Duran Duran drummer tells story of IRA plot to assassinate Diana and Prince Charles

The new wave band from Birmingham that came to prominence in the late seventies and eighties, is set to headline the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games on Thursday.

But drummer Taylor has told how a previous royal engagement, back in 1983, had been targeted by the IRA.

Taylor described how they were headlining the London charity gig, when according to the drummer, the later discovered the “shocking” plot aimed to “kill Diana and Charles and everyone in the room”.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine, Taylor said: “They wanted to kill Diana and Charles and everybody in the room.

“It was so shocking. We were only made aware of it years later, but it was very frightening,” adding that it was the “scariest moment” of his life.

The IRA were reportedly planning to strike the show, but the man due to install the gelignite bomb was actually a police informant.

While he did find a spot for the 25-pound bomb — in the bathroom close to the Royal Box — the informant never planted it.

It is believed that the attack was planned in retaliation to the death of Bobby Sands, a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who died on hunger strike while imprisoned.

The Mail also quotes from the informant, Sean O’Callaghan's book 'The Informer', that described how it was a “brilliant but horrific plan”.

"The IRA leadership was still desperate to strike at the heart of the British Establishment in revenge for the death of Bobby Sands and nine other hunger strikers.

"If Charles and Diana were murdered by the IRA, Anglo-Irish relations would sink to a new low.

"The fallout for the Irish community, particularly in London, can only be guessed at – something the IRA leadership would have regarded as a bonus."

Diana, Princess of Wales, frequently described Duran Duran as her favourite band and she attended a string of their live performances and went on to meet them several times.

Diana would meet them again, two years later, at the premiere of James Bond‘s A View to A Kill.

And in 2007 – when her sons Prince William and Prince Harry were selecting musicians to perform at a memorial concert for the late Princess, who died ten years earlier – the two brothers invited Duran Duran to pay tribute to their “favourite princess”.

Speaking at the ‘Concert for Diana’, Le Bon said: “We are honoured that she always referred to Duran Duran as her favourite band as she was certainly our favourite princess."