Charles and Diana had an arranged marriage, says close friend of late princess

JEMIMA Khan says the wedding between Princess Diana and King Charles was arranged.

The 49-year-old writer was close friends with the royal.

Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in 1997. She was 36 and it was a year on from finalising her divorce from the future king.

Khan almost named her new romcom, “What's Love Got to Do With It?”, “Whatever Love Means”, in a nod to the then-Prince Charles’s quote about his ill-fated marriage.

She said the union had been arranged.

She told “Metro” newspaper’s SixtySeconds column: “I lobbied hard for (to call it that).

“But it was considered a little too unenthusiastic! I use the quote in the film to make the point that there’s a tendency, from people outside of that culture, to be quite judgemental about arranged marriages, when actually it’s really not very long ago that our royal family would have arranged marriages.

“For all intents and purposes, Charles and Diana’s marriage was arranged.”

The award-winning screenwriter,. whose romcom focuses on a man who is assigned to marry a woman of his parents’ choice, said she hadn’t read Prince Harry’s controversial memoir, “Spare”, nor had she seen the likes of Elizabeth Debcki or Emma Corrin play her late friend on “The Crown”.

“I haven’t actually read his book or seen any of the interviews because I’ve been so busy with all of this. I’m not sure.

“I haven’t even watched the documentaries that have come out recently. It’s kind of weird seeing someone who you knew and were close to depicted on screen.”