Princess Diana's mother says the media are at least partly to blame for the breakdown of her daughter's marriage.
Frances Shand Kydd said she speaks from experience, having been through the "sheer hell" of two highly publicized divorces herself.Being constantly in the spotlight "just wears you down," she said in an interview Saturday in the Daily Express, a British tabloid.
While Diana remained in her apartment at Kensington Palace for a second day, her divorce continued to make front-page head-lines.
So did her ex-lover's search for the highest bidder for his kiss-and-tell TV interview on their romance. Former army officer James Hewitt reportedly has instructed author-producer Anna Pasternak to land a $4.6 million deal.
Two tapes were stolen Saturday from the home of Sebastian Rich, who filmed the Hewitt interview, but they were of U.S. troops in Somalia, said police in Surrey, where Rich lives.
For Diana, the Hewitt interview - which Pasternak said will be "very frank, honest and candid about their physical relationship" - was another piece of bad news at the end of a stormy week.
Her first round of talks Wednesday with Charles ended in a public dispute about everything except the fact she had agreed to a divorce.
By the weekend, it appeared both sides were heeding a request from Queen Elizabeth II to conduct the divorce negotiations privately for the sake of their children, princes William, 13, and Harry, 11.
"The princess is totally supportive of negotiations between the lawyers being kept private and confidential," her spokeswoman, Jane Atkinson, said Saturday.
She would not comment on a front-page story by Richard Kay, a Daily Mail reporter in whom Diana has confided before, that "a divorce crisis is looming."
Diana's mother said her role is to be "the supportive mother" because anyone going through divorce, "and that includes Diana, needs compassion to come to terms with a very sad situation."
"There is no doubt in my mind that the constant media speculation has been a contributing factor in the breakdown of three marriages - my own, my son's and my daughter's," she was quoted by the Daily Express as saying.
She left Diana's father, the late Earl Spencer, for business tycoon Peter Shand Kydd, who walked out on her.
Diana's mother said media interest in the family after Diana's marriage helped break up her marriage to Shand Kydd and created marital problems for her son, Earl Spencer, who separated from his wife last April.