Diana butler 'won't attend memorial'
LONDON, England -- Fearing a royal encounter would overshadow the event, former butler Paul Burrell says he won't attend next month's unveiling of a London memorial to Princess Diana, according to reports.
As a member of the official memorial committee, Burrell was on the invitation list for the July 6 unveiling of the £3 million water feature in Hyde Park, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported.
Diana's sons, William and Harry, are also expected to attend. It would have been the first time the butler had faced the princes since they called his book on Diana, "A Royal Duty," a "cold and overt betrayal."
"It's in danger of being hijacked by a media circus drumming it up as 'Burrell versus William and Harry.' That disgusts me," the Mirror quoted Burrell as saying.
"It is becoming uncomfortably clear that the day could focus on how William and Harry react to me.
"So after much soul-searching and with a heavy heart I have reluctantly decided to withdraw in their interests."
"It hurts not to go because no one wants to be there more than me."
Britain's royal family approved Burrell's invitation because they accepted that he enjoyed a special closeness to Diana as her butler, the Mirror reported.
Last week the Mirror reported Burrell had added a chapter to his book, in which he said Diana claimed Prince Charles had made a secret pact with his father that let him ditch her five years into their marriage.
Burrell said he saw a note from Diana to her father-in-law, Prince Philip, confronting him over the alleged pact, which allowed Charles to return to his former love, Camilla Parker Bowles, if Diana did not make him happy.
"This made me feel as if I was being offered to your family on a sale-or-return basis, and there is nothing royal about that," Burrell quotes Diana as writing in the note.
Burrell added: "In her eyes, she had been sold to the royal family to produce an heir and a spare, in the form of William and Harry, and then returned to the wilderness."
Diana died in a Paris car crash in August 1997.
