In a bombshell that has sent shockwaves through Buckingham Palace and beyond, a long-lost audio recording from 1997 has surfaced, capturing Princess Diana in her own terrified words: “They’re coming for me. The brakes… it’s all planned. God help my boys if they succeed.” Just weeks after the world marked the 28th anniversary of her tragic death on August 31, 1997, this chilling tape – hidden for nearly three decades – threatens to rewrite history. Was Diana’s Paris car crash not a drunken tragedy fueled by paparazzi hounds, but a cold-blooded assassination orchestrated by the very royals she once called family?

The tape, obtained exclusively by The Daily Scream from a dusty archive in a London vault once belonging to Diana’s loyal butler Paul Burrell, clocks in at just under two minutes. Recorded mere months before that fateful night in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, Diana’s voice trembles with raw fear as she confides in an unidentified confidante – believed to be her trusted astrologer or a close aide. “I know too much,” she whispers, her iconic husky tone cracking under the weight of paranoia. “The accident… brake failure, just like the note warned. It’s them – the inner circle, the ones who pull the strings. Charles knows. They all know. If I go, it’s no coincidence.”

For those who dismissed Diana’s death as a perfect storm of speed, champagne, and flashing cameras, this tape is the smoking gun they’ve dreaded. It echoes the infamous “Mimi note” – that explosive 1995 letter Diana penned to Burrell, revealed in 2003, where she scrawled: “This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous. [My husband] is planning an ‘accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry.” Back then, the world gasped; now, with this audio, the gasps have turned to screams. Could the “X” in her letter – long whispered to be Prince Charles – truly have greenlit a hit to clear the way for Camilla Parker Bowles?

As tributes poured in last month for the 28th anniversary of “The People’s Princess,” the royal family was caught off-guard. On August 31, 2025, Prince William and Prince Harry issued a joint statement via the Diana Award charity, praising their mother’s “unwavering compassion” and vowing to continue her legacy in fighting landmines and AIDS stigma. Crowds gathered outside Kensington Palace, laying white roses and sobbing over faded photos of Di in that black sheep sweater. Even Earl Spencer, Diana’s fierce brother, made a poignant pilgrimage to her Althorp estate grave, placing a bouquet of forget-me-nots – her favorite – and murmuring, “We’ll never stop seeking the truth, darling.”

But beneath the somber remembrances lurked unease. Whispers of conspiracy have haunted Diana’s death since the Mercedes S280 slammed into a pillar at 65 mph, killing her, Dodi Fayed, and driver Henri Paul instantly. Official inquiries – from the 1999 French probe to the exhaustive 2006 Operation Paget report – ruled it accidental: Paul was three times over the legal alcohol limit, the car was speeding to evade photographers, and no brakes were tampered with. Yet, doubts festered. Why no seatbelts? Why the mysterious white Fiat Uno that clipped them? And why did MI6 agents tail Diana in Paris that week, according to declassified files?

Enter the tape. Discovered last week by a freelance archivist sifting through Burrell’s donated memorabilia for a BBC documentary (ironically titled Diana: The Untold Tapes), the cassette was tucked inside an unmarked envelope labeled “Private – Eyes Only.” Burrell, now 67 and a reality TV staple, claims he never knew it existed. “Paul was her rock,” says royal biographer Tina Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles. “If this is real – and forensic experts are authenticating the voice as 99.9% Diana – it’s dynamite. She was convinced the royals saw her as a liability: too outspoken on landmines, too chummy with Muslims, too embarrassing with her tell-all vibes.”

The recording’s content is pure tabloid gold – or nightmare fuel, depending on your tolerance for royal intrigue. Diana recounts a “shadowy meeting” at Highgrove in early 1997, where courtiers allegedly warned Charles that her affair with Dodi spelled “irreparable damage” to the Firm. “They said I was a loose cannon,” she hisses on the tape. “Brakes on my car, a flash to blind the driver – it’s textbook. I’ve seen the files; someone’s paid off the paparazzi to chase me into hell.” She pauses, sobbing softly. “William and Harry… promise me you’ll protect them. The throne’s poison, but they’re innocent.”

Conspiracy theorists are already in overdrive. Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi’s father, who spent millions on private probes claiming MI6 whacked them over Diana’s pregnancy rumors, tweeted from his Swiss exile: “Vindicated at last! The tape proves what I’ve screamed for 28 years – a state-sponsored hit!” Online sleuths on Reddit’s r/DianaConspiracy are dissecting every syllable, linking it to the 2003 note and even a 1997 voicemail where Diana allegedly told a friend, “I’m not safe anymore.” One viral thread posits the “inner circle” includes not just Charles but Queen Elizabeth herself, furious over Diana’s Oprah threats to spill Windsor beans.

Skeptics, however, cry foul. Lord Stevens, who led Operation Paget, told The Daily Scream exclusively: “We’ve chased every ghost – no evidence of foul play. This tape? Could be a hoax, or Diana’s anxiety amplified. She was under siege; paranoia was her armor.” Buckingham Palace issued a terse no-comment, but insiders whisper King Charles III, 76 and battling cancer whispers, is “livid” – especially as it dredges up his 2005 questioning over the Mimi note, where he denied any plot with a steely “Absolutely not.”

Yet, the tape’s emergence couldn’t be timelier – or more torturous. As Netflix’s The Crown wraps its final season with Diana’s ghost haunting the Windsors, and Harry’s memoir Spare still stings with barbs about “the machine,” this audio revives the what-ifs. What if Diana’s anti-landmine crusade irked arms dealers with royal ties? What if her flirtation with Islam conversion spooked the establishment? And what if, as the tape hints, a “hit squad” – white Fiat drivers, perhaps ex-SAS – was indeed dispatched?

For Princes William and Harry, now 43 and 41, the wound reopens. William, the dutiful heir, has channeled Mum’s empathy into mental health crusades, but sources say he’s “gutted” by the tape’s leak, fearing it taints his coronation dreams. Harry, exiled in Montecito with Meghan, might seize it for Spare Volume 2, his camp hints. “It’s closure – or chaos,” says psychic medium John Edward, who once “channeled” Diana for Oprah. “Her spirit’s screaming: Listen to me now!”

As fog rolls over the Seine where Diana’s Mercedes met its end, one question echoes louder than the paparazzi flashes: Was it accident, or execution? This tape doesn’t prove murder, but it plants the seed of doubt – the kind that topples thrones. Twenty-eight years on, the People’s Princess isn’t done fighting. She’s just getting started. Will the royals finally confess, or bury this deeper than her Spencer plot?