Princess Diana was never out of the media spotlight, and it was no surprise when former England rugby captain Will Carling was rumoured to be seeing her that it hit the front pages

Will Carling was known as the bad boy of English rugby for many years before he was sensationally rumoured to be having an affair with Princess Diana.

Carling was known for many things throughout his time with the Red Roses between 1988 and 1996. The Harlequins ace was a lion on the field for club and country, but an equally unpredictable individual away from the sport.

Whether it was pinning members of the RFU “up against the wall” or inspiring England to reach the 1991 World Cup final, he was never far away from the back pages. However, he became a regular occupant of the feared front pages of the British press when he was rumoured to be in a relationship with Princess Diana while she was still married to then-Prince Charles.

Life became difficult for Carling, who was the son of a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Regiment of Wales, when the stories first started appearing in black and white. Looking back on the articles, Carling has been happy to tell his version of events in years gone by.

Back in 2004, when asked if the rumours about a romantic connection with the late ‘Queen of People’s Hearts’ was true by the Sunday Mirror, he firmly replied: “No, no, no – how many times do I have to say it? We were friends…”

Responding to the media fallout as a result of the rumours in another interview with The Telegraph, he added: “Front page is very different from back page. Yeah, it was not nice.

“Hey, a lot of that is my own fault, you can’t complain. You have to learn. Relationships that I got wrong… so, that’s what they got fascinated by. You look back on it and you think it was all blown out of all proportion, but it made a good story.”

Carling still remembers the feeling of being plastered over the front and back pages of the press ( 
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The RFU Collection via Getty Images)

Will Carling was heavily rumoured to be in a relationship with Princess Diana ( 
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His alleged intimacy with the Princess may have entrenched himself into the headlines at first, but his other relationships kept him in the media limelight too. Carling was slammed for leaving his partner Ali Cockayne to move in with Lisa Cooke, who was the wife of his team-mate and Harlequins’ longest serving captain David Cooke.

Explaining what happened in 2004, he said: “I have to admit that I didn’t handle things very well, not very well at all. But there are two sides to every story, and no one has heard mine. That’s my choice, and I live with it.”

While he went on to have two children with Cooke, he also left his then one-year-old son Henry when he split from Cockayne. At the time, he said: “It was just one of those things… but there are plenty of reasons that go into the breakdown of a relationship, none of which I am going to discuss in public.

Regardless, Carling enjoyed plenty of success as England captain ( 
Image:
Getty Images“One person is more important than anyone else in all of this – and it’s Henry. The day will come when he will have to know what happened between me and his mum, and when the time is right I will sit down and explain things to him, father to son. That’s my responsibility. I wouldn’t want him hearing it second-hand from someone else.”

While there were a lot of controversies, there were many high points during his time as the leader of the Red Roses. When he was handed the captaincy in 1988 age 22, he was the youngest ever player to be granted the honour. Over the course of 72 caps, he was captain on 59 occasions.

During his rein, England won the Five Nations Grand Slam on three occasions (1991, 1992 and 1995) and also reached the 1991 World Cup final, which saw Australia overcome England 12-6.