London
Buckingham Palace was once again rocked by scandal when a former royal valet said this week he was raped by a male servant to Prince Charles—and that the prince covered up the assault. George Smith said that one night in 1989, he got drunk and passed out at the home of one of Prince Charles’ top aides. “I woke up. I was hurting,” he told the Daily Mail. “He was just laughing. He knew that he had got his way with me.” The unnamed servant said the sex was consensual, and Charles backed him up. Only Diana, Smith said, took his side. When Smith was later hospitalized for depression, Diana taped his story. The tape was one of the items alleged to have been stolen by Paul Burrell, Diana’s butler, before the queen stepped in last week to halt Burrell’s trial. Now the tape is nowhere to be found, and lawmakers are calling for an independent investigation into the alleged rape and coverup.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Gandhi arrests: Narendra Modi's 'vendetta' against India's oppositionThe Explainer Another episode threatens to spark uproar in the Indian PM's long-running battle against the country's first family
-
How the woke right gained power in the USUnder the radar The term has grown in prominence since Donald Trump returned to the White House
-
Codeword: April 24, 2025The Week's daily codeword puzzle
