Princess Diana's biographer Andrew Morton has said that he "was shocked and quite angry" when he heard that she had died "as she had got control of her life and she was making sense of her life."
Speaking on Saturday With Miriam on RTÉ One, Morton added that he was surprised when he "got on an initial sample of what she had to say and hearing her discuss a woman called Camilla that nobody had ever heard of."
He said that Diana wanted her story to get out as. "She felt disempowered, that she was living a lie and that the world was living a fairy tale. But this was a postmodern fairy tale without a happy ending. Her husband was effectively living with another man's wife and she wanted to get her story out."
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Speaking about how he was able to get the material for his book on the late princes, who died in August 1997, he said that it was: "My job was to get her story out in a way that reflected her personality. I couldn't show up at Kensington Castle. A mutual friend cycled in with a tape recorder and questions written on a page and she would answer the questions."
Asked what he thought when he heard her stories, Morton said: "I was astonished and thought how am I going to prove this. I had to speak to her friends such as about her eating disorders and her relationship with Prince Charles."
Speaking on Diana's reaction to book, the author said: "She predicted it would be a volcano. It changed Diana as it gave her wiggle room to make a new life for herself. It gave her a chance to move forward and the royal family were knocked for six. I felt I was going in to bat on her side and to give her a life for herself."
He said that the impact of the book and her death made it easier for Prince William to marry a commoner and for Prince Harry to marry whom he chooses because of how "Prince Charles was constrained by marrying a white Anglo Saxon virgin."
Asked why Diana continues to hold an enduring fascination on the British public, he said:"It was the same impact as when JFK died. People remember where they were when she died. People watched her transform from a shy young girl to a sleek ambassador."
Watch the full interview on the RTÉ Player.
