Bryan Adams has revealed that Princess Diana found the B-side song he wrote about her highly amusing – even though the lyrics despaired at her marriage to the future King Charles.
The Canadian musician, 64, was inspired to write “Diana” after learning that she was set to marry the then Prince of Wales.
It was released as a B-side to his song “Heaven” in 1984, but its subject matter quickly drew attention. The tongue-in-cheek lyrics to “Diana” include the lines: “He might have lots of dough/ But I know he ain’t right for you.”
Later, Adams pleads on the chorus: “Diana, she’s the queen of all my dreams / Diana, give me a chance, I’ll set ya free!”
Adams called the lyrics “laddish humour” and revealed he was actually inspired by “that guy who [had] broken into the Queen’s bedroom and sat on her bed smoking a fag”.
Painter and decorator Michael Fagan notoriously broke into the late Queen Elizabeth II’s bedroom one night in 1982, where she discovered him and raised the alarm.
Diana apparently had a good giggle over Adams’ song, even as it poked fun at her husband-to-be.
“Meeting her was truly one of the greatest things that ever happened to me,” the “Summer of ‘69” singer told The Sunday Times.
He said he met Diana for the first time on a plane, where he informed her that he’d used her name in a song. She responded: “Yes, I know, very funny. Actually, I’d like to hear it again.”
Adams then sent a copy of the track over to Kensington Palace and found himself with an invitation to tea.
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“When I first went round to KP (Kensington Palace) she wasn’t, like ‘I really need to talk to somebody’, and you don’t bulldoze into someone’s life wanting to know everything in the first 10 minutes,” Adams said.
“It was ‘let’s have a cup of tea’. But later the more friendly we got the more I learnt what was really going on.”
Adams’ friendship with Diana led to speculation during the Nineties that they were having an affair. These rumours were fuelled in 2003 when his ex-girlfriend, Danish actor and model Cecile Thompson, said her “stormy” relationship with the musician wasn’t made any easier by “Bryan’s affair with Diana”.
After their wedding at St Paul’s Cathedral in London in 1981, Diana had two sons with Charles – Prince William and Prince Harry – before the couple separated in 1992. Their divorce was finalised in 1996.
(Getty Images)
Adams has never addressed the rumours of an affair with Diana. He referred to her in the interview as “an amazing woman and a super-great inspiration” with whom he had “a lot of really, really good conversations”.
He retired “Diana” when she died in 1997 “out of respect”, he said.
His co-writer, Jim Vallance, once complained that the British press attempted to “fabricate a scandal” over the song when Charles and Diana visited Vancouver in May 1986.
“Not only did Bryan have a secret and very inappropriate ‘crush’ on the Princess, the British press claimed, but he had insulted the future King of England (and Canada by association) with lyrics like ‘Whatcha doin’ with a guy like him?’” Vallance recalled in the “story behind the song” section of his website.
“It was front page news in Canada and the UK.”
He continued: “In the time of Henry VIII a song like this might have got us beheaded, but Charles didn’t pose any such a threat — and anyway, he was about to get into enough trouble on his own with revelations about his mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles and the eventual collapse of his marriage to Diana.”
King Charles and Queen Camilla on the balcony of Buckingham Palace following their coronation this year
(Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
Vallance also remembered when he and Adams were living in London, a few months before the Vancouver World’s Fair, when they were offered tickets to the first ever Prince’s Trust charity concert at the Royal Albert Hall, including a pre-show reception that Charles and Diana would be attending.
“Diana walked over to [rock band] Supertramp while Charles made a bee-line for me and Bryan,” Vallance said of the meeting. “We chatted with the future king for a few moments after which Diana came over to say hello. This was the first time and only time I met her, although there’d be several more occasions for Bryan over the next few years.
“We talked with Diana for a while, mostly about music. She was interested to learn we were Canadian, and she told us that she and Charles were scheduled to appear at the opening of the World’s Fair in Vancouver in a few month’s time (which, of course, we already knew).”
Bryan Adams with Prince Harry in 2014
(Getty Images)
He added: “Diana was funny and charming and very easy to talk to. Like everyone else on the planet, I was devastated when I heard she’d died. I’m grateful I had the chance to meet her, if only for a few minutes.”
Adams has enjoyed close ties with the royal family for years. A keen photographer, he once took an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth that was then turned into a 49 cent Canadian postage stamp.
His moving photographs of soldiers who had suffered life-changing injuries while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan were also viewed by Prince Harry, at an exhibition held at Somerset House in London in 2014.
