MARTIN BASHIR: Your Royal Highness, how prepared were you for the pressures that came with marrying into the Royal Family?
DIANA: At the age of 19, you always think you’re prepared for everything, and you think you have the knowledge of what’s coming ahead. But although I was daunted at the prospect at the time, I felt I had the support of my husband-to-be.
BASHIR: What were the expectations that you had for married life?
DIANA: I think like any marriage, specially when you’ve had divorced parents like myself, you’d want to try even harder to make it work and you don’t want to fall back into a pattern that you’ve seen happen in your own family. “I want to reassure all those people who have loved me and supported me throughout the last 15 years that I’d never let them down.” I desperately wanted it to work, I desperately loved my husband and I wanted to share everything together, and I thought that we were a very good team.
I watched the interview last night and I realized, every woman can relate to her story. She is the late Princess of Wales, The mother of their future King and she’s simply a woman, just like a lot of women out there who suffer on the same level but in a different environment.
BASHIR: Looking back now, do you feel at all responsible for the difficulties in your marriage?
DIANA: Mmm. I take full responsibility, I take some responsibility that our marriage went the way it did. I’ll take half of it, but I won’t take any more than that, because it takes two to get in this situation.
BASHIR: But you do bear some of the responsibility?
DIANA: Absolutely, we both made mistakes.
BASHIR: Another book that was published recently concerned a Mr James Hewitt, in which he claimed to have had a very close relationship with you, from about 1989 I think. What was the nature of your relationship?
DIANA: He was a great friend of mine at a very difficult, yet another difficult time, and he was always there to support me, and I was absolutely devastated when this book appeared, because I trusted him, and because, again, I worried about the reaction on my children.
And, yes, there was factual evidence in the book, but a lot of it was, comes from another world, didn’t equate to what happened.
BASHIR: What do you mean?
DIANA: Well, there was a lot of fantasy in that book, and it was very distressing for me that a friend of mine, who I had trusted, made money out of me. I really minded about that.
And he’d rung me up 10 days before it arrived in the bookshops to tell me that there was nothing to worry about, and I believed him, stupidly.
And then when it did arrive the first thing I did was rush down to talk to my children. And William produced a box of chocolates and said, `Mummy, I think you’ve been hurt. These are to make you smile again.’ So…
BASHIR: Did your relationship go beyond a close friendship?
DIANA: Yes it did, yes.
BASHIR: Were you unfaithful?
DIANA: Yes, I adored him. Yes, I was in love with him. But I was very let down.
BASHIR: How would you describe your life now? You do live very much on your own, don’t you?
DIANA: Yes, I don’t mind that actually. You know, people think that at the end of the day a man is the only answer. Actually, a fulfilling job is better for me. (LAUGHTER)
BASHIR: What do you mean by that?
DIANA: Well, I mean any gentleman that’s been past my door, we’ve instantly been put together in the media and all hell’s broken loose, so that’s been very tough on the male friends I’ve had, and obviously from my point of view.
BASHIR: Does that mean that you feel that for the rest of your life you’ll have to be on your own?
DIANA: No, I’m not really on my own. I’ve got wonderful friends, I’ve got my boys, I’ve got my work. It’s just by living at Kensington Palace obviously it is a little bit isolating, but, you know, maybe we all feel like that.
portrait of a young woman thought to be created by a 19th century German artist and sold two years ago for about $19,000 is now being attributed by art experts to Leonardo da Vinci and valued at more than $150 million. 
