The official story claims Charles strayed from his marriage first, driving innocent Diana into the arms of other men as revenge for his Camilla obsession.
However, royal protection officers who witnessed events firsthand described a different timeline, with Diana's first affair beginning while she was still trying to save her marriage.
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Introduction
1:11 Chapter One: The Lamb to the Slaughter Seeks Love
5:29 Chapter Two: Soldiers, Squidgy, and Scandalous Tapes
9:52 Chapter Three: Obsessive Love and Society Scandals
14:19 Chapter Four: The Heart Surgeon and the Fatal Rebound
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Six different men became intimate companions to the woman who married into the world's most scrutinized family, each relationship representing another attempt to find the love her husband had reserved for Camilla Parker Bowles.
Diana walked down the aisle of St. Paul's Cathedral on July 29, 1981, later calling it "the worst day of my life," confessing she felt like "a lamb to the slaughter."
When asked during their engagement interview if they were in love, Charles's response—"whatever 'in love' means"—should have warned the world that this union was doomed.
By 1986, five years into a marriage that produced two sons but little joy, Diana discovered Charles was having an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.
Royal protection officer Allan Peters later revealed: "The first person that strayed was the princess. He went back to see Mrs. Parker-Bowles after he learned about her affair with Mannakee."
Barry Mannakee entered Diana's life in April 1985 as a 37-year-old police officer assigned to her Royal Protection Squad, a married East Ender who provided warmth Charles couldn't.
The transformation from bodyguard to confidant began during a fishing expedition at Balmoral when Charles's careless cast embedded a salmon hook in Diana's eyelid.
While her husband continued fishing, apparently unbothered by his wife's injury, it was Mannakee who drove Diana back, consoling her during an incident that symbolized her marriage's emotional barrenness.
In secretly recorded tapes, Diana revealed she was "deeply in love with someone who worked in this environment" and "would have been quite happy to give all this up and live with him."
Mannakee died in a motorcycle accident on May 15, 1987, nine months after being removed from Diana's protection detail, with Diana later telling her voice coach: "I think he was bumped off."
James Hewitt rode into Diana's life in 1986 as a cavalry officer offering riding lessons, beginning a five-year affair documented through his smuggling into Kensington Palace hidden in car boots.
Their romance provided Diana with "the attention and affection she relished, and then the passion she yearned for," occurring simultaneously with Charles's renewed relationship with Camilla.
The "Squidgygate" scandal erupted when amateur radio enthusiasts recorded Diana's intimate New Year's Eve 1989 phone conversation with James Gilbey, who called her "Squidgy" 53 times.
Oliver Hoare, an Islamic art dealer and friend of Charles, began an affair with Diana in 1992 that took a bizarre turn when his household received approximately 300 silent phone calls traced to Diana's lines.
Diana approached England's rugby captain Will Carling during a 1995 workout, joking about his sit-ups technique and beginning a flirtation that destroyed his marriage to Julia.
Theodore "Teddy" Forstmann, a billionaire private equity entrepreneur, conducted a three-year courtship of Diana, sending flowers weekly while she harbored "fantasies of him running for President with herself as First Lady."
Hasnat Khan walked into Diana's life in September 1995 at Royal Brompton Hospital, where his indifference to her royal status proved "almost unbearably sexy" to the princess.
Diana called him "Mr. Wonderful," filled her wardrobe with colorful tunics, visited his family in Pakistan, and reportedly considered converting to Islam for their relationship.
Their romance required extreme secrecy through "nightly visits" to his hospital, but ended in July 1997 when Khan's horror of media attention proved incompatible with Diana's public life.
Within weeks of losing Khan, whom friends considered her "soulmate," Diana accepted Mohamed Al-Fayed's yacht invitation, meeting his son Dodi in what became her final, tragically brief romance.
The woman who searched for love through bodyguards, cavalry officers, art dealers, and surgeons found death in the company of a playboy she'd known for weeks.
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