Royal butler claims Diana 'faked' falling down the stairs when pregnant

Princess Diana "faked" a fall down the stairs when she was pregnant with Prince William, according to former royal butler Paul Burrell.

In a new documentary titled The Royal Family: Scandals at the Palace on Channel 5 in the UK, Burrell claimed Diana fell down the stairs because "she wanted attention".

At the time, the Princess of Wales was four months pregnant with Prince William – who was born in June 1982 – when the apparent incident took place.

In the doco, Burrell details how overheard "an enormous clatter on the wooden staircase" at the Sandringham Estate.

The former butler went on to describe how he "found the Princess halfway down it, faking a tumble while she was carrying Prince William".

While Burrell believes Diana staged the incident, he insists she was cautious not to do any harm to the unborn prince.

"There's no way on this planet that she would put at harm her unborn baby but she wanted attention," he explained.

The same series of events were described in the explosive 1992 book Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Morton..

"When I was four months pregnant with William, I threw myself downstairs, trying to get my husband's attention, for him to listen to me," the Princess of Wales recalled in some 1991 interviews, which were then published in the book.

Diana married Prince Charles in 1981, but their marriage was far from the fairytale everyone expected it to be.

Plagued with scandal, drama and affairs, the couple formally separated in 1992, eventually divorcing in 1996.

One year later, Diana tragically died in a car crash in Paris with her boyfriend at the time, Dodi Al Fayed.