Princess Diana and then-Prince Charles‘ marriage was anything but perfect. Apart from their personal differences, royal pressures, and expectations of duty, Charles’s highly public affair with Camilla Parker Bowles was one of the main reasons behind the couple’s eventual fallout. In the 1980s, the marriage dispute finally became public knowledge. However, at that time, both parties were rumored to have been embroiled in extramarital affairs.
On July 29, 1981, when Diana and Charles tied the knot, it was considered a fairytale marriage. Their televised wedding ceremony was watched by millions, perhaps even billions, around the world.
However, their relationship soon faced many turmoils. Although it appeared perfect on the surface, things were rapidly deteriorating behind the closed doors of the royal palace.
Even in her darkest moments, Princess Diana was never without love. In 1997, as she struggled with the devastating truth of Prince Charles’s affair, her young son, Prince William, noticed her sadness and did what any boy who adored his mother would do—he brought her a box of… pic.twitter.com/FF2HUPhy0n
— Elizabeth (@Ekp1151) April 4, 2025
By the late 1980s, the spark between Charles and Camilla had reignited, and with that, Princess Diana‘s marriage started facing serious challenges. It wasn’t until January 1993 that the affair was branded as the sole reason behind what would be one of the most chaotic divorces in royal history. At that time, a six-minute telephone conversation between Charles and Camilla, which was never meant for public ears, was published by the British media.
The phone call revealed intimate and suggestive exchanges between the two. However, more shocking was a joke made by the then-prince. During the phone call, Charles told Camilla that if he had to be reincarnated as an item of her clothing, he would choose to be a tampon. Charles said that it would flush his bad luck down the toilet.
People were shocked to hear Charles’ joke. And it later got dubbed as “Tampongate” by the British media. Notably, this happened shortly after Diana and Charles formally separated. Nonetheless, the telephone exchange cast a long shadow over the royal family.
As a result Camilla was trending on twitter for the first time ever and everyone was reminded of her role in tormenting an 18 year old Princess Diana and having an affair, whilst married, with Prince Charles
Read more about #TamponGate below.#royals@ClarenceHouse pic.twitter.com/XlMz2eMa9G— Alexis is sowing discord in the West (@ArchewellBaby) November 8, 2021
The leak was too much for Charles, whose reputation was tarnished. The then-prince’s public image was in the gutter, and with that, his affair with Camilla also began receiving heat from the people who considered Diana their own. Charles wasn’t the only one, though; his affair partner, Camilla, faced similar scrutiny, if not more. After all, she was deemed the biggest reason behind the fallout between Diana and her husband.
The “Tampongate” scandal remains one of the biggest controversies in royal history. It also led to the finalization of Diana and Charles’s divorce in 1996, just a year before Princess Diana’s tragic death. Regardless of the scandal’s effect on personal relationships behind the castle doors, it serves as a blueprint for studying the challenges within the monarchy.
