Princess Diana “hated” spending Christmas with the royals at Sandringham.
The claim was made by Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine and author of “My Mother and I,” which explores King Charles’ relationship with his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
“A friend of mine worked there at the time,” Seward told Fox News Digital about the country estate where the royals celebrate the holidays.
“Diana hated Sandringham,” said Seward. “Even when her romance with Charles was going well, she still didn’t like it… I think she found it claustrophobic because Diana was such a free spirit. She didn’t want to have to enjoy herself with so many rules. [But] they’re not rules. They’re just traditions of royalty.”
“There’s an order of precedence – who goes through the door first – and all kinds of things,” Seward explained. “It’s very archaic, and I think it made Diana feel uncomfortable.”
Vanity Fair recently revisited Andrew Morton’s 1992 bestseller, “Diana: Her True Story.” The late Princess of Wales secretly collaborated with the British journalist to share her struggles with royal life.
Like Seward, Morton said Diana “hated” Christmas at Sandringham. He claimed her disdain for the tradition began at her first Christmas at the estate with the royals in 1981, five months after she married then-Prince Charles. By then, she was already pregnant with their first child, Prince William.
According to Morton, Diana took the time “to buy her new family members thoughtful and expensive gifts” while she was suffering from morning sickness. Despite her efforts, Diana was “mortified” to discover that the royal family typically gave each other gag gifts – a memo that Charles forgot to give his wife.
Diana gifted her sister-in-law Princess Anne a cashmere sweater. In return, she got a toilet paper holder.
“It was highly fraught,” Diana told Morton. “I know I gave, but I can’t remember being a receiver. Isn’t that awful? I do all the presents, and Charles signs the cards. [It was] terrifying and so disappointing. No boisterous behavior, lots of tension, silly behavior, silly jokes that outsiders would find odd, but insiders understood.”
“I sure was [an outsider],” Diana added.
Seward said she wrote about that incident “years and years ago” before Diana confirmed it through Morton
“My friend who worked there was looking after Diana,” said Seward. “They went off shopping and… bought beautiful cashmere sweaters, Floris soap and things like that… And she was absolutely mortified when she’d got these really beautiful presents… all sorts of very expensive, but small gifts, and she was given a bath hat or something.”
“She just couldn’t understand [it],” Seward shared. “To her, Christmas was all about spending a bit more than you could probably afford and getting really nice presents.”
While the royal traditions didn’t give Diana Christmas cheer, Seward said the princess had known Sandringham “all her life.”
“She used to live there,” said Seward. “Her father had a house on the estate literally down the road from the big royal house. Diana… spent a lot of time there. When she was a little girl, she used to go there and play with [Prince] Andrew and [Prince] Edward. So it wasn’t a strange place to her at all.”
Diana’s hairdresser, Richard Dalton, also told author Kitty Kelley for her book “The Royals” that “the princess just hated going to Sandringham for Christmas.”
“She told me it was freezing cold, and dinner had to be over by 3 o’clock,” Dalton claimed. “‘It’s 3 and time to watch me on TV,’ she’d say, imitating you-know-who. The royal family had to watch the queen’s Christmas message on television.”
“Diana said it was a command performance,” Dalton added.
An unnamed friend of Diana’s also told Tina Brown for her book, “The Diana Chronicles,” that she dreaded heading to Sandringham.
“Whenever we talked it was all about tactics – what to do next,” the pal claimed.