What Princess Diana and James Colthurst talk about in their last call before her death? Know details here

In the second episode of The Crown Season 5, before Princess Diana arrives at London's St. Thomas' Hospital, Dr. James Colthurst (Oliver Chris) is contacted by telephone by the royal herself.

Though the radiologist's colleagues were shocked that he was chatting directly to Diana, he and the Princess were previously lifelong acquaintances. On the same day, James Colthurst met journalist Andrew, with whom he would shortly collaborate on the explosive 1992 book, ‘Diana: Her True Story’.

How did Diana meet Colthurst?

Diana first saw Colthurst when she was 17 years old, in a lodge in the French Alps."She knew many of the friends I was with, and they invited her to our residence when she contorted her ankle, having to tell her I would look at it because I was a medical student at that time," Colthurst wrote in a July 2021 Telegraph article titled, "What It Was Actually Like to Be Friends With Diana," describing her as "good fun, bright, and mischievous."


Diana finally entrusted him with getting information to Andrew Morton, transporting the journalist's queries and the princess' taped responses in a briefcase in his bicycle basket. "She was concerned when I supported her by hand-delivering interview recordings to her biographer Andrew Morton, whose bombshell book Diana: Her True Story was released in 1992, that I would be purposely knocked from my bike and killed." She expressed her worry to me multiple times. "It may seem like paranoia, but I don't believe she was."



While their friendship underwent a distant phase, the pair eventually reconciled their sibling-like relationship. In a piece for The Telegraph, James Colthurst describes Diana’s state of mind before her untimely death saying, “Despite her well publicized troubles, she seemed happy to me in her final months. She was enjoying a decent summer break and wasn’t in too bad a place”.

“I remember the last conversation I had with her, not long before her death. She was laughing almost uncontrollably down the other end of the phone. Someone had gifted her a poem engraved on a silver tablet, and she was howling with mirth at their unusual taste”, he added.

FAQs:

1. When was Diana: Her True Story written?
   In the year 1992.
2. Who is James Colthurst?
   James Richard Colthurst is a British nobleman of Irish origin, radiologist, and healthcare business consultant.