Diana was only seven when her father, Earl John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, divorced her mother Frances Spencer. For a brief spell, Diana moved in with her mother, but her father soon put a stop to it and went on it win custody of his daughter so she could live with him in the family estate of Althorp. He then married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth in 1976 – a woman Diana frequently dubbed a “bully”, and who was known as “Acid Raine” to Earl Spencer’s children.

According to Andrew Morton’s ‘Diana – Her True Story: In her own words’, the Princess of Wales would describe her childhood at her father’s home with her stepmother as “very unhappy”, and “very unstable, the whole thing”.

Paul Burrell, Diana’s former butler and confidante, revealed one particular event where Diana snapped last year.

Speaking to Inside Edition in October, Mr Burrell said: “Diana was vulnerable and hurting, and she didn’t like this woman stepping into her mother’s shoes.”

He continued: “On one occasion Diana did actually push her down the stairs.

“I don’t think she meant to do that, but it just happened – it was Diana’s way of saying ‘you’re not welcome here’.”

This reportedly took place in 1989 when Raine was hosting Diana’s brother’s wedding at Althorp.

She felt her stepmother was not paying enough attention to her mother Frances, which infuriated her and resulted in her flying into a rage.

During the Smithsonian Channel’s 2017 documentary, ‘Princess Diana’s Wicked Stepmother’ Raine’s personal assistant Sue Howe added: “[Raine] was badly bruised and dreadfully upset.”

She said: “I think it was Diana’s perception of how Raine was treating Mrs Shand Kydd.”

The estate had been in the Spencer family for 500 years and Raine’s alterations were taken to be a large snub by Diana, especially as she sold antique furniture and decided to repaint gold picture frames.

Speaking to Inside Edition, Mr Burrell added: “And [Raine] spent a lot of money while doing it!”

Raine created yet more tension when Earl Spencer fell into a coma after a stroke in 1978.

His wife supposedly prevented Diana and her siblings seeing their father because she felt he only needed his wife to take care of him.

Biographer Penny Junor claimed Raine set up a vigil by his bed but “was very territorial about him” and “was fighting for his life”.

Apparently her stepmother caused a great deal of upset when she altered the family home at Althorp House significantly after she married Earl Spencer.

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The estate had been in the Spencer family for 500 years and Raine’s alterations were taken to be a large snub by Diana, especially as she sold antique furniture and decided to repaint gold picture frames.

Speaking to Inside Edition, Mr Burrell added: “And [Raine] spent a lot of money while doing it!”

Raine created yet more tension when Earl Spencer fell into a coma after a stroke in 1978

His wife supposedly prevented Diana and her siblings seeing their father because she felt he only needed his wife to take care of him.

Biographer Penny Junor claimed Raine set up a vigil by his bed but “was very territorial about him” and “was fighting for his life”.

However, when Mr Burrell spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the Smithsonian Channel documentary ‘Princess Diana’s Wicked Stepmother’, he explained how their relationship changed – especially after Diana had finalised her divorce from Charles in 1996.

Speaking last October, Mr Burrell said: “In the beginning, of course, she was very much hated, and at the end of the Princess’ life, she was very much loved.”

He said that Diana allegedly pushed her down the stairs because “she hated her so much”, but in the last few years of the Princess’ life, she “did a full 180-degree turn”. 

Mr Burrell said: “She explained it to me by saying she just wanted to say thank you to Raine for (A) looking after her father and (B) for loving him so much. She didn’t realise until later in life exactly how much she did love him and care for him.”

Mr Burrell today Inside Edition: “In the end, Diana was an outcast and Raine was an outcast too, so they became great friends.”

He claimed Diana also looked back at the unfair treatment of Raine over the previous years and thought it needed to be addressed.

She reportedly felt sorry for her stepmother when Diana married Charles ,because “Raine was shunted to the back of the room in St. Paul’s Cathedral, where her own mother, who had abandoned Diana as a child, was elevated in a royal position”, according to Diana’s former butler.

The two began to reconcile when Diana invited Raine over for dinner at Kensington Palace in 1996, and were strong friends by the time of Diana’s death in 1997 in Paris.

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