EXCLUSIVE Paul Burrell on 'kind' Charles and Royal rift – and why Diana would 'outshine' them all
Former royal butler and footman to our late Queen, Paul Burrell, will be in the capital this weekend, along with thousands of others, to watch the King's coronation procession.
Exclusively inviting OK! into the “eclectic” Cheshire home he shares with husband Graham Cooper, Paul – who was also butler to the late Princess of Wales for 10 years – shares his thoughts on the historic occasion and reveals what his beloved Diana would have made of it. For Paul, watching the coronation will be bittersweet. “I’ll be thinking, ‘How many people around the world will be sparing a thought for our beautiful princess?’ She’s the one person that won’t be there, but she will be there in spirit,” he says. “Everybody inside that abbey, including Harry, William, Kate, Charles, Camilla – all of them – will be thinking of Princess Diana.”
Explaining his reasons for sharing the passages, he adds, “I wanted you to see Diana’s handwriting and her words, because they are so poignant at this moment in time, tied into the coronation and tied into the fact she was a monarchist. She loved the royal family and she wanted the royal family to survive. And also, the fact her sons William and Harry were part of this, what she called, ‘The Show’.
“He was very kind to me,” he explains. “He and Diana both gave us [Paul and his then wife, Maria Cosgrove] the most beautiful cottage on the estate to live in. They looked after our welfare, my children [sons Alex, 37 and Nick, 35] and made sure they got the right schools. He does think of other people, but, in a way, he’s a god living in his own kingdom. He lives in a world where everyone says yes and that changes someone and their character.
However, Paul’s praise wears thin when we bring up the subject of Prince Harry and his ongoing feud with his father and brother William. In fact, we can tell he’s deeply upset by recent developments and he says he struggles to see a reconciliation between the two brothers any time soon. Paul continues, “She would also say to him, ‘I understand the fact you married for love and I applaud you for that and I applaud you for the fact that you’re standing up for causes and what you think is right. But, Harry, stop throwing members of your family under the bus.’”
“I don’t say it lightly when I say ITV and I’m A Celeb helped save my life,” says Paul, who filmed the series last September. “I did sit there in the jungle contemplating, ‘I wonder what’s going on inside me.’ I thought I was really fit. I trained for this show, I went to the gym three times a week, I watched my diet. I sat there thinking, ‘Why me?’ But cancer is indiscriminate, it can hit anyone.
After 15 sessions of radiotherapy, the bell rang at The Christie hospital in Macclesfield – an emotional moment that confirmed the end of his treatment there. And although he won’t find out if the cancer has completely gone until October, medics are confident the treatment has worked. But a positive to take from the whole experience is that the ordeal has spurred on a determination to spread awareness for other men to get checks. It’s also given Paul a new outlook on life.
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