The monarch heard of how Diana had been travelling with her then-boyfriend, Dodi Fayed in a car in Paris and crashed while driving through a tunnel.
Fayed and the driver Henri Paul died instantly, whilst the Princess of Wales was pronounced dead in hospital at 4am.
The only survivor of the crash was Trevor Rees-Jones, who was Dodi’s bodyguard.
King Charles was reportedly devastated by the news of his ex-wife’s death.
Author of The Diana Chronicles, Tina Brown claimed Charles “fell apart” after hearing the news.
She wrote: “He knew instantly that this was terrible, that he would be blamed for the death of Diana.”
The first person Charles told the news was the late Queen, according to royal biographer Ingrid Seward.
She told a Channel 5 documentary: “She came out of the bedroom, I remember somebody telling me, and she was sort of clutching a hot water bottle. It’s cold there, even in the summer, and the Queen’s first reaction was someone had greased the brakes.”
