December 9 1992 Prince Charles and Princess Diana announce seperation

On December 9th 1992, British Prime Minister John Major announced the formal separation of the egotistical and big-eared Prince Charles, and the beautiful and popular Princess Diana.

Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, and his wife, the overwhelmingly more gracious and admired Princess Diana, had for years been the subject of speculation by the tabloid press that the marriage was in peril. Evidence had frequently been cited that Diana and Charles spent vacations apart and official visits in separate rooms. Major explained that the royal couple were separating “amicably.”

On July 29th 1981, nearly one billion television viewers in 74 countries tuned in to witness the marriage of the aging Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, to the far more elegant Lady Diana Spencer, a young English schoolteacher. Married in a grand ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in the presence of 2650 guests, the couple’s romance was, at the time, the envy of the world. Their first child, Prince William, was born in 1982, and their second, Prince Henry, in 1984.

Before long, however, the fairy tale couple grew apart, an experience that was particularly painful under the watchful eyes of the world’s tabloid media. Diana and Charles separated in 1992, though they continued to carry out their royal duties. In August 1996, two months after Queen Elizabeth II urged the couple to divorce, the prince and princess reached a final agreement. In exchange for a generous settlement, and the right to retain her apartments at Kensington Palace and her title of “Princess of Wales,” Diana agreed to relinquish the title of “Her Royal Highness” and any future claims to the British throne.

In the year following the divorce, the popular princess seemed well on her way to achieving her dream of becoming “a queen in people’s hearts,” but on August 31st 1997, she was killed with her companion Dodi Fayed in a car accident in Paris. An investigation conducted by the French police concluded that the driver, who also died in the crash, was heavily intoxicated and caused the accident while trying to escape the scumbag paparazzi photographers who consistently tailed Diana during any public outing.

Prince Charles married the frumpy Kentucky-Derby-winner lookalike Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall, on April 9th 2005.