The Phone Conversation That Ended Camilla Parker Bowles' Marriage

While Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles have been married since 1995, it's difficult for longtime followers of the British royal family to forget the scandals that marked the pair's early relationship and the affair that they reportedly conducted throughout the time that they were each married to other people — Princess Diana and Andrew Parker Bowles, respectively.

One of the biggest Charles-Camilla scandals erupted in 1993 when a transcript of a particularly intimate phone call was leaked to the public. The phone call, soon dubbed "Camillagate," included a number of words exchanged between the two that either alluded to or directly spoke to the nature of their relationship (via The Mirror).

The phone call also brought about the official end of each of their marriages, which paved the way for Charles and Camilla to marry one another decades after they met and first began their relationship. Here's a look at "Camillagate": How it happened, what it sparked, and how the phone call impacted the people around them.

Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles married a few years after she first met Prince Charles. Camilla and Andrew went on to have two children together, Tom and Laura Parker Bowles. The pair were allegedly not faithful to one another throughout their marriage, though the arrangement appeared to be one that they both agreed to (per Marie Claire). Both Camilla and Andrew remained to Prince Charles, even naming the future King of England as their son's godfather. 

Some royal observers have stated that at the beginning of their marriage, Camilla reportedly believed she could change Andrew and that he would commit to only her. Royal biographer Penny Junor once explained, "She foolishly believed that leopards can change their spots and her heart belonged to Andrew, the man so many women had wanted but whom she had successfully bagged. He thought he was everything she looked for in a man, and he would give her everything she had dreamed of" (via Oprah Daily).

Even though they were married to other people, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles continued their torrid affair from at least 1986 and into the 1990s. As noted by Town & Country, Princess Diana reportedly confronted Camilla about the relationship in 1989, walking up to the other woman at a party and stating, "I know what's going on between you and Charles and I just want you to know that." The pair exchanged words, with Camilla reportedly asking Diana, "You've got everything you ever wanted. You've got all the men in the world fall in love with you, and you've got two beautiful children, what more do you want?"

For his part, Andrew Parker Bowles didn't appear to be too upset about his wife's ongoing relationship with Prince Charles. It just so happens that he also reportedly enjoyed his extramarital affairs, including a longtime relationship with Rosemary Pitman. Andrew even married Pitman in 1996, and the pair were together until her death in 2010 (per Hello!).

Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles could not go anywhere without seeing stories about their infamous phone call for weeks following the release of transcripts in 1993. At the time, the Los Angeles Times even speculated that the phone call could prevent Charles from ascending the throne following his mother's reign.

The paper quoted The Sun's Deidre Sanders as writing that the two sounded as if they had been conducting their relationship for years instead of only months and that, "It's all very intimate, down-to-earth and — if you can forgive the fact they are both cheating on their partners — endearingly human." However, Sanders went on to add that the leak of the call certainly cast Charles and the royal family in a negative light. 

Other journalists were focused on another problem that the release of the transcript pointed to: the possibility that the monarchy itself was being surveilled and that the members of the family didn't realize it. As Lord Jacob Rees-Mogg said at the time, "I think one has to ask whether it was done as part of the security screening and whether what has happened is that the Royal Family were being taped as part of MI-5's (Security Service) operation."

cPrince Charles and Princess Diana also called off their marriage around the same time, though their royal divorce took much longer to work through. Because of the monumental nature of who the two were in the world, their separation was announced to the House of Commons by former British Prime Minister John Major, causing confusion when he added, "There is no reason why the Princess of Wales should not be crowned Queen in due course. The Prince of Wales's succession as head of the Church of England is also unaffected" (via The Guardian).

The separation was also simultaneously announced by Buckingham Palace. A portion of the statement read, "The fact is that, with great sadness, they have recognized that their continuing relationship would be better under separate domestic arrangements. They are still fond of one another and fully supportive of one another's intentions to fulfill their individual public duties as wholeheartedly as before."

The divorce was finalized on August 28, 1996 (via History). Their divorce settlement included in part that Princess Diana would receive a lump-sum payment of roughly $22.5 million in addition to $600,000 per year for the maintenance of her office (via Cosmopolitan).