biography of princess diana

Diana, Princess of Wales

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Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer ; 1   July 1961   – 31   August 1997) was a member of the British royal family . She was the first wife of Charles III (then Prince of Wales ) and mother of Princes William and Harry . Her activism and glamour, which made her an international icon, earned her enduring popularity.

Diana was born into the British nobility and grew up close to the royal family, living at Park House on their Sandringham estate . In 1981, while working as a nursery teacher's assistant, she became engaged to Charles, the eldest son of Elizabeth II . Their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in July 1981 and made her Princess of Wales , a role in which she was enthusiastically received by the public. The couple had two sons, William and Harry, who were then respectively second and third in the line of succession to the British throne . Diana's marriage to Charles suffered due to their incompatibility and extramarital affairs. They separated in 1992, soon after the breakdown of their relationship became public knowledge. Their marital difficulties were widely publicised, and the couple divorced in 1996.

As Princess of Wales, Diana undertook royal duties on behalf of the Queen and represented her at functions across the Commonwealth realms . She was celebrated in the media for her unconventional approach to charity work. Her patronages were initially centred on children and the elderly, but she later became known for her involvement in two particular campaigns: one involved the social attitudes towards and the acceptance of AIDS patients , and the other for the removal of landmines , promoted through the International Red Cross . She also raised awareness and advocated for ways to help people affected by cancer and mental illness. Diana was initially noted for her shyness, but her charisma and friendliness endeared her to the public and helped her reputation survive the public collapse of her marriage. Considered photogenic, she is regarded as a fashion icon of the 1980s and 1990s.

In August 1997, Diana died in a car crash in Paris; the incident led to extensive public mourning and global media attention. An inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing following Operation Paget , an investigation by the Metropolitan Police . Her legacy has had a significant effect on the royal family and British society . [1]

Biography of Diana, Princess of Wales

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Princess Diana (born Diana Frances Spencer; July 1, 1961–August 31, 1997) was the consort of Charles, Prince of Wales. She was the mother of Prince William, currently in line for the throne after his father, Diane's former husband, and of Prince Harry. Diana was also known for her charity work and her fashion image.

Fast Facts: Diana, Princess of Wales

• Known For: Diana became a member of the British royal family when she married Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1981.
• Also Known As: Diana Frances Spencer, Lady Di, Princess Diana
• Born: July 1, 1961 in Sandringham, England
• Parents: John Spencer and Frances Spencer
• Died: August 31, 1997 in Paris, France
• Spouse: Charles, Prince of Wales (m. 1981–1996)
• Children: Prince William (William Arthur Philip Louis), Prince Harry (Henry Charles Albert David)

Diana Frances Spencer was born on July 1, 1961, in Sandringham, England. Although she was a member of the British aristocracy, she was technically a commoner, not a royal. Diana's father was John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, a personal aide to King George VI and to Queen Elizabeth II . Her mother was the Honourable Frances Shand-Kydd.

Diana's parents divorced in 1969. Her mother ran away with a wealthy heir, and her father gained custody of the children. He later married Raine Legge, whose mother was Barbara Cartland, a romance novelist.

Diana grew up practically next door to Queen Elizabeth II and her family, at Park House, a mansion next to the Sandringham estate of the royal family. Prince Charles was 12 years older, but Prince Andrew was closer to her age and was a childhood playmate.

After Diana's parents divorced, her father gained custody of her and her siblings. Diana was educated at home until she was 9 and was then sent to Riddlesworth Hall and West Heath School. Diana did not get along well with her stepmother, nor did she do well in school. Instead, she found an interest in ballet and, according to some reports, Prince Charles, whose picture she had on the wall of her room at school. When Diana was 16, she met Prince Charles again. He had dated her older sister Sarah. She made some impression on him, but she was still too young for him to date. After she dropped out of West Heath School at 16, she attended a finishing school in Switzerland, Chateau d'Oex. She left after a few months.

After Diana left school, she moved to London and worked as a housekeeper, nanny, and kindergarten teacher's aide. She lived in a house purchased by her father and had three roommates. In 1980, Diana and Charles met again when she went to visit her sister, whose husband worked for the queen . They began to date, and six months later Charles proposed. The two were married on July 29, 1981, in a much-watched wedding that's been called the "wedding of the century." Diana was the first British citizen to marry the heir to the British throne in almost 300 years.

Diana immediately began making public appearances despite her reservations about being in the public eye. One of her first official visits was to the funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco. Diana soon became pregnant, giving birth to Prince William (William Arthur Philip Louis) on June 21, 1982, and then to Prince Harry (Henry Charles Albert David) on September 15, 1984.

Early in their marriage, Diana and Charles were publicly affectionate. By 1986, however, their time apart and coolness when together were obvious. The 1992 publication of Andrew Morton's biography of Diana revealed the story of Charles' long affair with Camilla Parker Bowles and alleged that Diana had made several suicide attempts. In February 1996, Diana announced that she had agreed to a divorce.

The divorce was finalized on August 28, 1996. Settlement terms reportedly included about $23 million for Diana plus $600,000 per year. She and Charles would both be active in their sons' lives. Diana continued to live at Kensington Palace and was permitted to retain the title Princess of Wales. At her divorce, she also gave up most of the charities she'd been working with, limiting herself to only a few causes: homelessness, AIDS, leprosy, and cancer.

In 1996, Diana became involved in a campaign to ban landmines. She visited several nations in her involvement with the anti-landmine campaign, an activity more political than the norm for the British royal family.

In early 1997, Diana was linked romantically with the 42-year-old playboy "Dodi" Fayed (Emad Mohammed al-Fayed). His father, Mohammed al-Fayed, owned Harrod's department store and the Ritz Hotel in Paris, among other properties.

On August 30, 1997, Diana and Fayed left the Ritz Hotel in Paris, accompanied in a car by a driver and Dodi's bodyguard. They were pursued by paparazzi. Just after midnight, the car spun out of control in a Paris tunnel and crashed. Fayed and the driver were killed instantly; Diana died later in a hospital despite efforts to save her. The bodyguard survived despite critical injuries.

The world quickly reacted. First came horror and shock. Blame was next, much of which was directed at the paparazzi who were following the princess's car and from whom the driver was apparently trying to escape. Later tests showed the driver had been well over the legal alcohol limit, but immediate blame was placed on the photographers and their seemingly incessant quest to capture images of Diana that could be sold to the press.

Then came an outpouring of sorrow and grief. The Spencers, Diana's family, established a charitable fund in her name, and within a week $150 million in donations had been raised. Princess Diana's funeral on September 6 drew worldwide attention. Millions turned out to line the path of the funeral procession.

In many ways, Diana and her life story paralleled much in popular culture. She was married near the beginning of the 1980s, and her fairy-tale wedding, complete with a glass coach and a dress that could not quite fit inside, was in sync with the ostentatious wealth and spending of the 1980s.

Her struggles with bulimia and depression shared so publicly in the press were also typical of the 1980s' focus on self-help and self-esteem. That she seemed to have finally begun to transcend many of her problems made her loss seem all the more tragic.

The 1980s realization of the AIDS crisis was one in which Diana played a significant part. Her willingness to touch and hug AIDS sufferers—at a time when many in the public wanted to quarantine those with the disease based on irrational and uneducated fears of easy communicability—helped change how AIDS patients were treated.

Today, Diana is still remembered as the "People's Princess," a woman of contradictions who was born into wealth yet seemed to have a "common touch"; a woman who struggled with her self-image yet was a fashion icon; a woman who sought attention but often stayed at hospitals and other charity sites long after the press had left. Her life has been the subject of numerous books and films, including "Diana: Her True Story," "Diana: Last Days of a Princess," and "Diana, 7 Days."

• Bumiller, Elisabeth, et al. “Death of Diana: Times Journalists Recall Night of the Crash.” The New York Times, 31 Aug. 2017.
• Clayton, Tim, and Phil Craig. "Diana: Story of a Princess." Atria Books, 2003.
• Lyall, Sarah. “Diana's Legacy: A Reshaped Monarchy, a More Emotional U.K.” The New York Times , 31 Aug. 2017.
• Morton, Andrew. "Diana: Her True Story - in Her Own Words." Michael O'Mara Books Limited, 2019.
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Princess Diana’s Death

By: History.com Editors

Updated: November 13, 2023 | Original: August 3, 2017

Princess Diana —who married into British royalty, only to later be divorced from it—devoted herself to charitable causes and became a global icon before dying in a car accident in Paris in 1997. When she married Prince Charles in 1981, Lady Diana Spencer became the first Englishwoman to marry an heir to the throne in more than 300 years. Although their wedding was watched by millions worldwide, and their marriage produced two sons—both potential heirs to the throne—it is for her untimely death that Diana is perhaps best remembered.

Lady Diana Spencer: From Teacher to Princess

Diana was born on July 1, 1961, to Edward John Spencer and his wife Frances. At the time of her birth, in Britain’s peerage system, her father held the title of Viscount Althorp. Her parents were divorced in 1969, when she was eight, and her father won sole custody.

In 1975, when Diana was 14, her father inherited the title of Earl from his own father, who passed away that year. The title has been awarded since 1765, as the Spencers have been wealthy landowners in England for centuries.

Her family rented Park House, an estate owned by Queen Elizabeth II , Prince Charles’ mother. During Diana’s time as a child on the estate, she may have played with Charles’ younger brothers, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. (Charles was 13 years older than Diana.)

Although she lost touch with him as a result of spending much of her youth attending prestigious boarding schools, Diana became re-acquainted with Prince Charles after moving to London to live and work in 1978. In the capital, she initially worked as a nanny before taking a job as a kindergarten teacher at the Young England School.

The courtship of Charles and Diana lasted several years before they were married at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London on July 29, 1981 . With the wedding, Diana was granted the title of Princess of Wales, as Charles’ official royal title was then the Prince of Wales. Charles ascended to the throne on September 8, 2022, after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana had two sons—Prince William in 1982 and Prince Henry (Harry) in 1984. Their marriage, however, was an unhappy one marked by extramarital affairs. In 1992, they announced their separation, and they divorced officially in 1996.

Princess Diana’s Humanitarian Causes

Diana, who had developed an interest in music and fashion as a child, quickly became a global icon of popular culture as she developed relationships with a number of entertainment personalities, including singers George Michael and Elton John .

She was also admired because she used her fame to raise public awareness—and charitable funds—for issues that mattered to her. As a former teacher, she was a lifelong advocate for children and supported efforts to abolish the use of land mines.

She also advocated for AIDS -related causes (she was the guest of honor at the opening of the United Kingdom’s first dedicated HIV/AIDS unit in 1987), and she is credited with helping to change the public’s perception of those who suffer from the disease.

She famously shook the hands of a patient with AIDS, in front of the media, without wearing gloves, dispelling the notion that the disease is transmitted via touch.

After her divorce from Prince Charles was finalized, Diana’s relationship with Egyptian film producer Dodi Al-Fayed , the son of a billionaire and former owner of London’s iconic Harrod’s department store and the city’s soccer team Fulham F.C. Dodi is perhaps best known as the producer of the film Chariots of Fire .

The couple’s relationship quickly became the subject of tabloid fodder, and they were routinely harassed by the paparazzi wherever they went.

Death of Princess Diana

On the evening of August 31, 1997 , Diana and Al-Fayed were dining privately in the Imperial Suite at Paris’ famous Ritz Hotel. They had planned to have a quiet, romantic meal at the hotel’s restaurant—Al-Fayed had reportedly purchased a ring for Diana earlier in the day—but they had to leave after 10 minutes because they were being disturbed by the press and other patrons.

At 11:30 that night, as they left the hotel to return to Al-Fayed’s Paris apartment, they were hounded by paparazzi, despite the fact that significant security precautions had been taken, including the use of a decoy vehicle, which left from the front of the hotel.

Diana and Al-Fayed left the hotel using a rear entrance, with French driver Henri Paul and one of the Princess’ bodyguards, Trevor Rees-Jones.

Driving a Mercedes S-280 limousine, Paul took Rees-Jones, Diana and Al-Fayed on a high-speed trip through the boulevards and narrow streets of central Paris. Investigators later estimated that the car may have been traveling in excess of 60 miles per hour.

At 12:19 a.m., the Mercedes carrying the couple, Paul and Rees-Jones, crashed into the 13th pillar of the Pont d’Alma Bridge, which traverses the River Seine. They were less than two miles from the Ritz Hotel.

Al-Fayed and Paul died at the scene. Diana was taken to Paris’ La Pitie Salpetriere Hospital, but several hours later, at 4 a.m., she died as a result of injuries she sustained in the crash, including a severed pulmonary vein. She was 36 years old.

The bodyguard, Rees-Jones, survived, despite suffering significant injuries. He recovered and returned to England, where he works in a family business and has published a book on his experiences with Diana.

Princess Diana’s Funeral

Princess Diana's death prompted an immediate—and unprecedented—outpouring of grief from all over the world.

Her funeral took place in London, five days after her death. An estimated 1 million people lined the funeral route from her London home in Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey , where her funeral was held.

Diana is buried on a small island surrounded by a lake at Althorp, her family’s ancestral estate in Northamptonshire, England.

Investigating Princess Diana’s Death

Initially, the incident had been blamed on their French chauffeur, Henri Paul, who may have been exceeding the speed limit to avoid tabloid photographers.

A subsequent inquest on the crash performed by the British police, and released in 2006, ruled Diana’s death a “tragic accident.” The inquest found that Paul had been drunk at the time of the accident, and that his condition may have been worsened by prescription anti-depressants he was taking.

In fact, tests of Paul’s blood following the crash revealed that his alcohol levels were more than three times the legal limit in France for drunk driving. Investigators believe this caused him to lose control of the Mercedes.

The inquest jury ruled that both Paul and the paparazzi chasing Diana and Al-Fayed were responsible for the crash due to “gross negligence.” The deaths of Diana and Al-Fayed were also ruled “unlawful killings”—the court equivalent of manslaughter.

In addition, the jury ruled that the couple might have survived the crash had they been wearing seatbelts.

No one was charged in the deaths of Diana and Al-Fayed, as Paul was himself killed. Several members of the paparazzi were questioned immediately after the accident, but were released.

Diana’s Legacy

In addition to her accomplishments on behalf of those with HIV/AIDS while she was alive, Diana is fondly remembered as a patron of the United Kingdom’s National AIDS Trust, an advocacy organization for people with the disease and their families. Many of the organization’s initiatives are named in her honor.

Diana is also credited, by at least one biographer, with effectively modernizing the royal family in their relations with the British public.

Generally reserved, the royal family, and in particular Queen Elizabeth, have arguably been more engaged with the public since Diana’s passing, visiting with victims of terrorist attacks in London, for example.

Her sons William and Harry have also credited their late mother with shaping their own charitable efforts, which include HIV/AIDS and wildlife conservation work in Africa, among other initiatives.

Diana, Princess of Wales. The Home of the Royal Family. A Family History. Spencer of Althorp. How Princess Diana changed attitudes to Aids. BBC News. Diana death a ‘tragic accident.’ BBC News. Princess Diana’s Life and Legacy. ABC News.

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Timeline: Princess Diana's life and the events that made her who she was

Princess Diana is a larger-than-life figure in so many ways, and her biography contains moments large and small, public and private, royal and routine.

This timeline follows Diana from childhood to storybook royal wedding to parenthood and then, unfortunately, to a death that came far too soon.

1961:  Diana Frances Spencer, born July 1, was the fourth of five children born to John Spencer, the 8th Earl Spencer and his first wife, Frances Ruth Roche.

1967: The Spencers separate when Diana is six years old. The divorce would not be final until 1969, following a child custody battle won by her father. In later years, her younger brother, Charles, blames the split on the loss of their first son, John, who died within hours of his birth in 1960, and the difficulty of producing a male heir.

1969: Diana's mother marries Peter Shand Kydd, an Australian wallpaper heir, and is accused by Shand Kydd's ex-wife of being the "other woman" in their divorce. The couple moves to the remote Scottish Isle of Seil.

1970: Diana, age 9, enrolls at Riddlesworth Hall, an all-girls boarding school in Norfolk.

1973: Diana joins older sisters Jane and Sarah at West Heath Girls' School in Kent, where she shows talent in music and sports but not academics. Later, she fails her O-level exams twice, and leaves without the equivalent of a high school diploma.

1975: Diana, 13, is given the title of Lady after her grandfather dies and her father inherits the title Earl of Spencer and the Althorp estate.

1976: John Spencer remarries, this time to socialite and local politician Raine McCorquodale, Lady Dartmouth, with whom he remains until his death in 1992. Though Diana and her brother called their new stepmother "Acid Raine," Diana later reconciled with her prior to her 1997 death.

1977: Diana first meets future husband Prince Charles, who at the time was dating her older sister Sarah.

1980: During a summer weekend in the country, Prince Charles notices Diana. Later that year, he takes her sailing on the royal yacht and invites her to Balmoral, his family's Scottish retreat to meet his family.

January 1981: After tabloids report a premarital liaison between Charles and Diana, Prince Philip writes a letter to his son urging him to either propose or end the relationship. Charles interprets it as an order to propose.

Feb. 24, 1981: Charles and Diana go public with their engagement (and Diana debuts her famous sapphire-and-diamond ring). On the night she moves out of her London apartment, her protective officer warns her, "I just want you to know that this is your last night of freedom ever, in the rest of your life, so make the most of it."

March 9, 1981: Diana bucks royal practice by wearing a plunging black gown by Elizabeth Emanuel for her first major post-engagement outing, which is criticized for being inappropriate. Afterward, she is bothered by media reports that she still has "an ounce or two of puppy fat," further inflaming her resurgent eating disorder.

July 29, 1981: Less than a month after her 20th birthday, Diana weds Charles, 32, at St. Paul's Cathedral, which better accommodated their 2,500 guests than Westminster Abbey, the usual venue for royal weddings. Two more deviations from tradition: The omission of the word "obey" from Diana's vows (intentional) and the delay of their first kiss until returning to Buckingham Palace (unintentional).

Nov. 5, 1981, The palace announces Diana is pregnant with her first child.

January 1982: Diana falls down a staircase at Sandringham at the end of her first trimester, which she later admitted was a deliberate cry for attention from Charles.

June 21, 1982:  The couple's first child, Prince William Arthur Philip Louis, is born at London's St. Mary's Hospital, where his own children would be born three decades later.

March 1983: Together with Charles, Diana and 9-month-old son William embark on their first royal tour together to Australia and New Zealand.

Sept. 15, 1984: The couple's second son, Prince Henry Charles Albert David, aka Harry, is born. Charles, who wanted a girl, complains, "It's a boy and he's even got red hair." Diana later tells biographer Andrew Morton , "Something inside me closed off," killing whatever love she had left for him and cementing her belief "Charles had gone back to his lady," Camilla Parker Bowles.

Nov. 9, 1985: First lady Nancy Reagan orchestrates Diana's memorable dance with John Travolta at the White House.

April 1987:  At the peak of homophobia and fear of AIDS, Diana shakes hands with a man suffering from the disease without gloves at London's Middlesex Hospital. Her gesture is later described by journalist Judy Wade as "the most important thing a royal's done in 200 years" because it helped to dispel the misconception that the then-fatal illness could be transmitted by casual contact.

1989: During a 40th birthday party for Camilla Parker Bowles' sister, Diana dismisses her husband and confronts her rival about her ongoing affair with Charles . "I would just like you to know that I know exactly what is going on," Diana tells Camilla, warning her not to treat the princess "like an idiot." In tapes that would later comprise Andrew Morton's biography Diana: Her True Story, In Her Own Words , the princess counts it as one of her bravest moments. 

June 1991: Diana keeps a two-day vigil at the bedside of Prince William after he suffers a severe head injury at boarding school , requiring surgery. Meanwhile, Charles is castigated for keeping his plans that evening.  "What sort of father of an eight-year-old boy, nearly brained by a golf club, leaves the hospital before knowing the outcome for a night at the opera?” the Daily Express asks.

March 29, 1992: Diana's father, John Spencer, dies of a heart attack in London. Diana opposes Charles' offers to accompany her back from their Austrian ski vacation, believing him to be using her grief for a public-relations coup. However, the palace overrules her.

Aug. 20, 1991:  Diana cuts short her annual royal family summer holiday at Balmoral to return to London to be at the bedside of longtime friend Adrian Ward-Jackson, who dies of AIDS-related illness two days later. She had quietly been spending time with him over the last year and had even brought Prince William to meet him. 

May 1992:  Journalist Andrew Morton publishes Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words. Begun a year earlier, it consisted of no face-to-face interviews because she couldn't risk being seen as openly participating. Morton sent written questions via her friend Dr. James Colthurst, who recorded the interviews and ferried the tapes back to him.

August 1992: Britain's Sun newspaper reveals the "Squidgygate" tapes, alleged to be from a years-old phone conversation with alleged lover James Gilby, who referred to Diana by Squidgy, a pet name, he uttered dozens of times throughout the recording.

December 1992: Prime Minister John Major informs Parliament of the official separation of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The move comes a month after a disastrous official visit to South Korea , which forced the palace to realize it was time to end the charade.

January 1993: The "Camillagate" tapes surfaced, audio recordings of phone conversations between Charles and his lover, in which he expresses his wish to be her tampon .

December 1993: Diana announces her plan to retire from public life , at least for an indefinite period, and dramatically pares down her list of charity patronages.

Fall 1995: Diana meets Dr. Hasnat Khan, the Pakistani-born cardiac surgeon overseeing her acupuncturist's postoperative care and begins a secret, two-year relationship. He breaks up with her in the early summer of 1997 but unlike another lover James Hewitt, who later betrayed her with a tell-all book, Khan never reveals the intimate details of their time together . However, their relationship is turned into a widely-panned 2013 film starring Naomi Watts and Naveen Andrews.

Nov. 20, 1995: BBC's newsmagazine Panorama airs Martin Bashir's bombshell interview with Diana at Kensington Palace, which had been planned and carried out in secrecy. During the conversation, she discusses her past struggles with depression, bulimia and self-harm and admits to her own infidelities. But her most famous quote was in regards to the love triangle with her soon-to-be ex-husband and his longtime love, Camilla Parker Bowles: "Well, there were three of us in the marriage so it was a bit crowded."

August 1996: The terms of the royal  divorce are finalized . Diana is awarded a lump-sum settlement of $22.5 million in cash, as well as about $600,000 a year earmarked to maintain her private office in addition to receiving permission to continue living in their Kensington Palace apartment. She agrees to give up any future claim of being queen. However, she is stripped of the title Her Royal Highness and is henceforth referred to as Diana, Princess of Wales, seen as a petty move on the part of the palace.

Jan. 15, 1997: Diana walks through a minefield in war-torn Angola  to support the Red Cross' call for a ban on landmines and to showcase the de-mining work being done by one of the charities she patronized . Two decades later, her guide, Paul Heslop, recounted the nervous episode to the BBC :  "This poor woman was about to go into a live minefield, a dangerous area, in front of however many hundreds of millions or billions of people on the news, and I thought back to the first time I went into a minefield, and I was petrified."

Aug. 30, 1997:  A few months after her split with Khan, Diana and her new beau, Dodi Fayed, depart Paris' Ritz-Carlton Hotel after dinner to spend the night at his apartment. Their intoxicated driver, Henri Paul, later found to be three times over the legal limit, races through the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in an attempt to outrun the paparazzi. Shortly after midnight, he crashes their Mercedes into a cement pylon, killing himself and Fayed instantly. Diana and bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones are taken to the hospital.

Aug. 31, 1997: Diana succumbs to her injuries (mostly cardiac in nature) and is pronounced dead at 4 a.m. at Paris' PItié-St. Salpêtrière Hospital at age 36. 

Sept. 1, 1997: Charles accompanies his ex-wife's remains back from Paris, along with her older sisters, Sarah and Jane.

Sept. 6, 1997:  Millions around the world watch Diana's funeral procession and service at Westminster Abbey. Later that day, her remains are transported home to her family's estate at Althorp, where she is buried.

The Final Years of Princess Diana

Before her untimely death in 1997, the People's Princess was determined to forge her own path.

Diana's marriage to Charles dissolved

On December 9, 1992, Prime Minister John Major announced to the House of Commons that Charles and Diana had separated. It wasn't a big surprise: estrangement between the two had been evident, and a recent book by Andrew Morton, entitled Diana: Her True Story , had detailed her unhappiness (Diana denied involvement with the book but had in fact cooperated).

Yet the separation placed Diana in an awkward position, as it was Charles who had the defined role as heir to the throne. Though she remained extremely popular, and she'd always be the mother of a future king, she was no longer considered a true member of the royal family.

She was on a quest for normality

In 1993, Diana successfully headed a Remembrance Day service in Northern Ireland, among other duties. But she also remained an object of tabloid fascination — in November, photos taken of her exercising in a leotard appeared in the Daily Mirror . On December 3, she announced she was temporarily stepping away from public life and its "overwhelming" media attention.

Soon afterward, wanting more privacy and normality in her life, Diana also relinquished her police protection. From 1994 onward, she usually had no official bodyguard. Paparazzi, who loved the fact that Diana was unguarded, began to take more and more photos — a practice that continued right up to the night of her death.

As Charles' camp tried to boost his reputation, Diana was seen as emotionally volatile

Today Diana's reputation shines, but critical stories often appeared about her. In 1994, the press stated she'd been making nuisance phone calls to the home of a married man. And the publication of Princess in Love revealed details about Diana's affair with army officer James Hewitt.

People in her husband's camp were also determined to bolster Charles' reputation, making him the subject of a positive biography and documentary to celebrate his 25th anniversary as Prince of Wales in 1994 (though an on-camera admission of adultery didn't help the prince). For some, Diana and Charles were a zero-sum game: Diana had to be seen as emotionally volatile in order to explain Charles' actions. All this made Diana determined to reveal her side of things once more.

She did a secret TV interview to tell her truth

Many friends cautioned Diana not to get on the wrong side of the royal family, and the princess knew the establishment wouldn't approve of an on-camera interview. But she struck a deal with BBC's Panorama, and on November 5, 1995, interviewer Martin Bashir and crew came to Kensington Palace to talk to Diana (she'd given her staff time off to maintain secrecy). She didn't tell Buckingham Palace what she'd done until less than a week before the interview was scheduled to air.

On November 20, the program was seen by 23 million people in Britain. In it, Diana talked about her marriage, infidelity, bulimia and depression, and stated, "I'd like to be a queen of people's hearts, in people's hearts, but I don't see myself being Queen of this country." She also questioned Charles's ability to rule. The interview did boost the princess's popularity, but it also precipitated a final exit from the royal roost.

READ MORE: Was Princess Diana a Commoner Before Marrying Prince Charles?

Diana and Charles officially divorced just one year before her death

In December 1995, the Queen wrote to Charles and Diana to say it would be better if they divorced. The pair agreed to do so in February 1996, and their marriage officially ended on August 28, 1996.

Diana ended up receiving a lump sum payment of £17 million and shared custody of Princes William and Harry . However, though she would still be known as the Princess of Wales, she no longer had the title "Her Royal Highness." She'd been fully kicked out of the royal family.

READ MORE: How Princes William and Harry Are Carrying out Princess Diana's Legacy

She found love again

While her divorce was happening, Diana had a bright spot in her life: She'd fallen in love again. In 1995, she met Dr. Hasnat Khan, a cardiac surgeon who was tending to the husband of a friend. Through him, Diana experienced some of the normality she'd always craved — she got to order drinks at a pub and stand in a line. According to one friend, the princess noted, "You meet such interesting people queuing!"

Diana may even have hoped to marry Khan. She traveled to Pakistan to meet his family and saw them when they visited England. But her lover was devoted to his medical career, and the spotlight that came with Diana would be a huge burden. The relationship ended in the summer of 1997.

About two months after their split, Diana began dating Dodi Fayed , who was also involved in the car crash that took their lives.

READ MORE: Why Princess Diana Risked Her Life for Humanitarian Causes in Africa

Diana devoted her time to support worthwhile causes

Diana continued to support humanitarian causes following her divorce. In January 1997, she traveled to Angola with a BBC film crew to bring attention to the problem of landmines, which remained across the country following a civil war.

During her trip, Diana spent time with landmine victims and visited a prosthesis clinic. She also walked across a cleared minefield (still a dangerous decision, as mines could have been left behind). And when photographers complained they didn't have the shots they needed, she walked through the field again.

Diana's celebrity brought attention to an important cause. After she died, 122 governments signed the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty in December 1997. The impact of just one trip highlights again what a tragedy her early death was, and how much more she could have done for the world.

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A Look at Princess Diana’s Life, 25 Years After Her Death

The royal captured the public's attention from her engagement to her funeral

Lady Diana Frances Spencer was born on July 1, 1961, in Norfolk, England. The third of four children born to the 8th Earl Spencer and his then-wife, Frances, Lady Diana developed a love of and talent for music and dancing, according to the royal family’s website.

After a whirlwind courtship, Lady Diana married Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, on July 29, 1981, in one of the most-watched events in royal history. The 20-year-old wore a voluminous silk taffeta dress with a 25-foot train that filled the aisle of St. Paul's Cathedral.

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The couple spent their honeymoon at the Mountbatten family home at Broadlands, in Hampshire, England, and then on a 12-day cruise through the Mediterranean. They finished their trip at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, shown here.

On June 21, 1982, Princess Diana gave birth to Prince William Arthur Philip Louis, her first child. As the new family of three departed St. Mary's Hospital in London the next day, Princess Diana wore a polka-dot dress.

PA Wire/Zuma

William’s wife, Kate Middleton, also appeared in a polka-dot dress after the birth of their first son decades later.

Parsons Media/Zuma

Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

In 1984, Princess Diana gave birth to her second son, Henry Charles Albert David—Prince Harry.

John Shelley Collection/Avalon/Zuma

As a royal, Princess Diana emerged as a glamorous figure with star power. In 1985, she danced with actor John Travolta at a White House dinner event in the royal couple’s honor. Later that year, she performed on stage at London’s Royal Opera House with dancer Wayne Sleep.

Pete Souza/Ronald Reagan Library/AP

Princess Diana took on charities and causes as part of her duties, eventually becoming president or patron for over 100 charities during her marriage to Prince Charles. In 1987, during a time of stigma and misinformation around AIDS, she was photographed shaking the hand of an AIDS patient in London.

John Redman/AP

Princess Diana was a glamorous figure but also charmed the public. She was seen as someone they could relate to, a mother who loved her children. She competed in a race with other parents at Prince Harry’s school in 1991.

Anwar Hussein/WireImage/Getty

Amid speculation about the state of the royals’ marriage, royal reporter Andrew Morton’s "Diana: Her True Story" was published in 1992. The best-selling tell-all book, produced with the princess’s cooperation, discussed Charles’s longtime affair with Camilla Parker Bowles and Diana’s struggles with the affair, bulimia and celebrity.

Ben Curtis/PA Wire/Reuters

Peter Jordan/AP

After news of Prince Charles’s infidelity, which he made public in a television special, Princess Diana made a public appearance at a fundraising dinner hosted by Vanity Fair in what became known as her “revenge dress.”

Ian Jones/Zuma

In 1995, Princess Diana talked about many of her struggles, as well as her own infidelity, during an interview with journalist Martin Bashir on BBC’s “Panorama.” In one memorable moment, she was asked if Ms. Parker Bowles was a factor in the breakdown of her marriage. “Well there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded," she said. The BBC has since apologized for unethical methods and fake documents used to obtain the interview.

BBC/PA Wire/Reuters

Months later, Prince Charles received a letter from his mother, urging divorce, and he agreed. By February 1996, Princess Diana had also agreed. The couple received a final decree of divorce in August 1996.

After her divorce, Diana resigned from many of the charity positions she had held as a working member of the royal family. But she continued to work on certain humanitarian issues. In January 1997, she visited Angola as part of a campaign to ban land mines.

Express Newspapers/AP

John Stillwell/PA Wire/Zuma

She began a relationship with Dodi Fayed, the son of the billionaire and former owner of Harrods, Mohamed al-Fayed. The two, often photographed by paparazzi, sailed around the Mediterranean, stopping in the French Riviera resort of St. Tropez.

Patrick Bar/Nice-Matin/AP

Diana, Princess of Wales, and Mr. Fayed both died on Aug. 31, 1997, in a high-speed accident in Paris. The vehicle crashed in the Pont de l'Alma underpass as the driver, who French authorities said was inebriated, was trying to evade paparazzi. She was 36 years old.

Diana, Princess of Wales, and Mr. Fayed both died on Aug. 31, 1997, in a high-speed accident in Paris. The vehicle crashed in the Pont de l'Alma underpass as the driver, who French authorities said was inebriated, was trying to evade paparazzi. She was 36.

Jerome Delay/AP

Pierre Boussel/AFP/Getty

A funeral for Princess Diana, who former Prime Minister Tony Blair called the “people’s princess,” took place on Sept. 6 in Westminster Abbey. Elton John performed a rewritten version of his song “Candle in the Wind” dedicated to her. The song, later released as a single, topped charts in the U.K. and U.S.

Princess Diana’s tensions with the royal family outlived her. Many considered their initial response to her death inadequate. Tony Blair, the former prime minister, has said he spoke with the family about how to react, and that he thought a televised statement the queen gave ahead of Diana’s funeral was “near perfect.”

Ian Waldie/Reuters

Her sudden death shocked the world. An estimated 2 billion people watched her funeral , making it one of the most-viewed events in television history. Even today, people leave bouquets and other gifts outside the gates of Kensington Palace on the anniversary of her death.

John Stillwell/PA Wire/Reuters

Interest in Diana persists 25 years after her death. In recent years, documentaries, movies and TV shows about her life have been made , including the film “Spencer,” shown here, and the opulent Netflix series on the royal family, “The Crown.”

Frederic Batier/Neon/Everett Collection

Produced by Matthew Riva

Cover photo: Keystone Press Agency/Zuma Credits photo: Johnny Eggitt/AFP/Getty

Princess Diana Changed the Idea of What a Princess Should Be

Decades after her tragic death, Lady Di's influence is still felt.

Lady Diana Spencer was only 20 years old when she married Prince Charles and became the United Kingdom’s own Princess of Wales. To the 750 million viewers who watched her 1981 wedding on television, Diana was a charming, down-to-earth princess who’d won her fairy tale marriage. But a decade later she sadly described the wedding as “the worst day of my life.”

Princess Di, as she was affectionately known, made that confession during a series of taped interviews with journalist Andrew Morton, who was writing a book about her life. She spoke candidly about her troubled marriage, her struggle with bulimia, and her difficulty handling life in the public eye. Most of the material has never been broadcast, but viewers can hear the interviews in the National Geographic documentary Diana: In Her Own Words .

The film came 20 years after Lady Di’s shocking death in a car crash. Although by that time she had divorced Charles, she remained an international icon and mother to two princes.

We spoke with Tom Jennings , executive producer of the new film, about the humanitarian causes Lady Di championed and how she changed the role of the royal family. ( See “Queen Elizabeth's Record-Breaking Reign in 14 Pictures.” )

How did the world react to the news of her sudden death?

When Princess Diana died, the whole world stopped. It was a remarkable and very sad series of events. The funeral was broadcast live around the world. People in the U.K. were putting flowers at the gates of Kensington Palace, so much so that for hundreds of yards you couldn’t even get to the palace gates.

Was the public always so infatuated with her?

People were fascinated by her to begin with. We grow up with this fairy tale fantasy of princes and princesses and castles, and all of sudden you had this very beautiful, very young woman living it. She almost instantaneously became more popular than Prince Charles. ( Read “Prince Charles's Newest Cause: Combating Ocean Trash.” )

Into the 1990s the pressures of her marriage started to weigh down on her. After Morton’s book came out, she became kind of a polarizing figure. Some people thought that a royal should not be talking in public about what’s going on in their private lives. But other people who believed in her and who truly loved her became even more staunch supporters of her.

Her humanitarian work was also divisive, particularly when she shook hands with AIDS patients in 1987 .

There was this unproven fear that if you just shook the hand of someone who had HIV or AIDS you would contract the disease, and Diana believed that not to be true. The people who loved her at that time loved her even more because here was a very public figure willing to show the world that these individuals need attention and care too. But some grumbled that a royal person shouldn’t be doing that. (See Remembering Diana: A Life in Photographs . )

Also during that time in the late ‘80s she took on homelessness, especially in the U.K. There’s footage of her going around and talking with people who are homeless, living in tents under bridges—and a lot of people just couldn’t believe it. She made a big point of saying that in the modern world people shouldn’t have to live like this. Right before she died, she took on the issue of landmines in war-torn countries in Africa, specifically Angola.

There was a conscious decision made on her part: ‘If I’m going to have cameras pointed at me the whole time, I might as well use all this publicity for good.’ And that’s what she did. She knew that her going out to hospitals or to fields filled with landmines would immediately draw the world’s attention to the problem. ( Read “Meet the Giant Rats That Are Sniffing out Landmines.” )

How did her humanitarian work and willingness to talk about her personal life change the royal family?

Princess Diana had a tremendous impact on the royal family, and the people of the U.K., and their opinions of what the royal family meant to them. I think it carries on most significantly with her two sons, the princes William and Harry. She even says in our film toward the end that she’s altering the monarchy in a subtle way—for especially William, the older of the two—by doing all of the things that she’s doing, by taking on causes that the royal family would not normally take on.

Some people give her a lot of credit for modernizing the royal family by making it more engaged. It certainly has taken on a much more modern spin, and that modern spin started with Princess Diana. No one else had changed it quite as much as she did before then. And I think it is seen now as a much more accessible British institution. The two princes are often out interacting with the public in a way that Diana did. She was never afraid to go and shake hands with people.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

For Hungry Minds

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• PEOPLE AND CULTURE

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Expert investigation reveals the truth about Princess Diana's death 25 years ago

Groundbreaking new documentary examines her final years and what really led to the accident in paris.

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Two and a half decades after her tragic death, the late Princess Diana continues to make international headlines. Many questions remain about her final years, what happened the night she died and who may be responsible for the accident. 

In Diana: The Ultimate Truth , former detective and award-winning investigative journalist Mark Williams-Thomas examines theories that have emerged since Diana's passing and sets out to answer the key questions that continue to swirl around the late princess of Wales.

What impact did Diana's revealing BBC interview have on the final years of her life? Could she have potentially survived her injuries from the crash? Was driver Henri Paul under the influence of alcohol that night? And had her car really been tampered with?

The interview that changed everything  

In November 1995, two years before her death, Princess Diana agreed to a television interview with Martin Bashir from Panorama , the BBC's flagship current affairs program. The revealing segment made headlines around the world after Diana exposed her and Prince Charles's extramarital affairs. 

As a result, the Queen urged Diana and Charles — who had been separated since 1992 — to divorce, and Diana was stripped of the title of Her Royal Highness. Her royal security was also removed.

• New documentary Historians believe the Duke of Windsor actively collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War

How did Bashir, a relatively unknown BBC journalist, win this extraordinary interview and, crucially, Diana's trust?   

A graphic designer working for BBC later disclosed that Bashir had asked him to forge bank statements that showed a former employee of Earl Spencer, Diana's brother, had sold stories to a U.K. national newspaper. Bashir then showed the falsified statements to Earl Spencer to gain his confidence; Spencer then introduced Bashir to Diana. 

In Diana: The Ultimate Truth , Williams-Thomas speaks with Tom Mangold, a long-time Panorama reporter who caught on to the deception and raised his concerns within the BBC. "A friend of mine on the program … came to me and said, 'Our graphics artist, Matt Wiessler, has told me that Martin ordered him to forge two bank statements,'" says Mangold. "And they were used to get the interview with Princess Diana." He took his concerns to the program editor but was ignored. 

The interview that changed everything | Diana: The Ultimate Truth

Five months after the interview aired, the Mail on Sunday newspaper revealed what Mangold knew to be true, but by then the damage of what Diana divulged was done. 

Williams-Thomas also meets with Diana's close friend Simone Simmons, who described Diana's conversations with Bashir prior to filming the interview. "[Bashir] was talking about … did she realize, you know, she is surrounded by people who are betraying her?" says Simmons in the documentary. 

"She said to me, 'I didn't know how many enemies I had.'" 

'I am going to [die] in an accident — helicopter, plane or car crash'

During his investigation, Williams-Thomas meets with other close friends and associates of Princess Diana, who describe a kind, strong-minded and thoughtful person. They also reveal Diana's inner concerns in her final years. 

Speaking publicly for the first time, security expert Grahame Harding explains how Diana feared her calls were being recorded and hired him to inspect her rooms at Kensington Palace for bugs. He also supplied mobile phones to Diana in secret to help her to avoid any potential surveillance.

• now streaming Remembering the life of Queen Elizabeth II: Our longest-reigning monarch

Concerns about being spied on were not Diana's only fear. Her close friend Roberto Devorik says that Diana always believed she was going to die young. 

"She had the premonition she would be killed or die … not in a natural way," says Devorik in the documentary. "She would say, 'I think they are going to kill me. I am going to finish in an accident — helicopter, plane or car crash.'"

‘I am going to [die] in an accident — helicopter, plane or car crash’ | Diana: The Ultimate Truth

Diana may have had a chance of surviving that night  

In the documentary, Williams-Thomas retraces Diana's steps in Paris, where Diana spent her final days with filmmaker Dodi Fayed in August 1997, and tracks down crash witnesses who have never spoken publicly. He also travels to the U.K. to meet an expert who prepared a report for the official British inquest into Diana's death. 

Tom Treasure, a cardiothoracic surgeon, reviews the details of the crash. "[Diana] was taken from the car, and she was conscious when they took her out," he says. "Her circulation was in trouble, fast pulse and low blood pressure, indicating internal bleeding." 

Treasure then explains the heart injury that Diana sustained from sitting sideways without a seatbelt when the car came to an abrupt stop. He reveals that had the circumstances been different that night, allowing her rare heart injury to be identified earlier, she may have had a chance. 

"It was survivable," Treasure says in the film.  

Was the driver to blame?

In 2008, the British inquest concluded that the accident was caused by the grossly negligent driving of chauffeur Henri Paul and the group of paparazzi photographers who were following the car.

French police stated that Paul was under the influence of alcohol when he took to the wheel that night. But when Williams-Thomas tracks down his close friend Claude Garrec, he insists that Paul was a responsible person who would not have put people's lives at risk. 

"So, for me, something happened that we don't know. But Henri, in my opinion, has nothing to do with this case," Garrec says.

While in Paris, Williams-Thomas also questions Martine Monteil, the police officer who led the French investigation into the crash, and reviews the forensic evidence. She confirms that the Mercedes had collided with another vehicle moments before entering the Pont de l'Alma tunnel, causing it to swerve, hit a curb and spin into the 13th pillar. 

As for the widespread public theories that Paul's blood samples could have been inaccurate or switched — is there any truth to these claims? 

"Blood samples were taken immediately at the time of the accident and also during the autopsy," says Monteil, who reveals that those samples indicated Paul indeed had alcohol, as well as antidepressants, in his system. "He wasn't drunk, that's for sure, but he had consumed alcohol." 

• Previously unheard tape from BBC Archives reveals Duke of Windsor wanted Britain to appease Hitler

Was the car tampered with?

Following the French investigation, the Metropolitan police in England launched their own inquiry into Diana's death. They commissioned three forensic and traffic collision experts to examine every element of the crash and determine if anything had been tampered with on Diana and Fayed's vehicle. These experts come together for the first time on television in Diana: The Ultimate Truth .  

"Because of all the tampering allegations, I wanted the Met police to buy or borrow an identical car," says David Price, a forensic accident investigator who went on to compare Diana's crashed vehicle with a second Mercedes to determine any differences. 

"I was going from one to the other, checking out all the underside to look for any signs that anything had been attached to it or any signs that there had been a small explosion to disable something."

The findings of the forensic team, along with all the other evidence gathered, may finally answer the remaining questions surrounding Diana's death. 

Watch Diana: The Ultimate Truth .

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Princess Diana

• Born July 1 , 1961 · Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk, England, UK
• Died August 31 , 1997 · Paris, France (road accident)
• Birth name Diana Frances Spencer
• The People's Princess
• Princess Di
• The Queen of Hearts
• The Princess of Hearts
• England's Rose
• Height 5′ 10″ (1.78 m)
• Princess Diana was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, and the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry. Diana's activism and glamour made her an international icon and earned her an enduring popularity. Diana was born into the British nobility and grew up close to the royal family on their Sandringham estate. She did not distinguish herself academically, but was talented in music, dance, and sports. Diana came to prominence in 1981 upon her engagement to Prince Charles, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II, after a brief courtship. Their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in 1981 and made her Princess of Wales, a role in which she was enthusiastically received by the public. The couple had two sons, the princes William and Harry, who were then second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. The couple separated in 1992, soon after the breakdown of their relationship became public knowledge. The details of their marital difficulties became increasingly publicized, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1996. As Princess of Wales, Diana undertook royal duties on behalf of the Queen and represented her at functions across the Commonwealth realms. She was celebrated in the media for her unconventional approach to charity work. Her patronages initially centered on children and youth but she later became known for her involvement with AIDS patients and campaign for the removal of landmines. She also raised awareness and advocated ways to help people affected with cancer and mental illness. Considered to be very photogenic, she was a leader of fashion in the 1980s and 1990s. Media attention and public mourning were extensive after her death in a car crash in a Paris tunnel in 1997 and televised funeral. Her legacy has had a deep impact on the royal family and British society. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Tango Papa
• Spouse King Charles III (July 29, 1981 - August 28, 1996) (divorced, 2 children)
• Children Prince Harry Prince William of Wales
• Parents Earl John Spencer Frances Shand Kydd
• Relatives Princess Charlotte of Wales (Grandchild) Prince Louis of Wales (Grandchild) Charles Spencer (Sibling) Sarah McCorquodale (Sibling) Jane Fellowes (Sibling) Prince George of Wales (Grandchild) Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor (Grandchild) Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor (Grandchild)
• Blonde hair, often short
• Statuesque, model-like figure
• Once referred to Queen Camilla as a rottweiler.
• Told an intimate friend that, while walking down the aisle in Saint Paul's Cathedral, she thought about turning back like "Elaine" did in The Graduate (1967) .
• She was a close friend of Michael Jackson and Elton John . "Candle in the Wind", John's song about Marilyn Monroe , was changed to fit her, and performed by him at her funeral. Coincidentally, both women died at age 36.
• When Diana went to the LA Fitness Centre in Isleworth, the owner Bryce Taylor planted a camera and caught her exercising in a leotard. The photos were sold for over £100,000 to The Mirror. They printed them saying they were exposing the lapse in royal security, but Diana didn't buy the explanation and took them to court. They reached an out-of-court settlement. This incident impelled Diana to withdraw from public life.
• Invited Supermodel Cindy Crawford to Buckingham Palace for dinner, when Prince William of Wales had a secret crush on the model.
• [interview in "Panorama" magazine, 1995] There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.
• Any sane person would have left long ago. But I cannot. I have my sons.
• I'd like to be a queen in people's hearts but I don't see myself being queen of this country.
• My role is about 80% slog and 20% fantastic.
• If I'm going to comfort the suffering, I have to understand what they've been through.

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Princess Diana pushed her 'wicked' stepmother Countess Raine Spencer down the stairs. Then they became best friends

Countess Raine Spencer was standing in her grand English manor when the most famous woman in the world lunged forward and shoved her down the stairs.

Life had been one steep climb for Raine — until she met Princess Diana, who was determined to keep her down, both physically and metaphorically.

The daughter of a romance novelist, Raine used her beauty and her wits to rise through the social ranks until she was a noblewoman with a luxurious home, an extensive staff and a wardrobe of taffeta gowns that made her look like a delicate little cream puff.

But as she tumbled down the steps, Raine might have wondered if it was all worth it.

A fortuitous marriage brought Raine into Diana's ancestral home.

In a scandal that rocked London high society, she had left her husband, the Earl of Dartmouth, for an even higher born aristocrat, Earl Spencer, in 1976.

Her new husband came with many treasures, including Althorp, a sprawling, 5,300 hectare estate that had been in his family since the 16th century.

But he also had four children from a previous marriage, two of whom still lived at home: his son and heir Charles, the Viscount Althorp, and his youngest daughter, little Lady Diana Spencer.

Traumatised by their parents' acrimonious divorce, the children despised their new stepmother — so much so, they sang "Raine, Raine, go away" to her every chance they got.

Even after Diana grew up, married the heir to the British throne and became the Princess of Wales, she maintained her rage against Raine.

And in 1989, the tension between them exploded.

The Spencers had gathered at Althorp for the wedding of Diana's little brother when an argument broke out.

"It happened on the top of the saloon stairs," Raine's personal assistant, Sue Howe, recounted in the documentary, Princess Diana's Wicked Stepmother.

"She had a furious row with Raine because Diana was so upset that her own mother had been ignored in the ancestral home, and she pushed her, and Raine fell down the stairs.

"She was badly bruised and was dreadfully upset."

Ms Howe believed that the then 28-year-old princess, whose marriage to Prince Charles was beginning to spin out of control, was "very stressed" at the time.

"It was not justified at all. It was a cruel, heartless thing to do," she said.

But three years after she sent her stepmother tumbling down the steps, Diana was still unrepentant.

"I pushed her down the stairs, which gave me enormous satisfaction," Diana told her vocal coach in a recorded conversation in 1992.

"I wanted to throttle that stepmother of mine. She brought me such grief."

The war between Diana and Raine put two very different women at odds.

Diana was a blue-blooded aristocrat, born into one of the most important and powerful families in British history, whose destiny was surely to sit upon a throne.

Raine, meanwhile, made her own luck.

She parlayed her beauty, her charm, and her carefully concealed intelligence into three favourable marriages to men with titles, as well as a short lived career in politics.

But fate held many surprises for both Raine and Diana.

In the final year of Diana's short life, when she was cast out by the royal family, the princess made a startling discovery.

Her "wicked" stepmother wasn't wicked at all, but the maternal figure she had always desperately needed.

The girl who was raised to be the diamond of the season 

Long before she became the Countess of Dartmouth, who was then the Countess Spencer and finally La Comtesse de Chambrun, she was known simply as Raine McCorquodale.

The daughter of wealthy, but decidedly middle class parents, Raine was born into a home where love was a serious business.

Her mother, Barbara Cartland, was known as the Queen of Romance, an extraordinarily prolific novelist who wrote 723 bodice rippers that almost always put a young virgin in the path of a rakish duke or marquis.

"I was disappointed to have had a daughter, I should have liked to have had a dozen boys," Cartland said in an interview with the BBC in 1991.

"I don't like women very much. I think men are marvellous — they are the heroes of my books."

Still, Cartland decided to plot out her daughter's future as if it was one of her own novels, delighting in Raine's beauty but encouraging her to perhaps not be so obviously brilliant.

"Never mind about that," her mother said to Raine when she came home from school to announce she had topped her class exams.

"You have a gravy stain on your shirt."

At the age of 18, after years of ruthless preparation by her mother, Raine was presented at King George VI's court.

"She had perfect features and a lovely figure, so I decided I was going to produce her as a beauty," Cartland later recalled to biographer Henry Cloud in 1979.

"I really used to bully her and become absolutely furious with her, as I suppose mothers often do with daughters … of course, the bullying worked."

Raine's dance lessons, elocution and etiquette classes, her wardrobe full of frothy dresses and her "eternal" smile made her the triumph of the season.

In a plot straight out of Bridgerton, she was voted Debutante of the Year in 1947.

As the most eligible young woman in high society, she had her pick of titled men, and she quickly settled on Gerald Legge, presumptive heir to the Earldom of Dartmouth.

The couple settled into his Belgravia home, and Raine gave birth to four children. To Cartland's delight, three of them were boys.

By her early twenties, Raine had achieved every single one of her mother's ambitions for her: She was married to a nobleman, she had produced a raft of heirs, and she was the mistress of a grand home.

She was also bored.

And so at 23, Raine made a tilt for politics, campaigning to be a local councillor in a full face of make-up, long polished nails and her trademark dresses.

"I always deliberately dressed up and wore all my jewellery and furs – after all everyone knows I have them," she explained.

In 1955, she became the youngest member elected to the Westminster City Council for the Conservative Party.

Over the next 17 years, in between raising her children and serving as Lady Dartmouth, Raine sat on tourism boards, as well as town planning and parks committees.

She often joked that she would like to stand for parliament, but her husband Earl Dartmouth would not let her attend political events in the evening or on weekends.

Right into the 1970s, Raine continued to publicly praise Earl Dartmouth, describing him to reporters as "the Rock of Gibraltar and divine; so steady and strong and yet such humour".

But, according to her biographer Tina Gaudion, by 1972, she had already fallen in love with someone else: Earl John Spencer.

Described as "the unhappiest man in London" after his own scandalous divorce, Johnnie became infatuated with Raine.

And Raine, who until this point, treated life like a dance that must be performed to perfection, decided to risk it all for love.

She divorced Earl Dartmouth, earning her mother's consternation and claims that she was an ambitious social climber who had Althorp in her sights.

"I don't think Raine had any intention of falling in love with Johnnie Spencer — it just happened," her brother Ian McCorquodale told Gaudion for her book Three Times a Countess.

"It was real love, they adored each other …. I think my mother [Barbara Cartland] was a bit bemused by the whole thing."

And so in 1976, Raine packed up her diamonds and furs and headed north for Johhnie's medieval family seat.

There, she would meet two children who had been left to run wild through the hallowed halls of Althorp, two teens who had been separated from their mother, and were in no mood to welcome their father's glamorous, younger wife.

Frances out, 'Acid Raine' in

Diana was just eight years old when the Spencer household was thrown into upheaval after Frances Spencer ran off with wallpaper tycoon Peter Shand Kydd.

Diana's mother had been a teen bride, marrying 30-year-old "Johnnie" Spencer at 18 before she was installed at Park House, on the Sandringham estate.

She gave birth to three healthy girls, including the future Princess of Wales, but her marriage to Johnnie slowly unravelled under the stress of trying to produce a male heir, only compounded further by the death of their first-born son.

Only five years into their union, the 23-year-old mother was reportedly persuaded by her family to consult a gynaecologist to work out why she could only have girls.

The long-wished for heir, Charles Spencer, arrived five years later but it was too late for Frances and Johnnie's relationship.

It was their son's belief that these tests were the beginning of the end of their union. Yet, in what appears to have been a reflection of the times, Francis bore the brunt of the condemnation of their break-up.

Her scandalous relationship with Peter saw her name dragged through the mud in a bitter court battle, which involved Frances's own mother testifying against her in court.

Diana told biographer Andrew Morton that her mother's decision to "leg it" was the "biggest disruption" to her childhood and was a "painful experience".

Frances lost custody of her children and Diana and Charles were left in the care of Johnnie Spencer, a man who could, at times, be volatile and remote.

Friends described him as rather miserable, driving guests sat next to him at parties away in search of better company, until fate dealt him a favourable hand in 1975.

After inheriting the family seat at Althorp, Johnnie found his second wife in Raine.

He was so enamoured with his would-be bride, he apparently forgot to tell his children he was getting married and left their names off the guest list.

A 15-year-old Diana was so appalled by his behaviour that she confronted her father and slapped him.

"If I remember rightly, I slapped him across the face, and I said, 'That's from all of us, for hurting us' and walked out and slammed the door," she told Morton.

It was an inauspicious beginning for the Countess Raine Spencer, who would later be dubbed "Acid Raine" by her new step-children.

Her efforts to discipline the teenaged Charles and Diana had mixed success, as did her attempts to renovate Althorp, which she had nicknamed "gloomsville".

Raine's vision for the estate was to turn it into a lucrative venture, where guests could pay to stay, but her grand designs displeased her new family.

Her preference for bold colours and cosy furniture was regarded by some to be at odds with the stately history of the home.

Her stepson Charles Spencer described her style as "the wedding cake vulgarity of a five-star hotel in Monaco".

"The South Drawing Room, for generations a model of handsome English reserve, became a cacophony of clashing pinks — pink silk walls, pink silk curtains, pink French rug, pink sofas, plump pink cushions; it was as if the room had been ablush at the sickliness of it all," he wrote for Vanity Fair in 2010.

He also accused Raine of smuggling away priceless pieces of art to help pay for the renovations, though these allegations were never proven.

Despite the vocal criticism from her husband's children, Raine loved her decorative flourishes.

"I thought I made a wonderful job of Althorp," she said.

"There were bright sofas to sit on, and you could still look at the Rubens on the walls and think how lucky you were to be living there."

She would embark on a similar restoration project when her husband suffered a stroke just two years into their marriage.

Her diligent care and attention helped bring him back to life after he fell into a coma, and, in time, to full fitness.

In this endeavour she was more successful in winning over her step-children, who expressed gratitude for the woman they had once tried to chase away with petty songs.

But their appreciation did not last long.

The 'wicked stepmother' kicked out of Althorp 

As a wife, mother and future queen, Diana was still smarting from the wounds of her chaotic upbringing.

Her mother, Frances, retreated to a remote Scottish island after her second marriage collapsed. Sometimes, she and Diana were close. Sometimes, they would go years without speaking.

And Johnnie, who, for most of her childhood, was a distant and somewhat terrifying figure who remained hidden in his study at Althorp, drifted ever further as his health declined.

"He's remained estranged but adoring," she told Morton in 1991.

"If he comes and sees me, he comes and sees me, if he doesn't he doesn't. It's not my problem anymore. It's his."

In early 1992, Johnnie was taken to hospital with pneumonia.

Diana and a then-nine-year-old Prince William went to visit him and then flew to Austria with the rest of the family for a skiing trip.

The holiday was considered vital given that rumours were swirling about the state of Prince Charles and Diana's marriage, and palace aides were keen for them to be the picture of familial bliss on the slopes for the waiting photographers.

But to everyone's shock, Johnnie died suddenly of a heart attack just days later.

"I'm afraid because we all thought he was fine, my stepmother was at home overseeing something and I was at home with my family," Charles Spencer told reporters outside the hospital on March 29, 1992.

"It's a matter of regret for us that nobody was with him when he died. But he died instantly."

Four days later, the Spencers converged for Johnnie's funeral at a little church just beyond the gates of Althorp.

During his eulogy, Johnnie's friend Lord St John of Fawsley tried to grapple with the discord that had gripped the family for decades.

"Birds twitter and peck in their nests, even when they are gilded ones," he told the congregation.

Diana, dressed in a dramatic black hat, laid a floral wreath on her father's coffin, with a note reading: "I miss you dreadfully, Darling Daddy, but will love you forever".

"In front of the press, the four Spencer children appeared cordial to their stepmother, with Diana reaching sympathetically for her arm at one point," Kitty Kelly wrote in her book The Royals.

But behind the scenes, the tension between the Spencer children and Raine was reaching a fever pitch.

In his will, Johnnie had left Raine a luxury townhouse in the London suburb of Mayfair, knowing that upon his death, Althorp would immediately be transferred to his son and heir, Charles.

He asked his children that when his time came, they give Raine six months to stay on at Althorp so she could sort out her affairs.

Instead, Diana and Charles, the newly minted Earl Spencer, gave her 48 hours.

When Raine's assistant went to Althorp to pack up her employer's belongings, she said the Princess of Wales and her brother were waiting for her, and stood guard while she got everything ready.

"There was a Louis Vuitton suitcase [monogrammed] with 'RS' on it, and they grabbed the suitcases and said 'they don't belong to you, they're our father's,'" Sue Howe said in the documentary, Princess Diana's Wicked Stepmother.

Witnesses say Raine's beautiful furs and dresses were stuffed into black garbage bags and Charles kicked them down the saloon steps.

It was the same staircase where Diana once shoved Raine.

But this time, the siblings succeeded in removing her from the family seat.

'She is the mother I never had'

Just a year after Johnnie's death, Raine met another titled aristocrat, Count Jean-François Pineton de Chambrun of France.

They married 33 days later. The bride wore a pink floral gown and a billowing headpiece of fuchsia netting and pearls.

None of the Spencers — including Diana — was on the guest list.

But Raine was only the Comtesse de Chambrun for two years. When she divorced Jean-François, she decided to revert back to her second title, Countess Spencer.

After being raised to value a man's attention above all else, Raine decided this was her final marriage.

"I love reading my horoscope. We all want a tall, dark, handsome gentleman to come through the door don't we?" she said in 2007.

"But there comes a time when, beyond fun, it becomes too believable. There comes a time when you have to make your own decisions and ignore what the soothsayers say."

As Raine entered a new era as a single woman, so too did her former stepdaughter.

The marriage between Prince Charles and Diana spectacularly collapsed by the end of 1992, and the Queen permitted the couple to divorce in 1995.

In the space of a few short years, Diana had lost her father, her husband, and her future as the queen consort.

She was also no longer on speaking terms with her mother Frances, after she gave a paid interview to Hello! about her daughter's divorce and criticised her subsequent dating choices.

It was then that she sent a letter to Raine and asked if she would like to come to her apartment in Kensington Palace for lunch.

"Diana and Raine forged a friendship which lasted until the princess's death," author Ingrid Seward wrote in her book The Queen and Di: The Untold Story.

"They took to having regular lunches together and spoke on the telephone almost every day.

"Raine became Diana's closest and most trusted confidante. The princess told me: 'I'd rather speak to Raine than to my mother. She is the mother I never had.'"

Diana and Raine were far more alike than they realised.

Both were bred to be ornamental, but both women — fiercely intelligent beings with an incurable rebellious streak — yearned for more.

When Diana started dating Dodi Al Fayed in that fateful summer of 1997, Raine was supportive of their relationship.

The countess was close to Dodi's father, Harrods billionaire Mohammed Al-Fayed, and even worked on the shopfloor of the ritzy department store in the 90s, using her considerable charms to sell expensive items to male customers.

"Shirts and ties . . . where I have been very, very happy — carpet on the floor, handsome men," Raine explained to the UK Times about why a thrice-titled aristocrat would get a job in retail. 

In August 1997, Diana and Dodi went on a holiday to Paris, and news soon filtered through of a terrible car accident after paparazzi chased them at high speed into a tunnel.

Raine, unable to get a straight answer from anyone on Diana's welfare, called the Paris hospital where she was being treated, and informed them in her fluent French that she wanted an update on her stepdaughter's condition.

She was one of the first people in the world to learn that Diana was dead.

She was just 36.

Ten years later, a British coronial inquest was finally held into the circumstances of Diana's death.

Raine, in a pillbox hat with a dramatic black veil over her face, told the inquest that Diana "had never been so happy" as she was in the final months of her life.

She also explained the strange journey she and her stepdaughter had taken during their lives that saw them turn from enemies to friends.

"She always said I had no hidden agenda," Raine said.

"So many people, because she was so popular and so world famous, wanted something out of her. It was a very draining life."

Raine continued to work at Harrods well into her 80s.

After all, she and Mohamed were bonded — they had both lost children in the same tragedy.

Right up until her death in 2016, Raine remained the same: She was always glamorous, always social, and always fiercely defensive of her stepdaughter's legacy.

"Diana was a lovely person," Raine said in her last interview in 2015. 

"She had incredibly heavy pressures put upon her, but we ended up huge friends. She used to come and sit on my sofa and tell me her troubles.

"I'm very happy about that."

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Tom Selleck Doesn't Need to Share His Deepest Secrets With You

The actor, who has a new memoir out now, opens up the state of television in 2024, his favorite memories from filming Magnum P.I. , and what it was really like dancing with Princess Diana at the White House.

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Publishers have been trying to get Tom Selleck to write his memoir for years—but the timing just wasn't right until 2020.

Ahead of the publication of his book, Selleck spoke about his writing process, the state of television in 2024, and what it was really like dancing with Princess Diana at the White House.

You Never Know: A Memoir

In You Never Know, you write, "I once saw a list of my credits somewhere. It had a bunch of shows I had no recollection of." What was it like going down memory lane while working on this?

Some of it was fun. I would write in the afternoon about four o'clock. My office is in a little building next to the house and I would go down to have dinner and I'd sit down next to Jillie, my wife, and I'd read her my day's work. Suddenly, in the weirdest moments, I'd get emotional reading it. It didn't happen when I was writing it, but I think things affect you in funny ways—good things, bad things, everything that happens. It was similar when my daughter Hannah came in. I'd start to read to her and I get emotional. I can't quite explain it. It wasn't easy. It took four years and I am computer illiterate, so I wrote it with my legal pad.

What was it like writing your memoir entirely by hand?

I've always written that way, and it's the only way I know how to write. I can't think in front of a keyboard. It's like I drive 'em nuts on Blue Bloods because I said, 'No, you have to send me scripts. I need to see the paper.' I don't really register things the same way when I scroll, so it's better for me anyway.

What was it like? It made it more personal. Look, I'm obviously a pretty private person, but I knew if I did a memoir that there were private things I would need to share. So then it was just getting to different events and seeing how much I was willing to share. It was certainly a lot more than I have in the past, and drawing the line when I knew I was getting to a level where I might be exploiting something rather than just telling a private story, especially with other people. Because they aren't in the room saying, 'Oh yeah, that's okay. Write about that.' It affects them very much and I was well aware of that.

Speaking of writing about other people, one of my favorite parts of the memoir was when Princess Diana shows up. Tell me about meeting her.

Well, my publicist called. [Remember] I'm in Hawaii, so Washington, D.C.'s pretty far away and we're in production [on Magnum P.I. ] , but she told me about it. I said, 'Gee, that's very flattering. I don't know how I could get there though.' And she said, 'Look, this is Princess Diana's personal guest list and there's only three actors on it: you, Clint Eastwood, and John Travolta .' That was very flattering. Of course, I'm very nervous, I write about Clint and I hiding in the corner. We figured they were going to ask us to dance.

I do remember dancing with her. I just remember apologizing that I never [learned] to dance. She was gracious. She was also, by the way, having the time of her life. She really seemed to be having a good time. And then in retrospect, that was nice to [see]. The prince danced with my wife, who's a Brit. And he asked her for a second dance, so that was pretty neat for Jillie.

Do you ever get starstruck?

I probably got a little starstruck with Mae West. I didn't get starstruck with [James] Garner, even though I just deeply respected his work, loved his work. Not too often. The really good people—good actors—have a way of cutting through that pretty quick. I've gotten to meet a lot of people and I'm always a little starstruck, but I get over it. I mean, I can carry on a conversation. Dancing with Princess Di was a cut couple notches above that! Oh yeah, I was starstruck.

Do you remember what you talked about when you danced with her?

I apologized. Look, I skipped cotillion. There was called something called cotillion as kids; they taught you how to dance and manners and everything else. My older brother went, and used to come home and say 'I hated it.' So as the younger brother, I managed to skip it, but then all I could do dancing was box step like we did in high school dances, a box step and a dip. And I wasn't about to dip with Princess Di! So I just talked. But she was very gracious and obviously had learned the skill of dealing with people and relaxing. It was certainly memorable.

One of the most surprising anecdotes in You Never Know was that you were almost Indiana Jones, but you had just filmed the Magnum pilot… Do you ever think back and say 'what if'?

It meant a whole lot when Steven Spielberg and George Lucas weren't worried when I said, 'I've done this pilot,' because we thought, well, we've got plenty of cards to play and you can do both. They held out the offer out [for Selleck to play Indiana Jones] for well over a month. The more they wanted me to do it, it seemed like the more CBS didn't want me to do it. Contractually, they could say no. I was able to keep my feet on the ground.

The thing that meant so much to me when it didn't work out, I was able to be somewhat philosophic. Number one, I had Magnum to do, which obviously turned into a great opportunity, but the fact that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas picked me, stayed with me, and wanted me to do that part—they were putting their trust in me. That gave me a certain confidence that nothing could really take away the fact that it didn't work out. I still had that validation from them that I could put in my hip pocket. It meant a whole lot, in that sense.

When I went to see it, everybody said, 'Don't go, you'll get depressed!' But I loved the movie and it was clear from the get-go Harrison Ford had inhabited the role . I was able to watch it as an audience. I had my popcorn. What a great movie.

Thinking about your time on Magnum , you had some pretty legendary guest stars. You write about Frank Sinatra and Carol Burnett, for example. As you thought about your time in the show, what stands out to you the most?

What stands out about my time on Magnum ? The whole thing—to have a show and be able to work and live in Hawaii. Our crew was really family, and I'd never worked on a show long enough to ever get that sense of things. Ours was a very tight family and my fellow actors were great. Unlike a lot of shows, where things get a little tense after a few years, we still all liked each other and all that stuff added up to an experience that is irreplaceable.

Sam Elliott appears in the early chapters, when he was also part of the Fox New Talent program. I had no clue you two were such close friends. Do you keep in touch?

Sam's been a friend forever. This business takes you all over the place and you always think, well, of course you stay in touch. It does not work out that way. He works. I work in New York. Anytime we see each other, it's like it is with most friends: You pick up where you left off. I don't know whether Sam's going to like me talking about him in tights and ballet class at 20th Century Fox, but he's stuck with it.

He recently starred in 1883 , part of the new wave of Westerns on television. In your book you write about your love of the genre—would you want to do another?

I hope there's another Western in my future. Certainly whatever happens with Blue Bloods , I'm not going to stop acting. I still hold out hope that CBS will come to their senses. [ Ed. Note: CBS did not renew the show for another season; Blue Bloods will end this December after 14 years on the air. ] What nobody's talking about is how successful Blue Bloods is; it's the number three highest rated scripted show in all of broadcast. We're winning Friday nights, and doing well on Paramount Plus. The show is not in decline. And I say that stuff not to brag, but everybody who works our show—actors, writers, everybody—deserves that five-star legacy on their resume. CBS isn't talking about how well it's performing. I do, because I think everybody needs to know if the show ends, we'll be ending in rather wild success, as Magnum did.

What do you think of the state of television in 2024?

It's constantly in flux. I don't want to sound like an old timer and say it's not as good as it used to be, but... I just don't see the development and belief in projects. They seem to go in trends; if one show succeeds, let's just copy that. There's too much 'Well that show worked, let's do five of those,' rather than figuring out what's next. That takes a certain amount of risk, and I think there's too many business people and not enough creative people in management. But the work is there and I love the work, and that will always stay.

Actors are not widgets—people matter. Audiences tune in, in any kind of series, whether it's a cable or Netflix, they tune in again to see the people, the people they become interested in. I don't think that's ever going to change, but I don't think it's in a very good state at the moment, frankly.

What do you hope readers take away from your memoir?

I hope is it's entertaining. I didn't do a book to unload my conscience or to delve into some deep dark secrets. I did a book to entertain, and I mean that in a broader sense: To make people laugh, maybe cry sometimes, to move people and let them know what it's like to walk in my shoes. Obviously, I say some serious things. I say some things I haven't shared, but the only way I think you can do that is to entertain people. If they're entertained, you earn the right to go into those other areas and that's what I hope it does. I hope it entertains first and foremost.

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma , a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram .

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Prince Harry ‘thrilled’ to be reunited with Princess Diana’s family after King Charles, Prince William snub

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Prince Harry was thrilled to be reunited with members of Princess Diana’s family at the Invictus Games celebrations — after being shunned by his father and brother, sources tell Page Six.

Harry, 39, warmly hugged his uncle, Earl Spencer, and aunt, Lady Jane Fellowes, both of whom attended the event on Wednesday to celebrate 10 years of the charity that the renegade royal founded.

King Charles and Prince William may have no time for Harry after he trashed them in his bombshell memoir “Spare” — but his mother’s family is more than making up for it.

A source told us, “You can see how sweet they were together.”

Despite the fact that Charles would not see Harry while he was in London, the source stressed that he is still hopeful for a reunion, adding, “Family is important to Harry — period, regardless of what side of the family.”

In addition to his aunt and uncle, Harry’s cousins Lara Spencer, Louis Spencer, and George McCorquodale, were also spotted entering the event at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Diana’s family members then joined Harry at a reception after the service, attended by “Homeland” actor Damien Lewis, held in the Crypt at St Paul’s, we’re told.

Less than three miles away, Charles hosted the first Garden Party of the year at Buckingham Palace. 

He was joined by a slew of senior working royals, including Queen Camilla, Princess Anne, Prince Edward, and Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh. 

Harry’s rep told us earlier this week that Charles, who is currently battling cancer, was too busy to see his youngest son.

We revealed that Harry had been trying to reach his father for the past month, to no avail. Sources denied that he had made any bizarre request s ahead of seeing Charles, calling it “rubbish”.

Harry has been open about the toll that losing his mother at such a young age took on him.

In his 2023 Netflix docuseries, “Heart of Invictus”, Harry revealed, “My tour of Afghanistan in 2012, flying Apaches, somewhere after that there was an unraveling and the trigger to me was actually returning from Afghanistan. 

“But the stuff that was coming up was from 1997 from the age of 12, losing my mum at such a young age, the trauma that I had I was never really aware of, it was never discussed.”

He continued, “It was never discussed, I didn’t really talk about it and I suppressed it like most youngsters would have done.

“But when it all came fizzing out, I was bouncing off the walls. I was like, ‘What is going on here? I’m now feeling everything as opposed to being numb.’

“The biggest struggle for me was no-one around me really could help.”

Earl Spencer famously revealed the harsh divide between the Spencers and the royal family at Diana’s funeral in September 1997 when he said that Diana’s siblings would watch over Harry and William.

“I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned,” he said.

“We fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role but we, like you, recognize the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead.

“I know you would have expected nothing less from us.”

And Harry has remained close with the Spencer side of his family, despite moving to the US.

Diana’s sisters, Lady Jane and Lady Sarah McCorquodale, were photographed alongside Charles and Camilla, William and Kate Middleton at Prince Archie’s christening in July 2019.

They were also believed to be in attendance at Princess Lilibet’s christening in Montecito in May 2023.

Harry and his wife Meghan Markle visited Althorp, Diana’s childhood home, in September 2022 — while they were in the UK following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

There they spent time with his uncle and his aunts, and visited Diana’s final resting place, which lies on an island at the estate.

Meanwhile, Harry was also joined by a host of old friends at the Invictus event, including former army officer Mark Dyer, who has been a mentor to the Duke.

The fifth in line to the throne has not been in the UK since February when he met with Charles for barely 30 minutes following the monarch’s cancer diagnosis. He will travel to Nigeria with his wife for their own version of a state visit, landing in the African country on Friday.

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JFK Jr. Was Reportedly Rattled by the Death of Princess Diana for This Carolyn Bessette Reason

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The loss of Princess Diana in 1997 may have affected John F. Kennedy Jr. more than people would expect, but it was something he related to deeply. That's a hot topic that an upcoming biography, Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy , is diving into because the George magazine publisher understood that the  paparazzi's fascination with the royal somewhat echoed his own life with wife Carolyn Bessette. 

When Diana passed away after a high-speed chase with the paparazzi, it was hard not to think about the parallels in his own life and how the photographers waited for Bessette to leave their Manhattan home each day. Author Elizabeth Beller, in an excerpt for People , wrote about how the couple reacted after the loss of the beloved public figure. "Carolyn tried to get John to call Princes William and Harry to give his condolences when it came out that Diana had hoped for her sons to emulate John's modesty in the face of media obsession," she wrote. He didn't jump at the opportunity, though, because "he didn't know them and thought that their situations greatly differed." 

JFK Jr. wasn't trying to be insensitive to the situation, but he was dealing with his own emotions in the aftermath. "He had met [Princess Diana] once or twice," Beller continued in the excerpt. "And the fact that she had died while being chased down by paparazzi, he was aware of the fact that their [he and Carolyn's] lives were becoming overwrought with attention, and he was upset." Bessette's heart was in the right place with her thoughtful gesture, but the author believes that the "moment was too difficult for him to be able to reach out and say something to someone who's just lost their parent in a very public and dramatic way."

Beller told People that "the press attention really terrified her " after she married JFK Jr. "There was a vulnerability," she added. "And I think somehow the press attention and scrutiny just touched a nerve and it stole a lot of her joy." JFK Jr. famously asked the press to back off in 1996 after they returned from their honeymoon in Turkey. "This is a big change for anyone, and for a private citizen even more so," he told the throngs of reporters waiting outside their Tribeca residence, via Deseret News . "I ask that you give Carolyn all the privacy and room you can."

The request didn't last very long because the media was obsessed with their good looks and their tumultuous relationship that often played out in public spaces. Bessette didn't thrive in the spotlight the way Princess Diana did, and the manner of her death likely unnerved both of them because it hit too close to home. 

Before you go, click here to find out who fights to keep paparazzi away from their partners and kids

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