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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To still not understand the Diana "thing"?

856 replies

TeaCake5 · 31/08/2017 08:22

As William and harry said they were bewildered by people who didn't even know her acting in the way they did. Yes it was sad that she was killed but to hand around kensington palace for days crying? Ridiculous.

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NormaSmuff · 31/08/2017 08:56

but it was pretty awful not to wear a seatbelt you must admit

YouTheCat · 31/08/2017 08:57

I don't see why. It's the truth. And if she'd worn a seat belt those two boys wouldn't have lost their mother.

TabbyMumz · 31/08/2017 08:57

Ssd...she did do a lot of galavanting about....using up a lot of taxpayers money. She had a different outfit for every day of the week and was on holiday somewhere new every week.

MaisyPops · 31/08/2017 08:58

I understood why it was so shocking and i get her place in public life.
I even get people coming out to the streets or laying flowers.
I don't get the hysterical screaming and wailing. Like when the boys were walking behind the coffin it was almost silent and then some lunatic screams 'DIANA!!' That made me feel quite unconfortable

As time goes on though, I can't help that her own infideleities and poor decisions have been erased from the media narrative (and for the life of me I can't work out why she would record details of her marriage etc to tape with a speech therapist). here's a part if me that believes that whilst she was treated apallingly by the royal family (and Charles should have been able to marry Camilla from the start), she was no angel and was good at courting the press/public opinion.

NormaSmuff · 31/08/2017 08:58

Obviously she didnt deserve to die for it.

WomblingThree · 31/08/2017 08:59

How is it a nasty thing to say ssd? It's the truth. If she had worn a seatbelt she almost certainly wouldn't be dead.

ChaChaChaCh4nges · 31/08/2017 08:59

I agree; it was bewildering and the emotional outpouring didn't affect anyone I know.

I'm also aware that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I never saw her as beautiful; to me she was actually very ordinary looking - well dressed and put together, sure, but neither beautiful nor plain.

heartstornastray · 31/08/2017 09:00

Paul Burrell described her as "the most beautiful woman in the world". Not that it matters but she was really only average looking.

TeaCake5 · 31/08/2017 09:00

And all the shit from "believers" that the royal family arranged mi6 to kill her etc etc. As the bloke who survived the crash showed, seatbelts work.

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derxa · 31/08/2017 09:00

Well I cried then and I cried this week and I'm not ashamed to say it.
The whole thing made me unutterably sad. This was a tragedy which unfolded before our eyes.

gamerwidow · 31/08/2017 09:01

It was utter bewildering. I have nothing against her I think she was poorly treated by the royals and made the best of a bad hand but I don't understand that level of grief for someone you don't personally know.

Pantryboy · 31/08/2017 09:01

She was 2 months younger than me. I thought she was absolutely wonderful..... warts and all. I look at her pics and footage now and see her imperfections and yet she was and to me still is, the most beautiful woman ever. I just felt she was magic and I followed her with such enjoyment .
I can honestly say I was so shocked when she died . I felt so angry at the royal family and I still feel angry toward Charles and Camilla. She was so young and vulnerable.
I think she was just adorable and I miss seeing her on the TV and the mags and online. Regardless , she will always be Princess of Wales to me and she had my heart. There was just something about her she was a very special person .

MagdalenLaundry · 31/08/2017 09:01

The rich and famous must feel invincible.
She was bonkers not to wear a seatbelt.

TabbyMumz · 31/08/2017 09:02

I didn't think she was beautiful either, she had masses of beauty therapists on hand...if we all had that, we would all be beautiful. She was luckily very photogenic.

tigerdriverII · 31/08/2017 09:03

Pantryboy

Really?????

Steaksauce · 31/08/2017 09:03

I was 17 when she died, I had a driving lesson booked for the day of her funeral. My mum demanded I cancel it "out of respect" I refused. She had a huff.

Best driving lesson ever - the roads were dead.

We lived in a pub at the time and had a flag pole in the car park. My folks had a row as my mum wanted the flag at half mast and my dad said no.
Then we started getting random people driving into the car park to tell us she'd died and we needed to lower the flag. He ended up doing "so all these wetbacks piss off"

TeaCake5 · 31/08/2017 09:04

pantryboy in the mags ffs. It was press intrusion in her life that pissed her off. Most adorable women ever Confused

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Figgygal · 31/08/2017 09:06

God yes I can appreciate that she did a lot of good for charity and bring attention to causes and she loved her children but she had a very dark side she could be very manipulative she was better and she used the media to her own advantage even her brother I believe has said that her behaviour was questionable at times

The outpouring of grief that was whipped up into a media led frenzy 20 years ago was just embarrassing i've just heard some people on the radio this morning who attend Kensington Palace on the anniversary of her death every year in an attempt to keep her legacy alive who has appointed them to be her legacy gatekeepers? One of them was in the Princess Diana T-shirt a Union Jack hat and had a picture of her on a badge says a lot about the type of people they are

I am the same age now that she was when she died it's funny I always thought has been quite a bit older than that

Mulch · 31/08/2017 09:06

I was a child when it happened. My parents think royals should get a job and don't care for them at all, so there was no insincere grieving in my house. When Robin William's died I was really sad for his family, wouldn't go as far as crying in the streets, it's really lost on me.

maxthemartian · 31/08/2017 09:07

I thought the public reaction was absolutely batshit insane.

TabbyMumz · 31/08/2017 09:07

She flouted the press....if it wasn't for her doing that they would no doubt backed off as she would have been seen to be boring.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 31/08/2017 09:08

I just thought she was horrendously stupid to be galavanting about with no seatbelt on.

Totally agree with this. She and I were only a few days apart in age and I had young children at the time, so I did feel very sorry to think of their grief, but the mass hysteria at the time was baffling to me then and still is now. People may have felt that they knew her, but they didn't. They were sucked into the Princess of Hearts stuff manufactured by the media.

Private Eye was an island of sanity. To its eternal shame, W H Smith refused to stock the issue that came out in early September because they thought the cover was offensive. (Judge for yourselves, I've attached it.) They did a merciless item on various Poly Filla type columns in the first editions of the Sunday papers being snide or outright nasty about Diana because of the Dodi Fayed connection, compared with the very hasty hagiographical rewrites from the later editions. Grin The hypocrisy from the press was staggering.

Don't even get me started on the conspiracy theorists. Makes my blood boil. If you get in a car driven at top speed by a man who has been drinking and using drugs and don't wear a seat belt, you are putting yourself at great risk of an accident. And that's before we even start on the nonsense of why the Royal Family would want to assassinate her. Hmm

To still not understand the Diana "thing"?
StevieNicksSilverSpring · 31/08/2017 09:09

The shock of her death was immense. It really was. It brought home (hackneyed phrase alert) the fragility of life, even to many of us who didn't need reminding. To deny what a shock it was is to be disingenuous.

The grieving was stoked by the media and normalised by them. Only a relatively small amount of the nation grieved in such an hysterical way. The rest of us probably felt some sadness, watched the funeral, then headed off to Tescos (most stores had closed for the duration).

I haven't watched any of the anniversary documentaries but I wonder if William and Harry participated because Charles and Camilla authorised a biography by Charles's long term sycophant, Penny Junor, which lauded Camilla whist poring scorn on Diana.

londonrach · 31/08/2017 09:10

I think it was op because people identified with her. She was a young mother who had struggles, an unfaithful husband and was just starting to rebuild her life.

purits · 31/08/2017 09:10

We were on holiday, too, and missed it all. We were told on the Saturday night, on the way home, by (IIRC) a German. Thought "that's sad" and thought no more about it. Couldn't believe it the next day when we saw the Sunday papers' coverage of the funeral and the mass hysteria.
The country went bonkers imo.