When Princess Diana married Prince Charles in 1981, she beamed her friendly smile for the entire world to see. But, that smile masked a lot of pain as we now know. The designer of the the iconic wedding dress that launched wedding trends, now is revealing how Diana lost so much weight leading up to her wedding. In fact, the dress had to continually be altered.

Diana Learned About Camilla Parker Bowles Before The Wedding

As the wedding approached, Diana learned that Prince Charles was still carrying on with Camilla Parker Bowles, who would become his second wife. The young bride found a gift in a package from Charles to Camilla. It was a bracelet. Obviously, this sent Diana in a tailspin and affected her appetite and likely inflamed her eating disorder.

In the new documentary Charles and Di: The Truth Behind Their Wedding, designer Elizabeth Emmanuel explained the young bride dropped so much weight in the four months prior to the wedding that her waist shrunk by five inches.

“She did lose weight, she was losing so much, we even had to start again a couple of times, even after cutting into the fabric,” the designer said. “Her waist was a size 23 at the end. She was tiny like a model.”

The gown was made of ivory taffeta and featured antique lace, 10,000 pearls, exquisite embroidery, and a 25-foot-long train. They dress design was kept confidential until the wedding day. The design team also made an exact replica of Diana’s dress to be displayed at Madame Tussauds. They even created a backup dress for her in case her real dress design got leaked.

Hidden Stress

The stress of her very public wedding to a man whose heart belonged to another woman was too much for Diana to bear. She sought some sort of control over her life and ended up controlling her weight to a point that led to her to a dangerous eating disorder.

Of course we knew none of this when Diana and Charles married 37 years ago. We bought into the fairy tale that was presented to us. It took years to discover how miserable this kind and loving woman who just wanted to be the “Queen of Hearts” actually was.

Princess Diana was full of smiles on her wedding day, as seen in the video below. She was likely still trying hard to buy into the fairy tale as well. It’s hard to openly look miserable when you’re young and the world is telling you how lucky you are.

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