Princess Diana's letters about a "terrible and disgusting" divorce will be auctioned off

32 personal letters of Princess Diana from the time of her scandalous divorce from Prince Charles will be put up for auction, reports The Mirror. The recipients of letters dated 1995 and 1996, in which Diana openly talks about her loneliness, fear of wiretapping and despair from the "terrible and disgusting" (in the original "desperate and ugly") divorce are friends of Princess Susan and Tarek Kassem, whom she met during charity work. According to the couple, they decided to sell the archive because owning it is a "big responsibility" and they would not want to burden their children with it. The Kassems decided to keep some of the most frank and confidential letters.

In a letter dated April 28, 1996, Diana writes that she will not be able to go to the opera with the Kassems, to "Tosca", because of the nervous tension caused by the divorce process. "I'm having a very difficult time, the pressure is serious, I feel it from all sides. Sometimes it is very difficult to hold my head high, today I am on my knees and just long for this divorce to finally take place, because the possible costs are huge." Judging by the handwriting, which by the end of the letter becomes almost illegible, she hardly wrote.

On May 20, 1996, Diana writes to Susan Kassem about her suspicions that phones at Kensington Palace are being tapped, and recordings of her private conversations are being transmitted to the royal family. "Since I do not have a mobile phone, it is difficult for me to discuss personal issues, since my remarks are constantly recorded and transmitted here," the princess writes. – If I had known a year ago what I would have to go through with this divorce, I would never have agreed to it. It's horrible and disgusting."

In many letters, Diana thanks the Kassems for their emotional support. On December 2, 1995, the day after the Queen advised Charles and Diana to divorce, she wrote: "I may have been described as a butterfly, but I don't want to fly away from this beautiful family," referring to the Kassem family. In another letter, she thanks friends for inviting her to spend Christmas 1995 with them while William and Harry were with their father at Sandringham. At that time, Buckingham Palace officially announced that Diana would not join the royal family at the celebrations, and many thought that the princess spent the holiday alone at Kensington Palace. "I was so excited to be invited to a family event, especially because I felt like I was part of a team," she writes. Another time she says to the Kassems: "I am immensely touched by how much you both care about me… I'm not used to it!" The princess also thanks the couple for gifts: flowers and books on meditation.

The letters will be sold at Lay's auctioneers in Penzance on February 16. The epistolary archive will be sold in its entirety, and the proceeds will go to charitable foundations supported by Diana.