Inside Princess Diana's 'Unhappy Childhood': Late Royal Admitted She Once 'Slapped' Her Father 'Across the Face' Over Secret Marriage
Princess Diana said she slapped her father.
Aug. 31 2026, Published 4:14 p.m. ET
Princess Diana once admitted to slapping her father in the face after he secretly married his second wife during her "unhappy childhood."
On the 29th anniversary of the late royal's death, RadarOnline.com revisits her traumatic upbringing and complicated relationship with her parents.
Princess Diana Reveals What Led to the Slap
Princess Diana was left out of her father's second wedding ceremony.
On July 14, 1976, John Spencer married Raine Legge in London, but Diana and her siblings were all left out of the ceremony.
"Sarah rang me up, she said, ‘Have you seen the newspaper?’ So I said, ‘What?’ ‘Daddy’s married Raine.’ I said, ‘My God. How do you know that?’ She said it was in the newspaper," Diana recalled in resurfaced audio recordings. "We were so angry."
When she confronted her father, Diana, who was 15 at the time, found it difficult to hold in her emotions.
"He said, ‘I want to explain to you why, um, I’ve got married to Raine,’" Diana continued. "And I said, ‘Well, we don’t like her.’ And he said, ‘I know that, but you’ll grow to love her, as I have.'"
Princess Diana Got Into an Argument With Her Father
John Spencer and Diana got into an argument about the marriage.
But that explanation was not good enough for Diana.
"I said: ‘Well, we won’t.’ I kept on saying we, not I … I was the little crusader here," she shared at the time. "I got really angry and I, if I remember rightly, I slapped him across the face, and I said, ‘That’s from all of us, for hurting us’ and walked out and slammed the door."
"He followed me, and he got me by my wrist and turned me round and said, ‘Don’t you ever talk to me like that again,'" she added. "And I said, ‘Well, don’t you ever do that to us again’ and walked off."
Princess Diana Saw Her Father Hit Her Mother
Princess Diana claimed her mother was often 'crying' in her childhood.
Diana also confessed there was physical abuse in her parents' marriage.
"I remember seeing my father slap my mother across the face," she said, according to a tell-all book called Diana: Her True Story — In Her Own Words. "I was hiding behind the door, and Mummy was crying. I was always seeing our mum crying. Daddy never spoke to us about it. We could never ask questions."
Princess Diana Claimed Her Parents Didn't Hug Her
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Princess Diana did not have an affectionate childhood, according to a book.
Further, Diana claimed her parents "never said they loved me" throughout her childhood.
"There was no idea (that they loved me). There was always a kiss there," she added, pointing to her cheek. "There was no hugs or anything like that."
Her mother, Frances Shand Kydd, separated from John in 1969 and went on to remarry Peter Shand Kydd. She died in 2004. As for John, who was the eighth Earl Spencer, he died of a heart attack in early 1992.
As Radar previously reported, Diana tragically passed away in a car accident in Paris in 1997. She was only 36.
