Princess of Wales In November 1995, Bashir interviewed
Diana, Princess of Wales about her failed marriage to the
Prince of Wales for the
BBC's
Panorama programme. The programme was seen by nearly 23 million viewers in the UK. At the time, the BBC hailed it as the scoop of a generation. The interview was an international sensation, and catapulted Bashir, a little-known reporter for a BBC investigative programme, to global fame. Five months later, two reporters for the
Mail On Sunday broke the story that Bashir had secured the interview using falsified documents to manipulate the princess's family. The reporters, Nick Fielding and Jason Lewis, wrote that Bashir approached Diana's brother
The Earl Spencer with bank statements which he said were proof that Spencer's former head of security, Alan Waller, secretly received money from a tabloid newspaper, presumably to spy on Spencer and his family. A BBC freelance graphic designer named Matt Wiessler told the
Mail on Sunday that he had created the bank statements in about nine hours on Bashir's orders, and Bashir had used them to win the trust of the Spencer family and connect, through Charles Spencer, to Diana. Wiessler said he was told the documents would be used as filming props. When he began to suspect they were used to deceive the Spencers, he spoke to Fielding and Lewis. prompted the BBC to announce an internal investigation headed by BBC news chief
Tony Hall. Hall interviewed neither Wiessler nor Spencer himself, and the BBC quickly announced that it was clearing Bashir of all wrongdoing because the fake documents—which it did not deny had been created—were not used to secure the interview. According to internal BBC documents that came to light later, Hall said that Bashir was “an honest man” who was “deeply remorseful”. By contrast, he punished Wiessler by cancelling the designer's contract with the BBC. Hall later became the BBC's director-general. In 2020, 25 years after the famous interview, ITV aired a documentary about the case examining Bashir's manipulations and the BBC's response. In the programme, Wiessler said that work dried up for him after the 1996 inquiry cleared Bashir, and that he (Wiessler) had been made the
scapegoat. The documentary reignited the controversy, and BBC director-general
Tim Davie apologised to Earl Spencer, who rejected the apology and demanded an inquiry. “I knew that Martin Bashir used fake bank statements and other dishonesty to get my sister to do the interview,” he said, adding that the BBC had not only known of Bashir's manipulation, but had “covered it up.” Spencer told Davie he had records of all his contacts with Bashir which apparently implied the journalist gave the princess false information to gain her trust.
Michael Grade, a former BBC chairman, said that the allegations left "a very dark cloud hanging over BBC journalism". On 13 November 2020, it was reported that the BBC had found the note from the Princess of Wales which cleared Bashir of pressuring her to give the interview. Former BBC royal correspondent
Jennie Bond wrote in
The Sunday Times that the princess told Bond, in a private meeting in late 1996, that she did not regret the interview. Diana said she feared a
gagging order in her imminent divorce settlement, and that the interview might be her only chance to speak openly. On 18 November 2020, the BBC announced an independent investigation into how the interview was obtained, to be headed by former
Supreme Court judge John Dyson. Later that month Bashir told the BBC inquiry that he was not responsible for spreading smears about the royal family to convince the princess to sit for the interview, and it was probably Diana herself who was the source of those claims. Among the smears were allegations of
Prince Edward being treated for AIDS, the Queen suffering from cardiac problems and her intention to abdicate, and that the Prince of Wales was having an affair with his children's nanny,
Tiggy Legge-Bourke. The Metropolitan Police stated: "Following the publication of Lord Dyson's report we will assess its contents to ensure there is no significant new evidence." In September 2021, they announced that they would not launch a criminal investigation into the interview. In July 2022 the BBC apologised to the ex-nanny in the High Court, and agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of damages, thought to be in the region of £200,000, over the unfounded claims that she had had an affair with the Prince of Wales. A book on the
Panoroma interview alleged that Bashir had showed Earl Spencer bank statements suggesting that some close to his sister were in the pay of MI5; these documents were forged but proved critical in Diana agreeing to be interviewed by the "charming" and "ruthless" Bashir.
Michael Jackson In 2003, while working at ITV, Bashir conducted a series of interviews with American singer
Michael Jackson for the documentary
Living with Michael Jackson, part of the
Tonight with Trevor McDonald series for ITV. The interviews were arranged through Jackson's friend,
Uri Geller. Bashir followed the singer for eight months. However, Bashir's colleagues have claimed that he secured the Jackson interview only after promising him they would plan a trip for Jackson to
Africa to visit children with
AIDS, accompanied by
Kofi Annan, then
UN Secretary-General; when this was put to Bashir, while under
oath in a
California court, he refused to answer. After the broadcast, which was seen by 14 million in the UK and 38 million in the US, Jackson complained to the
Independent Television Commission and the
Broadcasting Standards Commission, accusing Bashir of
yellow journalism. Jackson and his personal cameraman released a rebuttal interview, which showed Bashir complimenting Jackson for the "spiritual" quality of the
Neverland Ranch. After Jackson's death in 2009, Dieter Wiesner, Jackson's manager from 1996 to 2003, said of Jackson's response to Bashir's documentary: Bashir later said during ABC's coverage of Jackson's death:
Other interviews and programmes In 2003, Bashir presented a documentary titled
Major Fraud detailing the story of
British Army major
Charles Ingram, who attempted to cheat his way to the prize money in an unbroadcast episode of
Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?. The original programme featuring Ingram, recorded in September 2001, was withheld from broadcast because the production team quickly became suspicious. The documentary had a larger audience than Bashir's interview with Michael Jackson. In December 2004, Bashir interviewed
Victor Conte, the controversial founder of
BALCO, on
ABC's
20/20 programme, in which Conte admitted to running doping programmes involved in breaking
Olympic records, and in which Conte claimed: "The whole history of the games is just full of corruption, cover-up, performance-enhancing drug use." Bashir also conducted interviews with public figures including
Louise Woodward, the five suspects in the
Stephen Lawrence case,
Michael Barrymore,
Jeffrey Archer,
Joanne Lees, and
George Best. ==Honours==