THE CROWN is back on Netflix and Season 5 of the series features Princess Diana’s close friend Dr James Colthurst.
This is all about how Princess Diana and Dr James Colthurst became friends and how helped the mother of Prince William and Harry.
Who is Dr James Colthurst?
The Irish-born medical professional was a close friend of Diana when she worked as a nanny in London before marrying the then Prince Charles in 1981.
He was the go-between for the Princess of Wales and biographer Andrew Morton for the famous tell-all book, which was published in 1992.
Dr Colthurst took Morton’s questions to the palace and then made secret recordings with Diana.
He told Daily Mail Australia how he remembered listening back to the tapes in a working man’s cafe.
He said: “All around everyone’s eating bacon and eggs chatting away, and I put these headphones on and turn on the tape recorder and listen to Diana talking about bulimia nervosa, which I’d never heard of, talking about her suicide attempts, talking about this woman called Camilla Parker Bowles.
“It was like entering a parallel universe, I walked out of that café thinking, ‘wow what on Earth have I heard’.”
He added: “It was the most incredible outburst of really innermost pain, rage, frustration, anger – you were swept away with it.
“It was very compelling.”
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He is understood to be married with two daughters and was educated at Eton College in Windsor, before training as a surgeon at St Thomas Hospital in London.
His rich family in Ireland lives in the medieval Blarney Castle near Cork.
He lives in Berkshire and was the director of a medical research firm.
How did Dr. James Colthurst and Princess Diana become friends?
The two met in Val Claretm in France when Diana hurt her ankle on a skii trip and needed a doctor.
On what would have been Diana’s 60th birthday, he wrote: “She knew several of the friends I was with [on the trip], and they brought her back to our apartment when she twisted her ankle, telling her I would look at it as I was a medical student at the time.
“Good fun, bright and mischievous, it was hard not to hit it off with Diana straight away, and so began the friendship she and I maintained for the rest of her short, eventful life.”
He also added how he supported her when she became a member of the Royal Family.
He added: “Perhaps one of the toughest features of being her friend was trying to encourage her to limit her task list as well as coaxing her over the many bumpy moments which she found almost overwhelming.
“But she was so happy to feel she had something to give that she took on a daunting number of patronages and these all took time and effort.
“She was interested in such a wide range of subjects that it balances what seemed an unhappy life at Kensington Palace with daily encounters with happy, smiling faces.”
How did Dr. James Colthurst help Princess Diana?
Dr Jame Colthurst was a person that Princess Diana could always speak to about difficult topics, especially when it came to life as a royal.
The doctor has claimed that Princess Diana feared that palace officials wanted to undermine her because of her media popularity compared to Charles and separate her from William and Harry.
Dr Colthurst says in the documentary: “There was a great deal of jealousy from the grey men who sat behind Prince Charles, not wanting him to be living in her shadow.
“Her character was being written down – as she saw it, a campaign to sideline her and remove her from the boys.
“That was her worry, that she was going to lose the boys – overriding, above everything else, that was the concern – and that they were using a character run-down as a means of making that happen, an understandable next step.”
He also believed that Diana’s suffering with bulimia was a “reaction to her circumstances” and that “all staff” knew about Prince Charles’ affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.
What happened to Dr. James Colthurst?
Dr James Colthurst now lives with his family as said above.
He previously also spoke on the 2017 Channel 4 documentary – Diana: In Her Own Words.
