For 10 years, Paul Burrell was Princess Diana's royal butler and close friend, and in the years since her death he's shared many candid memories from their time working together. He's also given fans a glimpse into what the staff get up to behind the scenes, dishing on the dates he would bring back to the palace.
"I tell you what, the biggest card you could ever pull, is you go out into London, you find a date, you say, 'Would you like to come back to my place?' They say, 'Yeah, of course,'" he once told his I'm A Celebrity campmates.
It was at Buckingham Palace that he first met Maria Cosgrove, who was working for Prince Philip at the time. Despite having "always" been attracted to men, Burrell admitted that he "wanted to be married and wanted a family too", so that's exactly what he did. In 1982 they tied the knot.
According to Burrell, Maria went into their marriage with "her eyes wide open". He told This Morning: "Did she know? Well, she knew of me in the Palace and she knew my lifestyle in the Palace... Yes, I was attracted to men and she knew that, but I was also attracted to women. My golden years were marrying Maria and having the boys, I will never regret that or change that in any way. That's who I am."
The pair were married for 32 years and have two adult sons. But everything changed when he met a man named Graham Cooper on a train one day in the late 2000s. Convinced that he was 'The One', he knew the time had come to end his marriage.
The couple announced their separation in 2016, but it's thought they had lived separately for some time prior. And when he and Graham got engaged, Maria was devastated. He told the Mirror: "Myself and Maria have been to hell and back. Our marriage lasted 32 years, and I still want to be there for her.
"We cried when I told Maria I was marrying Graham. And she said, 'Does that mean we'll never be together as a family again?' I said, 'No, it doesn't mean that'. She said, 'You could lose your sons. You'll lose them because they won't understand,' but she was wrong."
He also told how Maria had asked if the engagement meant they would never wake up on Christmas morning to open their stockings together again. "No, it doesn't mean that," he told her. "It's a different chapter. I want you to be happy for me. I love you. You have to set me free."
As well as having to tell his wife about his sexuality, Burrell also had to be open about it with his sons, which he said "broke [his] heart" to do. "I had to suffer the indignity of questions, 'Did I love their mother when they were born?' And because I loved her, it really was heart-wrenching to have to do that," he explained.
He described it as an "emotional rollercoaster" and said their emotional strength "surprised" him, with both sons attending the wedding in the Lake District in 2017.
"It's time to open another chapter, and I hope that the last 20 years, this emotional roller-coaster of mine, will actually end very happily," Burrell said before the big day. "So all you dads out there who may be struggling in the same way that I did, believe that there is hope and a happy ending for you too. Be honest with your family, sit down, explain to them every step of the way, you won't lose them. I was afraid I might lose my family but you don't in the end. If you have children, you'll always be their dad and you'll always be connected to the mother of your children, so have faith in that and know that if you build it that way it'll be strong and you can be like an extended family."
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