Martin Henry Bashir is a British former journalist. He was a presenter on British and American television and for the BBC’s Panorama programme, for which he interviewed Diana, Princess of Wales in 1995.
Bashir worked for the BBC from 1986 to 1999 on programmes including Panorama before joining ITV. He presented the 2003 ITV documentary about Michael Jackson.
From 2004 to 2016, he worked in New York, first as an anchor for ABC’s Nightline and then as a political commentator for MSNBC, hosting his own programme, Martin Bashir, and a correspondent for NBC’s Dateline NBC.
He resigned from his position at MSNBC in December 2013 after making “ill-judged” comments about the former governor of Alaska and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. In 2016, he returned to the BBC as a religious affairs correspondent.
In 2020, the BBC’s director general Tim Davie apologised to the brother of the princess, Earl Spencer, for Bashir’s use of faked bank statements to secure his 1995 Panorama interview with the Princess of Wales, Spencer’s sister. Bashir resigned from the BBC in May 2021, citing health reasons.
What did Princess Diana say in Bashir interview?
Diana told Bashir: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” She went on to admit her own affair with former army officer James Hewitt, who had served as her and her sons’ riding instructor.
She told Bashir she was “very let down” when Hewitt contributed to a tell-all book about their affair, Princess in Love.
“It was shocking because this was Diana in her own words and what she was saying was incredibly explosive,” says Nicholl. “It was Diana taking control of the narrative in front of the camera for the very first time.”
When asked if Charles wanted to rule, Diana told Bashir, “there was always conflict on that subject with him when we discussed it,” and that “being King would be a little bit more suffocating.
And because I know the character, I would think that the top job, as I call it, would bring enormous limitations to him, and I don’t know whether he could adapt to that.”
“Her casting doubt on Charles’s ability to be a good king was hugely damaging to the institution,” says Nicholl.
“There is a fine balance between using TV as a medium to royal advantage and not letting too much daylight into the mystique of monarchy.”
Did Princess Diana regret the interview?
Princess Diana did not regret her infamous 1995 interview with Martin Bashir on BBC’s “Panorama” program, according to her biographer Tina Brown.
Veteran journalist Brown, who wrote the biography, “The Diana Chronicles,” in 2007, has a new book titled “The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor, the Truth and the Turmoil” releasing imminently.
In an excerpt from the book, published in Vanity Fair, Brown describes a meeting with British entrepreneur Gulu Lalvani who had dated Diana shortly before her death.