To think Princess Di was killed

[Lavenderfarmcottage]

There OK I said it. You hoo, crazy conspiracy theorist over here…

Yes, I know they had an inquiry though anyone high up enough to kill a Royal could snowball an Inquiry or influence the outcome ? I think it’s naive to think the law is this perfect thing.

Ive always found it odd that she was labelled a “loose cannon” by the press and was campaigning against landmines. It was said that it caused a lot of noses out of joint in politics. I would have thought that weapons dealers and the industry would have taken a huge hit.

There aren’t many celebrities or organisations that could have taken on the weapons or arms industry as powerfully as Diana. It was until then an issue that nobody touched.

Since her death there’s still landmines and the issue has never really been addressed.

I wonder if she’d been alive today what she’d be doing. Not hard to imagine her visiting children impacted by war and maybe even Palestinian refugees, beaming images around the world to restore some sanity and humanity.

I dont think we realise the humanity, bravery and brilliance she had. Could have been going to glamorous events and being a Princess but instead she was carrying on even when powerful people were upset.

I wonder how powerful those people were or was it someone British. Men don’t take a liking to women with power and it amazes me more that she wasn’t killed deliberately in the context of this.

What are the chances she would die at such a young age and to not be wearing a seat belt seems bizarre to me. Just too many coincidences.

I think a lot of people who weren't alive in 1997, or were children in 1997 and just aren't aware of what it was like.

Yes she was popular - in that lots of us who WERE grown ups, living in the UK, recognised that she had dragged the royals into the 20th century and done so much good work on landmines and AIDS/HIV. She had a lot of influence and knew how to use it.

But there was a lot of criticism too - she was often called out for manipulating the press and simultaneously dripfeeding information to people like Andrew Morton for her autobiography, yet protesting how much she wanted to be private. She bitched about the Royals but got the real hump when she wasn't HRH any more. She fell in and out with friends all the time, she was seen as someone very fickle, difficult and high maintenance. She was also very public in calling out Charles and Camilla for having a relationship when she had had multiple affairs herself.

This retrospective painting of her as some sort of saint is just weird.

My response is that I do not think you are unreasonable to think this. On balance I do not agree with you. But the surrounding circumstances and context are such that I can see why some people hold the contrary view to mine and, unlike some conspiracy theories, I don’t think those that think that are total lunatics. So, do I think she was murdered? No. Do I think you are unreasonable for thinking so? Also no.

I often wonder if the whole Saint Diana phenomenon would have happened had she been plain.

I was not the one to mention Katie Price, I think you meant to quote someone else.

I grew up in a royalist household and I remember how the press were turning against her. Cavorting around the world with engaged men she’d know for 5 minutes (leaving her kids for weeks on end), having aired her dirty laundry again and again in public at the expense of her poor sons, was a tiresome act that was no longer considered cute and empowering

No chance. I’m convinced Camilla took an age to win the public round because she wasn’t traditionally good looking

I remember it really wel. Somebody dying that suddenly, especially when the tabloid news of her in the weeks before had been escalating and more and more frenzied, I mean, it was every day and REALLY tiresome, is a sudden and extremely shocking reminder that at the end of the day, we are all, even "celebrities" and princesses, are just human, with human failings, and human bodies that are fallible. Nobody is "just" a character put into a tabloid story for our edification.

I think there was genuine shock,and genuine (somewhat displaced) guilt from those who'd been lapping it up. And I wasn't and I was still massively shocked and so was everyone I know, despite many being avowed republicans. Nobody thought "it was Prince Phillip". It's more a shock reminder that we are all mortal, I'm afraid. I honestly don't think at the end of the day it is much more than that. We just expect our celebrities to be something other than fallible humans. We forget that they're not just characters here to provide entertainment and tabloid stories for us. They are just people. Shit happens to them too, but sometimes it's hard to get your head around when it's that dramatic.

How was Diana more emotionally expressive? Do you mean more open?

I believe it was because Diana was the first royal that was relatable. She broke a lot of traditions and showed real humanity. She also carried out some wonderful work such as campaigning against landmines and HIV.

I did find it odd that the bodyguard ( only one who survived) didn’t notice the driver had been drinking, didn’t say please wear your seatbelt ma’am as the car sped up, didn’t tell the driver to slow down. If his job was to keep her and Dodi safe his risk assessment skills were shite.

She's been dead for nearly 30 years. Hers is probably the most high-profile, picked-over death since JFK. Leave it alone.

I know, trust me, I know. 😭😂 there’s an 8 year old child with a virus that won’t leave my side stopping me though. I have cabin fever I think.

It really is. Not to mention she was complicit in that Princess in Love book about her and James Hewitt which made the world question the paternity of her son. Imagine being Harry and having to live through that. Imagine being his mother knowing you help out that book out there.

😂😂

Have a word with yourself OP. She was a mentally unstable drama queen, albeit a very charismatic one. Totally agree with PPs saying she'd be much less popular/relevant today. Especially if she'd married Dodie - for a whole myriad of reasons (including the ingrained racism of the great British public and all his daddy's NDAs).

Definitely.

It's an interesting reversal of the usual infidelity dynamic.

The man who had a young and beautiful wife cheated with an average looking woman his own age.

But if Diana had been fat, short and plain, no way would she have become the phenomenon she was, and no way would people still be talking about her today.

Ah OP you’re entitled to be sent stark raving mad with child illness sometimes.

I do quite like a conspiracy theory although I believe in only one (that Dr David Kelly didn’t kill himself). It’s quite fun to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole and see what kind of lunatic theories people come up with

Agreed. The monarch was Queen Elizabeth II and it was the 20th century. It wasn't King Henry VIII of Tudor England in the early 1500s sending people (some he was very close to) who dared to disagree with him to be tried and executed for treason.

Diana was not murdered. It wasn't an assassination. It was an entirely unplanned accident.

She was already becoming increasingly irrelevant and sidelined. The establishment could have easily discredited her even further. Why would she be taken out abroad? Why in such complicated risky way

No one bumped off Wallis Simpson and she nearly brought down the monarchy.

And "defenestration" is a pretty certain method of offing someone.

Unlike hoping and fingers crossing that someone will get into a car and not wear a seatbelt, and the driver will happen to have his own personal problems and be drunk, and the paparazzi will happen to be there, and there will happen to be a convenient tunnel and a convenient pillar and there will happen to be a random decision to go out the back way rather than the front. Not a certain method.

Assassins usually go for the cleanest and most certain, don't they? Not one where multiple different decisions could have been made.

@CharityShopChic that’s an interesting point actually. Why is it that we sympathise with Diana for her troubled familial relationships and upbringing, and being on and off with friends and potentially prank calling a married man (but who knows). We forgive her for going on Panorama even upsetting her sons and the book. Yet with Harry and Meghan they are admonished for similar.

I can't believe this conversation is still going on but I will nonetheless placemark.

The very day she died the Sunday Times carried a “psychological” assessment of her state of mind from a place of contempt / ignorance for mental health problems / personality disorders, and concluded she suffered from both. They would not have done that if it was going to piss off the majority of their readers. It has of course been confirmed since. She morphed almost instantly on that Sunday from mentally ill attention seeker to saint. I certainly had little more time for her than I did for Fergie, although her work with AIDs patients and land mines was admirable but the rest of her behaviour was not particularly . It was the 1990s we were all working hard, dealing with sky high interest rates (7.25%) and inflation at 4.75% etc., and terrible hair and fashion choices 😂 and their indulgent behaviour really did not attract many fans. The response to her death was maudlin, it was sad for a beautiful young woman with children to die like that but none of these people laying flowers and teddies and weeping and wailing actually knew her and it did seem ridiculous (as I think William and Harry have said). I think it was much more a collective catharsis, a response to a soap opera storyline. The reaction to the late Queen’s death was entirely different and rooted in respect.

I do not think she would have carried on with her life without further drama and certainly was not on a route to sainthood.

I can’t help feeling all these conspiracy theories have the same root….

Yes, more open, but also demonstrative - cuddling children, not wearing gloves on walkabouts, flirtatious - and those things made her relatable. She was also courageous in the issues she championed, as you point out.

she was often called out for manipulating the press and simultaneously dripfeeding information to people like Andrew Morton for her autobiography, yet protesting how much she wanted to be private. She bitched about the Royals but got the real hump when she wasn't HRH any more. She fell in and out with friends all the time, she was seen as someone very fickle, difficult and high maintenance

Hmmm sounds familiar 🤔

I wonder what she’d have been like today if she’d lived. I imagine she’d have been increasingly disliked and irrelevant and gone on celebrity gogglebox or something equally as desperate