My Greatest Mistake
Richard Kay royal correspondent, 'Daily Mail'
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.There was the time when I famously got in a car with Diana, Princess of Wales in 1994. My mistake was getting photographed. I had arranged to meet Diana in a side street near Paddington Station.
Meeting her in the middle of a busy metropolis and then going for a drive with her was probably not one of the brightest things to do. But she wanted to talk to me and this was the preferred method, because at the time she thought that all her phones were bugged. Paparazzi photographers had tailed her and they photographed me getting into her car, and then going off and getting out later.
What was embarrassing about it was not realising we were being photographed. It wasn't a mistake getting into the car. It proved that I knew what I was writing about, but it also showed my hand and made her enemies at the Palace. They had been suspicious about her contact with journalists; me in particular.
Inevitably, it made a lot of people in Fleet Street extremely jealous of me and some fairly serious attempts were made by other newspapers to try to destabilise this relationship. Other editors put pressure on the Palace to be fair and the Palace put enormous pressure on Diana to have nothing to do with me, which she ignored.
I allowed myself to be completely suckered and didn't know anything about it until after the pictures appeared. I should have been more alert to the possibility, considering that Diana was the most hunted person around.
In 1991, I wrote a piece about Diana falling out with her father. She was refusing to go to a Christmas party that he always organised at Althorp. It turned out not to be true, although it came from an impeccable source. Anyway, she did go and she was obviously very upset. The Mail was extremely embarrassed and I had to make a personal apology in the paper. To my knowledge it's the first time, certainly here, that I could ever recall a bylined piece in which I apologised.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments