Campbell was born with a genital malformation and, following the medical advice of that time, was raised as a boy despite being female.

[10] Though her family life was otherwise happy, Ziadie has since spoken and written of the many personal issues she faced being raised as a boy when she is biologically female.

[4] Besides modelling, she worked at Harrods, served as social secretary to the Libyan ambassador, and organised charity events.

[13] On 23 March 1974, after having known him for only five days, she married Lord Colin Ivar Campbell, the younger son of the eleventh Duke of Argyll.

She successfully sued several publications that claimed she was born a boy and had subsequently undergone a sex change, and accused her former husband of selling the untrue story for money.

[4][14] Her stepmother-in-law was Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, who was friends with Dame Barbara Cartland, step-grandmother to Diana, Princess of Wales.

In 1993, she adopted two Russian boys, Michael 'Misha' and Dimitri 'Dima',[14] both of whom appeared on MTV's 2018 reality television show The Royal World calling themselves "Count".

[18] Campbell wrote special radio pantomimes for the BBC in 1982 and 1983, entitled Dick Whittington and Sleeping Beauty.

[19] Campbell later said the book initially started as an authorised official biography but later Diana decided to make it an unofficial one and use it as a "get out of jail card" after being "advised by friends that she should play the victim.

Her theorising, including claims quoting the Duke of Windsor regarding the Queen Mother's parentage, was dismissed by writers Hugo Vickers and Michael Thornton as "bizarre" and "complete nonsense".

The timing of the publication of Campbell's book, a service of remembrance for the Queen Mother marking the tenth anniversary of her death, was also condemned.

[26] Campbell has been called a "polarizing figure" by Vanity Fair and an "amusing dinner partner" by Tina Brown.

[34] In November of that year she appeared on Good Morning Britain to defend Prince Andrew, Duke of York's associations with Jeffrey Epstein, who had been convicted of soliciting a 17-year-old female named Virginia Roberts for prostitution.

[37] She subsequently sued the Daily Mirror after the newspaper accused her in an article of defending "Jeffrey Epstein's right to rape children".