On this page about Squidgygate:
Squidgygate refers to the pre-1990 phone conversations between the United Kingdom's Diana, Princess of Wales, and James Gilbey, her lover, and to the controversy surrounding how those conversations were recorded. During the calls, Gilbey affectionately called Diana by the names "Squidgy" and "Squidge". In 1992, The Sun newspaper publicly revealed the tapes' existence in an article entitled "Squidgygate", which is a cultural-reference to the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s. The publication of the tapes was a highpoint of the "War of the Waleses" that accelerated the separation and eventual divorce of HRH The Prince and Princess of Wales.
In the conversation, 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.
List of scandals suffixed with gate
- Carter's debate briefing books Dianagate/Squidgygate (tape of a telephone conversation between Diana...
. Charles had resumed his relationship with Mrs. Parker-Bowles (the so-called Squidgygate affair), while...