Can I ask a question about Diana please?

[allmylifewheretheygo]

If Diana was alive now and divorced from Charles, I just wonder what effect it would with a monarch having an ex wife alive and well.

Would Camilla as Queen consort risk being overshadowed by her DH's ex wife?

Also, if Diana remarried what effect would that have on her royal status, would she move out of where she was living at Kensington Palace do you think?

I don't think Charles would have felt able to Marry again with Diana still Alive

I remember standing in the greengrocers (yes, it really was that long ago) when I heard on the radio he was marrying Camilla. I couldn't believe it.

I definitely don't think that marriage could have gone ahead for a decade or two, if at all, if Diana had lived.

@User1563, she certainly was NOT beautiful not at the beginning anyway, I worked in the Kings road when the engagement was announced, not saying I actually met her, I wouldn't have known it if I did, she was one of a tribe of Sloanes and look like all the rest, when she walked down the street, she wouldn't have rated a second glance from most men, money and the services of makeup artists, fashion designers and all the rest of the advantages of being Royal gave her an allure and helped her make the best of herself but that's it'

she certainly was NOT beautiful not at the beginning anyway, I worked in the Kings road when the engagement was announced, not saying I actually met her, I wouldn't have known it if I did, she was one of a tribe of Sloanes and look like all the rest, when she walked down the street, she wouldn't have rated a second glance from most men, money and the services of makeup artists, fashion designers and all the rest of the advantages of being Royal gave her an allure and helped her make the best of herself but that's it'

Kudos for inhabiting the same stomping ground 🙄 but that kind of beauty doesn't come from a cosmetics counter. Not to portray Diana as a saint or deity, but she was naturally attractive. There's no denying that,

“I imagine, had Diana lived, William would be living much the same life as he does now, but Harry's life would be very different.“

I agree. I’m not 100% William would have married Catherine, maybe a titled person, but there is no way Harry would have married Meghan.

I think she would have become a better dressed Sarah Ferguson, trying to insinuate herself into the edges of the RF through William and Harry, doing little publicity stunts like writing dreadful books, making care packages for NHS workers during lockdown, posting daily on Instagram. She would probably have come to blows with Andrew over taking on the Queens corgis.

I think as much as it would pain anyone to admit, Harry and Meggan would be living a different life because Diana would have got there first.

Podcast’s books, interviews etc she would have loved and embraced them all. And some of the public would have lapped up the publicity she put out there, the same public who criticise Harry and Meggan for doing the same things now, but Harry and William would have distanced themselves from her because she would be seen as an embarrassment.

Just before she died she was holidaying on a playboy’s yacht (attracting some negative publicity in the process) - maybe that suggests how her life would’ve gone. Relationships, the glamorous life, maybe remarrying. Anyone can write her imaginary story I guess.

And she’d be the subject of endless media gossip, of course.

I think that the collective outpouring of grief after Diana's death had much to do with the circumstance. Straight afterwards, and before other factors were considered, the reporting focused on a dash to evade the paparazzi and a sense that that phrase ' being hounded to their death' might have literally come to pass. There was a sense that this was a problem for all of society and press power was something we all had to tackle collectively and with shared passion.

Afterwards, other factors and arguments gained weight, not least the possible alcoholic intoxication of the driver and failures of strategy in getting Diana and Dodi quickly and unobtrusively to their destination. At the time there was a sense of something big and unbelievable.

I think she'd have moved out of the limelight like Jackie Kennedy did - married someone rich enough to keep her in privacy - Onassis the (older) billionaire shipping magnate in Jackies case.

I think the collective outpourings of grief were due to her being headline news for years, everyone feeling sad at how things went for her and there being nothing like the Kardashians or online attention seeking bloggers etc to compete with her story. Sad.

WTF would she have come to blows over the corgis?

HMQ had allowed her corgis to die off she didn't want them to outlive her. Then lockdown hit and PP was ill in hospital. Andrew and his DDs bought her two corgi pups to keep her company (Fergus and Muick), one died after 5 months and was replaced by another pup. These were the first pups she had not decended from Susan her 18th birthday present from her parents. The agreement must have been at the time they would look after them in the event of her death.

I don't think they would have given William the title P of W, Charles didn't have it until he was older, was he 30?

Camilla was princess of Wales but she didn't use the title and used Duchess of Cornwall, William and Kate would probably have used or be given a different title.

@gnilliwdog I appreciate she had a positive effect on people - I admire that. But meeting someone is not the same as knowing someone, she was obviously a flawed human. Personally I admire nurses more who work gruelling hours to take care of us- they don’t just waft in and chat to a few people.

What does what if, where would she live, what title would she have, how many times married and if on Tic Toc or not actually matter.... move on she's dead so no idea what she would have done or not.

Because she had lost much of that charisma by the time she died, and that process would certainly have continued.

🤣

She would have no impact on Camilla and Charles. She'd have given up making their lives misery I reckon.

Nope. She would not have been able to leave it alone. It's all she had in life.

Being Grandmother to William and Harry's children (because she was) would have rehabilitated her somewhat.

Boy would she have capitalised on that !

Diana would’ve lived a life only depicted by fairy tales, however I believe after studying her death I found they used 2 cars and I think the royals killed her off because Charles wanted his dirty work dealt with, only to get with Camila.

They grieved because she was a person who always engaged with the suffering, the vulnerable and the outcast when she met them.

The thing is that that perception was definitely slipping. People were quite cynical about the way she would turn up at some disaster victim's bedside for a photo opportunity, or those photos of her dripping mascara over heart surgery patients. In particular, there was a lot of adverse comment over the number of freebie holidays she was taking, again with somewhat posed photo opportunities of her in a swimsuit, and how she really wasn't seeing that much of the boys as a result.

Had she lived, that process would have continued and it's not at all clear that public perception of her would stay the same, unless she had made some drastic changes and actually started doing something practical for the vulnerable - and the truth of the matter is that there was no indication that she was prepared to do so.

Nonsense. If they wanted to kill her off, they would not have relied on an accident that was entirely survivable by wearing a seatbelt.

I think that a lot of people need to read about what Mohammed Al-Fayed dodgy deals etc were. How he got Raine Spencer onboard and gave her a job well above what she could do. He was desperate to get big enough to be untouchable.
Diana was being used. When she would have found that out, it could have meant a complete breakdown and even sectioning. She was very mentally unwell and unstable. The press, government and royals/aristocracy had turned against her. I don't think that she was that strong. It would have been a matter of luck to survive it all.

I honestly think that Charles and camilla wouldn't have married and Diana wouldn't have remarried and everyone would still be living in a horrible cycle of bad publicity and one up manship

I suspect Diana would have found it hard competing with her two DILs. It’s inevitable that eventually her position as the most glamorous royal would have been replaced by younger women.

If you read her private secretary Patrick Jephson’s book, Shadows of a Princess, she wasn’t quite the saintly, doe eyed woman that she projected in the media. She was often more concerned about how her image came across after a formal visit and sometimes mocked those she had just been talking to when she got back into the official car. She also checked Charles’s appointment diary to ensure that she trumped his own charity visits and knocked him off the next day’s front pages.

I’m no fan of the RF in general, I think they’re just an anachronism of the past and no longer relevant but I have a tiny element of sympathy for Charles and Diana. He was pressurised by his parents into a loveless marriage to fulfil his duty and destiny. Camilla, at the time was considered a bit ‘racy’ and unsuitable as she’d had a past with previous boyfriends. Diana was very young, biddable and most importantly, pure. Looking back, it was so abundantly clear that they were a complete mismatch and neither should have been put in such a position.

Diana was an 'Innocent' in many ways, an artlessness about her.

She really wasn't. I worked in the press at the time she died and we all knew what she was up to. As someone else mentioned upthread, she was addicted to the drama and the attention. She moaned a lot about the press attention, at them hounding her and following her but she made a point of letting them know her movements so they could be there 🙄.