OHMYGOSSIP — Davina McCall wants to be best friends with Prince Harry.
The 49-year-old TV presenter is a huge fan of the royal and although she also admires his brother William, she prefers Harry because he is “fallible”.
She told The Sun: “Literally, I couldn’t love Prince Harry more if I tried. He’s my kind of person.
“I feel like if I was to meet him, we would be best friends. I think a lot of people feel that way about me, that they would be my best friend if they met me.
“Prince William is a good man but he’s not as fallible as Harry.
“Harry makes mistakes, we’ve all made mistakes and he is lovely.”
And Davina has also praised Harry for encouraging conversation about mental health.
The 32-year-old royal has opened up about his struggle in coping with the loss of his mother Princess Diana in 1997, which saw him launch a number of projects, including the Heads Together campaign and the Invictus Games to encourage those battling with their own problems to overcome them and speak out.
Davina said: “I don’t feel men are anywhere near where they need to be with the pressures of society. They need a lot more help to open up to each other. They need a leader.
“Guys need to understand all that stuff is OK – talking about feelings and having feelings… it’s all fine.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Princess Diana’s close friend Lana Marks still feels guilty about her death.
The handbag designer was supposed to take a four-day trip to Milan with Diana in August 1997 but had to cancel after her father died of heart failure.
Instead, Diana took the fateful trip to Paris with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, where they died in a car crash and Lana is still haunted by her close friend’s death.
She told The Sun: “It was a terrible time.
“I was supposed to be on vacation with Diana in Milan right then. We were going to go to Lake Como before flying back.
“But my father died suddenly so I had to cancel my vacation with the princess and travel to my homeland.
“I could only reach her butler Paul Burrell. I asked him to get my urgent message to her.
“She called me in South Africa and we had a chance to talk. I felt bad because she was at a loose end.
“Then she went to Paris with her lover Dodi Fayed and that terrible accident happened.”
And Lana admitted that 20 years later, she is still devastated over Diana’s death.
She added: “For the next few years I was in shock. I still feel the pain of it all. I constantly think, ‘What if she’d been with me?’ All that might not have happened.
“I feel terrible when I have that thought but can’t get rid of it. I’m thinking of her more than usual now due to the anniversary and it definitely still plays on my mind.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Princess Diana was “the greatest ambassador” the world has ever had, according to superfan Jo Dobson.
Jo has a huge collection of memorabilia relating to the Princess of Wales and praised the late royal for doing “so much” in her short life.
She said: “Diana meant the world to me and my husband. I think she was the greatest ambassador we’ve ever had. She did so much in her short life, more than anyone would do in a lifetime.”
Jo is also a big fan of Duchess Catherine, who is married to Diana’s son Prince William.
She added: “What I like about Kate is when there’s children she’ll get down to them, but there’ll never be another Diana. Di was Di – as much as we like Kate.
“Someone said to me she might turn up at the exhibition, I said she won’t. They’re too busy. But Earl Spencer knows about the exhibition. The boys know.
“They’ve said congratulations. They hope it goes very well. He said to us, ‘Hundreds and thousands of people love my sister but you’re fanatical’. We said, ‘We know, but we’ll never change.'”
Jo has finally finished adding to her collection as she has run out of space and knows it is worth “thousands”.
She added: “We had to stop. There comes a time when you’ve run out of room on the wall. We’ve spent thousands but she was worth it.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — A slice of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding cake is going up for auction.
Royal fans everywhere have the chance to get their hands on a portion of the royal couple’s eight tier wedding cake in an auction held by Chiswick Auction House.
The cake is set to go on sale on September 27, with a guide price set at £800. However, it is thought the slice of dessert will end up selling for a lot more as a previous piece of cake raked in an impressive £8,000.
Whoever bids the highest will be the proud owner of the slice of cake, which will be placed in a special cream and gold commemorative tin – the same one given to the guests at the wedding back in April 2011.
The tin has a printed card, which reads: “With the best wishes from the TRH The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall in celebration of the wedding of TRH the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.”
It comes after Duchess of Cambridge’s hairdresser Richard Ward revealed that Catherine was very “calm” on her wedding day.
He said: “I have some incredible memories of that day. When she walked back into Buckingham Palace and her hair was all still in place, I cannot tell you the relief we all felt! I’ve seen brides far more nervous that Catherine! She was fantastic – she kept us calm, not the other way round!
“I wanted to show Kate the back of her hair [getting ready at Clarence House for the evening party] and I was struggling to walk with this 500-year-old mirror. He just said, ‘Let me give you a hand.’ And I said, ‘No, no, honestly.’ But he took one end and I’ve got the other and we’re shuffling along with this mirror – he’s great, he really is. It was the most incredible experience and I’ll never forget it.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Prince George’s new school is “slightly chaotic”.
The four-year-old royal – who is the eldest child of Duchess Catherine and Prince William – is set to start school at Thomas’s in Battersea in a couple of weeks time and the education establishment has been described as “busy”.
A post about the school on The Good Schools Guide reads: “A big, busy, slightly chaotic school for cosmopolitan parents who want their children to have the best English education money can buy. That is what they want and, to a large degree, that is what they get.”
Describing the school’s entry requirements, they added: “Mainly at 4. Competitive and oversubscribed. Register as soon as possible, preferably at birth. Assessments in November prior to entry in September the following year. Three applicants for each place offered.
“Up to six boys and girls per hour’s session. Looking for children who ‘have a measure of confidence, are responsive, sociable, with a light in their eyes’. Sibling priority but not absolutely guaranteed.”
It comes after it was revealed Prince George will learn how to be a “giver, not taker” when he starts primary school this year.
Speaking about their main principles in a newsletter posted on the school’s website, the headmaster, Ben Thomas, wrote: “Whilst we are proud of our record of senior school entrance and scholarship successes, we place a greater emphasis on a set of core values, which include kindness, courtesy, confidence, humility and learning to be givers, not takers.
“We offer a rich and broad curriculum, with Art, Ballet, Drama, ICT, French, Music and PE all taught by specialist teachers from a child’s first day in school.
“We hope that our pupils will leave this school with a strong sense of social responsibility, set on a path to become net contributors to society and to flourish as conscientious and caring citizens of the world.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Prince William didn’t want his mother’s death to “break” him.
The 35-year-old royal was devastated when Princess Diana tragically passed away in August 1997 when he was just 15 but he was determined not to let her untimely passing affect him so badly that it would ruin her “legacy”.
Speaking to the BBC for the Diana, 7 Days documentary, he said: “When you have something so traumatic as the death of your mother when you’re 15, as very sadly many people have experienced and no one wants to experience – it’ll either make or break you. And I wouldn’t let it break me. I wanted it to make me.
“I wanted her to be proud of the person I’d become. I didn’t want her legacy to be William or Harry were completely and utterly devastated by it and all the hard work and the love she put into us when we were younger, for it to go to waste.”
Meanwhile, Prince Harry previously admitted he had “no sudden outpouring of grief” when he was told his mother had died.
He said: “One of the hardest things for a parent to have to do is to tell your children that your other parent has died. But he [Prince Charles] was there for us, he was the one out of two left and he tried to do his best and to make sure we were protected and looked after. But, you know, he was going through the same grieving process as well.”
Whilst William added: “I remember just feeling completely numb. And you keep asking yourself, ‘Why me?’ all the time. ‘What have I done?'”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Princess Diana’s driver had to stop strangers from seeing the late royal’s body after she passed.
The Princess of Wales was just 36-years-old when she tragically passed away after a car accident in Paris in August 1997 and her loyal driver Colin Tebbutt – who was not driving at the time of the crash – has told how he had to stop people from coming into the room where she was.
He said: “She wasn’t in a mortuary, she was in a bedroom in bed covered in an enormous amount of blankets. The place appeared to be in turmoil. My first job was to stop people coming in and bowing.
“People, government mi­nisters, you name it. I didn’t know who they were. Anybody that was calling in at the hospital. They didn’t say anything – they were just bowing and walking out. It was wrong. I knew why they were there, but it had to stop.”
And Colin even spotted people “climbing about on roofs” and begged for blankets to be put on the windows to give Diana her privacy.
He added to The Sun newspaper: “When I returned, she looked 100 per cent better but it was one of the hottest days of the year and the room was like a furnace. He did her hair nicely then he put a rosary on the bed. Then, to my horror, I saw people climbing about on roofs. They were some distance away but that was a blow. There were no blinds so I ordered some blankets to be brought and hung them at the windows.
“Then, as the room was getting ­hotter with the blankets, I asked for some fans. I switched them on and as I turned round, her hair and eyelashes were moving. Just for that moment I thought, ‘My God, she is alive!’ I was in shock. That was when it came home to me. I turned round and returned to normal but it was a horrible moment. None of us sat with her that ­afternoon. She was in the room at peace, with guards outside.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Princess Diana’s former chef found her death to be a “real shock”.
The late royal tragically passed away in 1997 when she was involved in a car crash in Paris, France, at the age of 36, and her former chef Darren McGrady has opened up about the “awful” atmosphere in Kensington Palace after the news of her death.
Darren – who was preparing to head into work to cook meals for Diana’s sons Prince William and Prince Harry after their holiday in Balmoral when he heard the news – recalled: “I knew it was going to be a super exciting time because the boys were coming home from Balmoral – they’d race up and down the corridors – so it was going to be a fun time. I’d got up in the morning, turned on the TV and saw the news. They were saying the Princess had died. I couldn’t believe it. It was a real shock. I flicked through all the channels. I called Wendy my wife upstairs and said, ‘They’re saying the boss has died.’
“I called the palace and I couldn’t get through – all the lines were engaged. And so I went into work and took the food with me that I was going to do for dinner the next day, because I couldn’t accept that she was gone. It was a real shock.
“Her apartments eight and nine were on lockdown so no one was allowed in. I went into the office next door and that’s when the girls were all in tears. The next week I was in the palace but there was no cooking. It was just tidying up things and throwing out food because we weren’t going to be using the palace again. It was just awful.”
This month marks the 20th anniversary since Diana’s passing, and Darren says her funeral is still a “horrible memory”.
He added to Hello! Online: “Right until the funeral I’d go in every day just to be there. Seeing the flowers out the front getting higher and higher and seeing all the people. It was a horrible memory. I got to go and spend time alone with the Princess in the Chapel Royal. Each of the staff members got a chance to do that – that was nice. Come the funeral we all went to the Abbey. Her personal staff actually lined up outside the front door to say goodbye to her for the very last time as she left Kensington Palace.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Prince Harry could be set to propose to Meghan Markle this December.
The 32-year-old royal has been in a relationship with the ‘Suits’ actress since last year, and although some insiders thought an engagement would come earlier this month when the star celebrated her 36th birthday, former royal chef Darren McGrady thinks a Christmas proposal is much more likely.
According to Darren, popping the question in December would put the event out of the way of other important royal dates, so as not to overshadow events such as the 20th anniversary of his mother’s death this month, and the wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in November.
Darren told Hello! magazine: “I really do think they would have been engaged by now. But Princess Diana’s 20th anniversary this month in August, they can’t trump that. And then November is the Queen and Prince Philip’s platinum wedding anniversary so they can’t trump that either, whereas December they can announce the engagement and they’d be free to marry next year; I think that’s what’s going to happen.”
The former chef – who served Princess Diana and her two sons Harry and William – added that if the flame-haired royal does pop the question in December, it would mean the couple would be able to join the royal family for their traditional Christmas celebrations.
Meanwhile, it was previously reported that the happy couple are “heading in [the] direction” of an engagement.
A source claimed: “Harry and Meghan are not engaged yet, reports that they are are jumping the gun slightly.
“They are definitely heading in that direction, but when they do get engaged Harry will follow Royal protocol and an announcement will be made by the Palace.”
The pair are said to be very much in “love” with each other, however neither of them wishes to commit to marriage before they’re totally convinced it’s right for them.
The insider added: “Harry and Meghan are very much in love, but they both want to make completely sure that they are ready to take the next step before doing so.
“Harry does not want to make the same mistake as his mother and father did. When he marries it will be for life, and it’s not something he is going to rush into.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Prince Philip will attend the opening of a new bridge just weeks after retiring.
The 96-year-old royal stepped down from solo royal engagements earlier this month, and it as now been revealed that his first royal appearance since his retirement will be alongside his wife Queen Elizabeth when the pair attend the opening of the Queensferry Crossing on September 4.
Buckingham Palace announced the news on Wednesday (23.08.17), less than a month after Prince Philip made his final solo engagement when he attended a parade to mark a fundraising challenge by the Royal Marines on August 2.
At the time, a palace spokeswoman said the parade would “bring His Royal Highness’s individual programme to a conclusion, although he may choose to attend certain events, alongside the Queen, from time-to-time.”
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will also attend the event, which will mark the official opening of the 1.7 mile long Queensferry Crossing, which is set to replace the Forth Road Bridge as the main road route between Edinburgh and Fife.
There will also be a blessing by the Moderator of the Church of Scotland at the bridge which cost £1.35 billion to put in place.
The news comes after it was revealed earlier this year that Prince Philip would be stepping down from his solo royal duties after the summer, but would still be able to attend “certain public events” when he chooses to do so.
A statement released at the time read: “His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh has decided that he will no longer carry out public engagements from the autumn of this year. In taking this decision.
“Prince Philip will attend previously scheduled engagements between now and August, both individually and accompanying The Queen. Thereafter, The Duke will not be accepting new invitations for visits and engagements.
“Although he may still choose to attend certain public events from time to time.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Prince William “understands” his mother Princess Diana’s controversial ‘Panorama’ interview.
The late royal – who tragically passed away after being involved in a fatal car crash in 1997 at the age of 36 – caused uproar when she gave the candid interview in 1995 in which she detailed her strained relationship with her then-husband Prince Charles, and hit out at Charles’ current wife Camilla Parker-Bowles when she claimed it felt like there were “three people” in her marriage.
Now, her eldest son Prince William, 35, has defended her decision to do the interview, saying it was better to dispel the rumours by talking openly about her life.
Speaking in an interview for the upcoming BBC documentary ‘Diana, 7 Days’, William said: “I can understand – having sometimes been in those situations, you feel incredibly desperate and it is very unfair that things are being said that are untrue. The easiest thing to do is just to say or go to the media yourself. Open that door. [But] once you’ve opened it you can never close it again.”
However, despite the claims made by Diana about her relationship with 68-year-old Prince Charles, Dickie Arbiter – the former press secretary for the Prince – recently defended the royal, claiming he “absolutely adored” the late Princess of Wales, and used to be “all over” her.
He said: “For years now, Prince Charles has been presented as the bad boy of the Royal Family: having an affair, portrayed as never really having loved Diana and singled out to blame for the disintegration of their marriage. Yet in my experience, they absolutely adored each other, and embarked on married life in 1981 with the highest of intentions.
“Three days before they married, I had tea with Charles and Diana at Buckingham Palace. Back then, I was a radio reporter for Independent Radio News and a presenter for LBC, and they were all over each other like a rash, holding hands, giggling and clearly utterly besotted.
“Equally, once returned from honeymoon and together during public engagements, Charles was tactile and would think nothing of squeezing her bottom, something I noticed more than once. You can’t fake that sort of affection.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Prince Harry has praised his father Prince Charles for “protecting” his sons after the death of their mother Princess Diana.
The 68-year-old royal has seen his popularity plummet in recent weeks as the anniversary of the death of his ex-wife Diana – who tragically passed away at the age of 36 when she was involved in a fatal car crash in Paris, France, in 1997 – has brought up clips of the late Princess discussing their strained relationship.
However, their youngest son Prince Harry, 32, has now defended his father by saying “he was there” for both Harry and his brother Prince William at the time of their mother’s tragic death.
Speaking in an interview for the upcoming BBC documentary ‘Diana, 7 Days’, Prince Harry said: “One of the hardest things for a parent to have to do is to tell your children that your other parent has died. How you deal with that, I don’t know. But, you know, he was there for us.
“He was the one out of two left and he tried to do his best to make sure that we were protected and looked after. But you know, he was going through the same grieving process as well.”
And his comments come after a recent YouGov poll revealed that just 36 per cent of people think Prince Charles has been positive for the Royal Family compared to 60 per cent four years ago, while less than a fifth of people (14 per cent) would want his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, as queen.
Over a third of people (39 per cent) have called for Camilla to be called Princess Consort, instead of Queen Camilla, if Charles becomes king, but 30 per cent don’t think she should have any rank at all.
Just over a quarter of people (27 per cent) think Charles has had a negative impact on the monarchy, up 12 per cent from 2013.
‘Diana, 7 Days’ will air on BBC One at 7:30pm on Sunday (27.08.17)

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OHMYGOSSIP — Queen Elizabeth was “very sad” when Princess Diana died but also “concerned about the monarchy”.
That’s according to Tony Blair, who was the British Prime Minister when the Princess of Wales died in a car crash in Paris in August 1997, and he has recalled speaking to the 91-year-old royal in the immediate aftermath of Diana’s death.
Speaking on an upcoming BBC documentary about the tragedy, ‘Diana, 7 Days’, Blair said the queen was “obviously very sad” about the incident when he first spoke to her about the death.
But he also said she was aware “there was going to be a risk that the country’s sense of loss turned to a sense of anger and grievance, and then turned against the monarchy.
“She was concerned about the monarchy herself because the queen has a very strong instinct about public opinion and how it plays.”
The queen was slammed by some who questioned her staying with her grandsons, Princes William and Harry, who were 15 and 12 at the time, in the immediate aftermath of their mother’s death, but Diana’s sister insists she did “absolutely the right thing”.
Lady Sarah McCorquodale told the documentary: “If you were grandmother of a 12 year old and 15 year old whose mother had just been killed … she did absolutely the right thing.”
Diana, Dodi Fayed and their driver Henri Paul all died in the tragic Paris accident 20 years ago, while the royal’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, the only one wearing his seatbelt in the car, survived, and Sarah is unsure why the princess wasn’t wearing any protection.
She said: “She was religious in putting on her seatbelt. Why didn’t she put it on that night? I’ll never know.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Prince Charles’ former press secretary insists the royal was “besotted” with Princess Diana and often “squeezed her bottom”.
Dickie Arbiter has defended his former employer after his popularity was claimed to have slumped somewhat following findings in a recent poll, insisting he “absolutely adored” the late Princess of Wales – who died in a Paris car crash in August 1997 – and used to be “all over” her.
He wrote: “For years now, Prince Charles has been presented as the bad boy of the Royal Family: having an affair, portrayed as never really having loved Diana and singled out to blame for the disintegration of their marriage. Yet in my experience, they absolutely adored each other, and embarked on married life in 1981 with the highest of intentions.
“Three days before they married, I had tea with Charles and Diana at Buckingham Palace. Back then, I was a radio reporter for Independent Radio News and a presenter for LBC, and they were all over each other like a rash, holding hands, giggling and clearly utterly besotted.
“Equally, once returned from honeymoon and together during public engagements, Charles was tactile and would think nothing of squeezing her bottom, something I noticed more than once. You can’t fake that sort of affection.”
Dickie also insisted Charles will be a “modern king” in response to a YouGov poll which found just over a quarter of people (27 per cent) think the Prince of Wales has had a negative impact on the monarchy, up 12 per cent from 2013.
It also discovered 36 per cent of people think he has been positive for the Royal Family compared to 60 per cent four years ago.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, he added: “To chastise the Prince unendingly for his relationship with Camilla is deeply unfair. If anything, he will be a modern King, with a deeper trove of life experience, because of it.
“Equally, when judging the heir to the British throne, one might be better of considering his conduct in the face of his marriage breakdown. As in many things, his approach to the public interest in their relationship was different to that of Diana’s.”
Charles married Diana in 1981 but they divorced in 1996 and he later went on to wed Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, in 2005.

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OHMYGOSSIP — Queen Elizabeth removed all newspapers from Balmoral after Princess Diana’s death.
The 91-year-old monarch took the step to ensure her grandsons Princes William and Harry, who were 15 and 12 years old respectively at the time of their mother’s passing in August 1997, wouldn’t read any news reports about their mum and would have “privacy to mourn”.
William, 35, said: “At the time my grandmother wanted to protect her two grandsons, and my father as well.
“Our grandmother deliberately removed the newspapers so there was nothing in the house at all so we didn’t know what was going on.
“And back then, obviously, there were no smartphones or anything like that so you couldn’t get your news, and thankfully at the time to be honest, we had the privacy to mourn and collect our thoughts and to have that space away from everybody.
“We had no idea that the reaction to her death would be quite so huge.”
Elizabeth was criticized by some for remaining at her Scottish residence with her grandsons immediately after Diana died, but William insists it was a tough choice to make.
He said: “I think it was a very hard decision for my grandmother to make. She felt very torn between being a grandmother to William and Harry and her queen role.
“Everyone was surprised and taken aback by the scale of what happened and the nature of how quickly it happened, plus the fact that she had been challenging the Royal Family for many years beforehand.”
Harry agreed with his brother, admitting it was a difficult decision for the queen to know how much time she should let them grieve privately before being seen in public.
Speaking on upcoming BBC documentary ‘Diana, 7 Days’, which will air on Sunday (27.08.17), Harry, 32, added: “It was a case of how do we let the boys grieve in privacy, but at the same time when is the right time for them to put on their prince hats and carry out duties to mourn not just their mother, but the Princess of Wales … and a very public audience.”

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OHMYGOSSIP — Prince Harry had “no sudden outpouring of grief” when he was told his mother had died.
The 32-year-old royal has spoken out for the first time about how he felt when his father Prince Charles sat him down and told him Princess Diana had passed away after a car crash in Paris 20 years ago, and admits he was in “disbelief” at hearing the horrific news.
He said: “One of the hardest things for a parent to have to do is to tell your children that your other parent has died.
“But he was there for us, he was the one out of two left and he tried to do his best and to make sure we were protected and looked after.
“But, you know, he was going through the same grieving process as well.”
Harry’s brother Prince William felt “disorientated, dizzy and very confused” upon being told about his mother’s passing.
He said: “I remember just feeling completely numb. And you keep asking yourself, ‘Why me?’ all the time. ‘What have I done?’ ”
The last time Harry spoke to his mother was in August 1997 when they were on holiday at Balmoral, Queen Elizabeth’s Scottish residence, and the flame-haired royal has admitted all he wanted to do at the time was run off and “play”, something he has regretted ever since.
Speaking on upcoming BBC documentary ‘Diana, 7 Days’, which will air on Sunday (27.08.17), he said: “I think it was probably about teatime for us. And I was a typical young kid running around playing games with my brother and cousins and being told, ‘Mummy’s on the phone, mummy’s on the phone’ and was like, ‘Right, I just really want to play.’
“And if I had known that was the last time I was going to speak to her the conversation would have gone in a very different direction.
“And I had to live with that for the rest of my life, knowing that I was that 12-year-old boy wanting to get off the phone and wanting to go and run around and play games rather than speak to my mum.”
The documentary will also feature interviews with Diana’s sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, in the lead up to the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death on August 31st.

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