Inside Princess Diana’s Secret 9-Year Dance Lessons: ‘She Was So Raw,’ Says Former Teacher (Exclusive)

Princess Diana was once the “Queen of Dancing,” and the woman who guided her passion for dancing is finally sharing her story.

Anne Allan, who taught Diana hundreds of secret dance lessons, has written a new book titled Dance with Diana; Memoirs (releases September 10). The sessions, which went on and off for nine years, are brought to life in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, where excerpts from the book reveal the pair’s close bond and how their time together gave Diana an outlet for her most intimate struggles.

Just weeks after Diana’s royal wedding to Prince Charles in 1981, Allan, a dancer and ballet director with London City Ballet, received an unexpected call asking if she could take the princess as a private student. During their first lesson, Allan greeted Diana with a bow, flowers and the title “Your Royal Highness,” but the princess simply waved her hand and said, “Please call me Diana.”

Speaking from her home in Toronto, Allan, who has rarely spoken publicly about her time with the princess, told PEOPLE that she wrote her book in part for her four-year-old granddaughter Sienna and shared “the other side [Diana]her dancing side, the beauty in her.”

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Princess Diana dancing with John Travolta at a White House dinner in 1985. Shutterstock

Diana, only 20 and newly married, found in Allan a confidant with whom she could talk candidly about her personal problems and the complexities of royal life – including her pregnancies, struggles with bulimia and the growing unhappiness of her marriage to Charles.

The dance course became a refuge for Diana. “She loved to dance. As soon as she started moving her arms, you could see the emotion it brought her,” Allan tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “She could be herself. She loved to move and she loved to have fun.” (Allan remembers Diana being “thrilled” after dancing with John Travolta in 1985. “It was absolutely wonderful,” she says.)

It also offered her a safe space to share her joys and her sorrows. “If she had something on her mind, she would say it,” Allan recalls. “Later, there were days when she would come and just talk a little.”

Princess Diana and Prince Charles in Melbourne, Australia, 1985.

Anwar Hussein/WireImage

It was during these sessions that Allan heard for the first time of Charles’s love for an “older woman” and eventually learned her name: Camilla (then Parker Bowles, now Queen Camilla).

She also witnessed the future king’s icy reaction when Diana and her friend Wayne Sleep, an acclaimed British dancer, surprised him by dancing to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” at a charity event on a London stage in 1985.

“She just wanted him to be delighted,” says Allan, believing Diana was eager to impress Charles. “When you feel that someone doesn’t love you, it affects you. She constantly thought that there was love there and that there would be love. And I’m sure it was.”

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Allan admits she felt “a bit helpless” when Diana confided in her. “I was thinking, what can I do? But I also knew it wasn’t my place. It’s not just a friend who’s going through something – for her, there was much more at stake. And she truly loved Charles,” she says.

Photograph of Anne Allan and her daughter Emily on the steps of their Highgate flat as Anne leaves for a garden party at Buckingham Palace, Tuesday 10 July 1984. She is holding an invitation.

courtesy of Anna Allan

To inspire her to write, Allan revisited the bundles of heartfelt letters and thank-you notes Diana had sent her over the years. “She would have all day to do, but she would never go to bed until she was done writing,” Allan tells PEOPLE. Diana’s notes were often sprinkled with early versions of emoji — little smiley faces she drew herself. “They were always charming and funny,” Allan says of the letters.

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Letters and miniature ballerinas given to Anne Allan by Princess Diana.

courtesy of anne allan

The teaching ended in the late 80’s when Diana was facing stormy times. In 1992, her father died, and later that year she and Charles separated following the publication of Andrew Morton’s explosive book Diana: Her True Story — In Her Own Words. The couple divorced in 1996, and just a year later, in August 1997, Diana died in a car accident in Paris at the age of 36.

Today, 27 years after Diana’s death, Allan reflects on the princess’ lasting impact. Allan, who watched Diana’s funeral surrounded by cherished mementos—including a pair of mini silver ballerinas that Diana made especially for her when they split in 1989—says his enduring fascination with Diana stems from her humanity. “It’s because she was such a human being. She was so raw in the way she expressed herself. That’s exactly how she was – open-hearted.”

Read more about the unique bond between Anna Allan and Princess Diana and see an excerpt from the book in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

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Source: HIS Education