragically pass away in a car crash on August 31, 1997.
At the time, no one really knew what Diana was feeling, but looking at those photos from Heathrow today, it’s clear they tell a different story.
What seemed like a sweet, emotional farewell was in fact much more complicated.
Looking back, it’s crazy how much more we understand now. What’s your take on it all?