Princess Diana is remembered fondly as a gem of Great Britain's royal family, but her life
in the nation's spotlight was anything but a fairytale.
Before she was a princess, Diana Spencer was already a lady. She inherited a title within
the British nobility at birth, making her — on paper — a perfect match for a prince.
Think rolling hills, beautiful gardens, and polo matches. But Diana's childhood was not
all what you'd think it would have been.
"My parents, they never said they loved me." "So you never knew that anyway." "No, no idea.
There was no — there was always a kiss there. There was no hugs or anything like that."
Princess Diana had a tragically lonely childhood. Despite the large countryside estate she lived
in, the title she had, and the money that her family possessed, things were not easy.
Diana's mother left her and her siblings for another man when Diana was only 6.
Tragically, Diana thought that her mother was simply on vacation, and her brother, Charles
Spencer, recalled that Diana used to sit on the doorstep of the house, waiting for her
mother to return.
"My father told me about five years ago, he said, 'You sat on the doorstep. You didn't
eat, you didn't bath, you didn't sleep. You just sat there. You just, you know, you just
never spoke."
Due in part to the cracking family foundation, the Earl of Spencer, Diana's father, reportedly
entered a dark phase of depression and left all the raising of his children to a variety
of nannies. Diana herself recalled that her childhood was "very unhappy" and that she
considered her 20 stuffed animals as her family.
Imagine marrying someone you've only ever met a dozen times. The thought's enough to
make us shudder, but that was the reality for Diana Spencer. Princess Diana and Prince
Charles met just 12 times before they got married.
So how did that happen? Well, Diana and Charles met when they were 16 and 29, respectively,
as Charles was close to Diana's older sister at the time. By the time it'd been decided
that Diana was to be a romantic interest of the prince's, she was caught up in the whirlwind
— but her married life with Charles would be anything but happy. Tragically, much of
her struggles in the marriage would play out in the public eye.
"My husband and I had to keep everything together, because we didn't want to disappoint the public.
But obviously there was a lot of anxiety going on between our four walls."
The British tabloids are infamous for their intrusive tactics, and when Diana Spencer
emerged, they were obsessed with her. Diana was just 19 when she and Prince Charles became
an item. She was living in London at the time, working as a part-time teacher, and the press
went absolutely crazy.
In a 1995 interview with the BBC, Diana recalled how she initially took the press attention
as being a result of her husband's good reputation and status. She said,
"It took a long time to understand why people were so interested in me, but I assumed it
was because my husband had done a lot of wonderful work leading up to our marriage and our relationship."
As she later discovered that the press' relationship with the couple was much more parasitic than
benign.
"But then I, during the years you see yourself as a good product that sits on a shelf and
sells well, and people make a lot of money out of you."
The press attention was not something that Diana was prepared for, and although she learned
how to maneuver the tabloids, it was never a relationship that she desired.
"As far as I was concerned, I was a fat, chubby 20-year-old, 21-year-old, and I couldn't understand
the level of interest."
Even if you're not a fan of the royal family, you know that there are protocols they have
to follow. There's a lot to learn, and Diana Spencer was left to figure it out on her own.
Diana recalled in an interview with the BBC that she was pretty much abandoned by the
royal family, and had to learn the ropes without guidance.
"It was isolating, but it was also a situation where you couldn't indulge in feeling sorry
for yourself. You had to either sink or swim."
When asked if there was a time in her life as a royal that forced her to learn on the
go, Diana said that her royal tour of Australia and New Zealand changed just about everything.
By the end of that trip, she said she was, quote, "a different person."
"I realized the sense of duty, the level of intensity of interest, and the demanding role
I now found myself in."
Needless to say, it seems like things would've been a lot less painful if her husband had
offered more help.
Princess Diana was still a teenager when she and Prince Charles became a couple, and not
only was she followed by pretty much every camera in Great Britain, but her sense of
self and her relationship with food drastically changed.
Diana is reported to have lost an extreme amount of weight before her wedding — going
from a 27-inch waist to a 23-inch waist – and she quickly developed bulimia. Her eating
disorder has been linked to her sense of isolation as well as her deteriorating relationship
with Prince Charles, and she later spoke about it with the BBC.
"When no one listens to you, or you feel no one's listening to you, all sorts of things
start to happen. For instance, you have so much pain inside yourself that you try and
hurt yourself on the outside."
Diana said that people around her saw her cries for help as "attention-seeking," but
all she wanted was to get better.
"I didn't like myself, I was ashamed because I couldn't cope with the pressures."
Possibly the worst kept secret throughout Princess Diana's marriage to Prince Charles
was his infidelity. Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles had been together for years, and although
she was not the ideal person for him to marry in the eyes of the royal family, their relationship
continued. So it really should come as no shock that Diana fell into the arms of another
man, and that just so happened to be her security guard.
Diana and her bodyguard, Barry Mannakee, were rumored to have a serious romantic relationship.
Diana was even recorded saying that she would be, quote, "quite happy to give all this up
and to just go off and live with him. And he kept saying he thought it was a good idea
too."
Mannakee was removed from Diana's security detail in 1986 and died in 1987 during a motorcycle
accident.
At the beginning of their marriage, Princess Diana and Prince Charles looked like they
were living the fairytale dream. Who wouldn't want to marry a prince? But the romantic situation
that looked amazing from the outside was really just filled with two people who had nothing
in common, and former royal household employee and relationship expert Karen Mooney shared
that the couple was doomed from the start.
Mooney told The Sun,
"They had nothing in common. She was in awe of him and he was the Prince of Wales. It
was a bit like a fairy tale for her. But, of course, it ended up being completely the
reverse."
Princess Diana and Prince Charles' marriage ultimately came to a tragic end. After a lengthy
separation, they finally got divorced, but that came with some immense losses for Diana.
For one thing, much of the security and privacy that Diana had been granted as a royal were
taken away. She was stripped of her royal title, her pride certainly took a hit, and
her public dignity was in tatters.
For starters, there was the matter of her royal title. Diana was formally known as Her
Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales. When she got divorced from Charles, he made a point
of stripping her title away from her. This hurt for a number of reasons.
First, Queen Elizabeth reportedly was fine with Diana keeping her title, but it was Charles
who pushed for her to give it up. Second, it meant that Diana would have to curtsey
to her ex-husband, the royal family, and to her sons. Ouch.
As part of the divorce repercussions, Diana also lost her police protection. She was only
protected while attending public events, but she was essentially at the whim of any danger
that came her way.
Mental health was not something that was talked about in 1980s Great Britain, and it certainly
was not something that the royal family addressed. So it came as a shock when Diana Spencer addressed
her mental health problems in public for the first time, and she revealed that she wasn't
given any help or guidance from the royal family throughout her struggles. She said
in a 1995 interview with the BBC,
"Well maybe I was the first person ever to be in this family who ever had a depression
or was ever openly tearful. And obviously that was daunting, because if you've never
seen it before how do you support it?"
She went on to share that her depression was used to paint her in an unsympathetic light,
giving her a reputation in the media that she struggled to shake off.
"It gave everybody a wonderful new label — Diana's unstable and Diana's mentally unbalanced."
But Diana's candidness, although tragic, had a lasting impact on mental health in Great
Britain. It's commonly regarded that Diana's openness allowed for a new public perspective
on mental health and eating disorders.
This comes as a tragic shock, but Princess Diana reportedly felt that Prince Charles
was ashamed of Prince Harry. Yes, you read that correctly. As noted by Vogue, friends
and family of Diana shared that Charles' reaction to Harry was less than fatherly. Just hours
after Diana came home after giving birth to Harry, Charles went and played in a polo match.
To make the situation even more tragic, Charles reportedly complained at the time that Harry,
quote, "looked like a Spencer," and said that his red hair was a dead giveaway.
It's hard to know just how Harry's relationship with his father progressed later in his life,
but Harry did give some incredible insight into his fractured bond with Charles. In a
March 2021 sit-down with Oprah Winfrey, Harry shared that Charles had stopped taking his
calls.
Considering their history, it makes us wonder if Diana would be surprised at Harry and Charles'
modern-day relationship.
In 1995, Diana Spencer turned to the press to share the darker side of her fairytale
story, and the results scandalized a nation. The sit-down interview that she did with the
BBC still marks one of the most expository admissions against the royal family, and Princess
Diana really did not hold back. She talked about her mental health, her eating disorder,
and the struggles she faced within the royal institution — including Charles' adultery.
"Well there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."
The interview marked one of the saddest parts of Diana's life, as she faced the media alone.
Perhaps what makes Diana's 1995 interview that much more tragic are the parallels between
it and the interview that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle did with Oprah Winfrey in 2021.
After abuse from the British tabloids and eerily similar treatment from the royal family,
Harry and Meghan stepped back from their roles and leveled some very serious claims about
racism and favoritism within the royal family.
"Touching back on what you asked me — what my mum would think of this — I think she
saw it coming."
Princess Diana's life really began to unravel in the latter half of the 1990s. She gave
the expository interview with the BBC, her marriage came to an end, and unfortunately,
she experienced a tragic falling out with her son, Prince William.
As noted by Vanity Fair, Diana's friend Simone Simmons shared that Diana regretted the interview
because of what it did to her relationship with William.
Simmons said of William's interview reaction,
"William was absolutely livid. Of course it was in all the papers and William told me
he was teased at school because of it. He felt really bad for his mum because of what
she had gone through, but he was furious with her."
Simmons also shared that Diana only told William about the interview after it had been recorded,
leading to more tension between them. Simmons shared,
"The weekend after it went out they had a big row at Kensington Palace. William was
furious and Diana was distraught. I was there the day after she spoke to him and Diana was
in a terrible state."
Princess Diana's storied and difficult life came to a tragic end when she was killed in
a car crash on August 31st, 1997. She was just 36 years old.
At the time of the accident, Diana was in Paris, France, accompanied by her boyfriend,
Dodi Fayed ; her bodyguard; and her driver, Henri Paul .
The four were rushing through a tunnel, trying to escape paparazzi, when the car collided
with a pillar. Fayed and Paul were found dead at the scene, and Diana was pronounced dead
at 6 a.m. that morning after having been transported to the hospital. Her bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones,
survived after enduring serious injuries.
The world went into a state of shock in reaction to the news. Flowers began to pile up in front
of Buckingham Palace the following morning, and hundreds of mourners gathered at Kensington
Palace.
The People's Princess, as Diana was often called, was survived by her two sons, Prince
William and Prince Harry, who were 15 and 12 at the time.
To make matters even more tragic, Diana Spencer was reportedly not going to be given a public
funeral by the royal family. Queen Elizabeth reportedly wanted Princess Diana's funeral
to be a private gathering without the pomp and circumstance of a public ceremony. But
outcry from the British people mounted.
It took the palace five days to make a statement about Diana's death, which incurred a huge
amount of public backlash. It appeared as though the palace bowed to public pressure,
because Diana was eventually given the royal funeral that so many were demanding.
Diana's funeral saw massive crowds lining the streets, and it was watched worldwide
by about 2.5 billion people. Her funeral consisted of a viewing at St. James's Palace and a formal
ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, delivered the eulogy and all but blamed the royal family
for her death:
"Of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this — a girl given the name
of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age."