Diana ‘Loopy,’ Rival Quoted As Saying

According to her brother-in-law, Camilla Parker Bowles’ views on Princess Diana were clear: “I always said she was loopy, pretty half-witted and possibly ought to be locked up.”

But the opinion of Prince Charles’ paramour may have changed after Diana’s television interview.

“I think Camilla has now seen that there is a bit of steel in the old Spencer blood,” Richard Parker Bowles said in an interview.

Richard Parker Bowles said his sister-in-law felt Lady Diana Spencer would be easy to push around, so she encouraged Charles to marry the teenager.

In the monarchy-rattling interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Diana said she and Charles - who have been separated three years - split up because Camilla Parker Bowles made the marriage “crowded.”

Polls after the interview showed that Diana’s candor won over the vast majority of Britons, and undermined already lukewarm support for Charles.

“She initially encouraged the relationship between Charles and Diana because she thought Diana was gormless (stupid),” Camilla Parker Bowles’ brother-in-law told The Mail.

The remarks back up Diana’s claims that members of Charles’ camp wanted to institutionalize her after his adultery triggered her bulimia in the late 1980s.

He said his sister-in-law told him “She never wanted to marry Charles; she wanted to continue to be his paramour.” But her husband could no longer bear the affair and separated from her this year.