Andrew Led Me On to the Balcony at Buckingham Palace and Said: 'Do You Want to Get Married?' ; Dynasty Star Catherine Oxenberg (Left) Reveals for the First Time How Prince Andrew Proposed to Her On Diana's Wedding Day, Her Battles with Bulimia and the Abuse She Suffered As a Child.

Summary

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As the daughter of a Yugoslav princess and a second cousin of Prince Charles, Catherine Oxenberg grew up, as she puts it, 'knowing when to stay silent and firmly bearing the responsibility of my illustrious pedigree'. The daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, one of Prince Charles's closest confidantes, Oxenberg forged a career as a beautiful, seemingly 'perfect' young woman. She appeared in the hit Eighties TV series Dynasty, graced the covers of dozens of glossy magazines including Vogue and Cosmopolitan, married a Hollywood heartthrob and, for years, maintained a stoic silence about the reality of her 'fairytale' life.

But now, in an extraordinary interview, her first in more than six years, Oxenberg opens her heart to tell her story, 'warts and all', revealing for the first time how she was sexually abused as a child, her secret marriage proposal from Prince Andrew, how her husband's 'relentless' infidelity tore apart her 'perfect world' and how, finally, she has learned to live with what she describes as the 'curse of being royal'.

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Andrew Led Me On to the Balcony at Buckingham Palace and Said: 'Do You Want to Get Married?' ; Dynasty Star Catherine Oxenberg (Left) Reveals for the First Time How Prince Andrew Proposed to Her On Diana's Wedding Day, Her Battles with Bulimia and the Abuse She Suffered As a Child.

'For years I lived a lie,' Oxenberg says quietly, sitting in her favourite Greek restaurant in Malibu, close to the Pounds 2.5 million home she shares with her actor husband Casper van Dien (Starship Troopers) and their brood of five children from three separate relationships.

'I was raised within royal circles,' she says.

'Charles was a great friend of my mother, and still is. He was always coming around to our house for supper when I was a little girl. Like him, I was raised to hide my feelings and never speak out about anything bad. It was "duty and family" first.

I bought into that ethos for many years, until I realised it was making me sick and miserable. I am finally ready to tell the truth about my life, because I want people to know that even when someone seemingly has this wonderful life, things are never what they seem. When I was younger, I was too terrified...

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