Squidgygate was the publication by tabloid newspapers in Britain in 1993 of taped phone conversations alleged to be between HRH The Princess of Wales and James Gilby . Publication of the tapes was a highpoint of the "War of the Waleses" and accelerated the separation and eventual divorce of TRH The Prince and Princess of Wales.
In the conversation, the woman, believed to be the Princess of Wales, likens her situation to that of a character in the popular British soap opera EastEnders and expresses concern that she might be pregnant. Supporters of the Prince of Wales used the tapes in the media to smear the Princess of Wales, who had until then been widely regarded as the wronged party in the breakdown of the marriage. However, the publication of the tapes, if anything, had the effect of increasing sympathy for the Princess, the revelation that she followed a popular soap presenting the image of a far more worldly person compared with the formal and often detached public image of the Prince of Wales.
The widely held belief that the tapes were the result of a bugging operation by the British intelligence agencies in cohort with senior figures in the British Royal Family, also promoted a conspiracy theory that the Princess of Wales was being persecuted by the establishment. This view metamorphosed into the conspiracy theory that the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in Paris in 1997 was an assassination rather than an accident. Whatever the negative impact of Squidygate might have had for the Princess of Wales was soon balanced by the publication of taped phone conversations between the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker-Bowles (Camillagate) which were very damaging to the public perception of his character and a source of much ridicule of him.
The Princess of Wales later admitted the affair with James Gilby (which technically constituted high treason by both parties). As it now seems likely this adultery took place in 1989, the tapes would have been in existence for a number of years before publication. There is conjecture that Diana, knowing of the existence of the tapes, instigated contact with the journalist Andrew Morton . This resulted in the publication by Morton of the book Diana: Her True Story, and the start of the "War of the Waleses."
