Former Royal Chef Looks Back on the Time Princess Diana ‘Got Her Life Back on Track’

Darren McGrady, who served as a chef for the royal household in the ‘80s and ‘90s, is reflecting on the time that he spent personally working for Princess Diana.

“When I became Princess Diana’s chef, she got her life back on track,” he revealed in a YouTube tutorial where he taught fans how to prepare one of the late royal’s favorite breakfasts: Overnight oats.

“She was a patron of 119 different charities, she was working out at the gym three days a week and just looking the best she ever did,” McGrady continued. “She said, ‘Darren, you take care of all the fats, and I’ll take care of the carbs at the gym.’”

Although he didn’t explain what sparked her need for a change in her life, Diana separated from then-Prince Charles in 1992, one year before McGrady began to work for her.  (Their divorce was not finalized until August 1996.)

As for how McGrady came to know the beloved princess, he revealed that he met her at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and “became a friendly, familiar face to her” while he was working as a chef to Queen Elizabeth II.

When Diana separated from Charles, he said he thought he’d “never see her again” in a 2017 interview with USA Today. However, he was surprised when he received a call, asking him if he’d be “interested in being her chef.” McGrady agreed and made the move to Kensington Palace where he worked for Diana until her tragic death at age 36 in 1997.

Recalling the day he learned that she’d passed away in that fateful car accident, the former royal staffer said he thought it was a “stunt or a bad joke” and he “couldn’t believe it.”

“The night she was killed, I had the food all ready. I never talk about the food I was going to prepare for her when she died,” he told the outlet. “I called Kensington Palace, but couldn’t get through. I went into work and took the food with me. I just couldn’t accept that she wasn’t coming back.”

The day of her funeral, he and the other staff members “lined up outside” the palace to “say goodbye” to her.

Years later, McGrady said that what he remembered most were “the fun times.”

“Treating the boys, the huge shrills of laughter at Kensington Palace,” he added, referring to her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. “She had a really naughty sense of humor.”

He was also inspired by her passion for charity work.

“It’s why I now work with homeless shelters and domestic violence shelters, why I speak in public about her, and why I donated all the royalties from my first book to charity,” he continued. “I hope that by listening to fun stories about her, I can encourage others to do something, to be kind.”