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?

Yep - the tide had turned against Diana in the press just before she died.

She couldn’t get anyone to work with her at KP cos the independent consultants she hired bolted on the grounds she was flaky.

As time passed, she would have got less royal treatment from everyone.

She’d stopped doing solid charity work.

More extreme attention-getting wouldn’t have gone down that well after a while.

I neither liked nor particularly disliked her. But I got sick of the hypocrisy around the Sainted Diana and the accusation of racism in the post before mine was too much. Lazy and inaccurate.

About not seeing her sons. They were (a) at boarding school during term time and (b) at least half of the time with their father and with the Queen during the summer. And there would have been security considerations. And times when the boys were required to be available for the annual round of official duties such as Trooping the Colour and Remembrance Sunday etc. I imagine that Diana would have had quite a hard time fitting her slots in amongst all the other demands on their time. Imagine having to deal with a private secretary at Buckingham Palace to negotiate your access? It can't have been easy! It wouldn't have automatically been EOW like most people. Two of Diana's former private secretaries said Diana was quite lonely a lot of the time and often physically alone in her apartments at Kensington Palace after a day of engagements. So implying that she was a negligent mother is a bit much!

And of course she was a flawed human being! Aren't we all? How many of us could have borne the constant and intrusive scrutiny that she did and come up smiling? And remember she came from a highly dysfunctional family. Given those factors, with a layer of antipathy from her ex husband and the establishment on top, I think she handled herself well in the circumstances.

She was Sainted and then Sunner.

In reality she was a human being with good points and flaws like everyone else. She was very beautiful and she did tackle controversial charitable issues.

You really dislike Diana don't you. Charles was also as you put it shagging around, including with married women. nobody has denied that Charles was unfaithful. But the difference here is that we are constantly reminded of the fact while Diana is upheld as this wonderful human being.

Also, I can’t imagine any of the OW’ who women post about on here would be described as “flawed human beings.”

We don’t describe Charles as a “flawed human being” and yet Diana had at least 2 affairs while she was married and had multiple affairs with married men afterwards. So why is Camilla accused of all sorts, Charles accused of all sorts and Diana painted as a victim?

@GhostFromTheOtherSide We are constantly reminded that Diana had affairs. It is posted on MN far more than anyone posts about Charles's affairs.
I wasn't even a fan of Diana but so many posters on here talk about Diana in a totally inaccurate and vile way. I won't accept history being rewritten.

I agree. Diana was in love with her husband and devastated by the failure of her marriage. Can we really say that of Charles? (Maybe he was in terms of the optics but he was never really emotionally invested was he, let's face it? ) According to most accounts, Diana wanted to stay married until the bitter end. I also dislike this rewriting of history, evidently by people who weren't contemporaneous in age to her and didn't like through it!

didn't live through it

I think the tide turned against Diana towards the end, very slightly, due to the fact that she started playing the press packs for headlines in the war against Charles. It just isn't a good idea. If you invite them into your personal life one day you'll be stuck with their intrusion forever.

Harry blows warm and subzero with the media and I don't think it does him any favours either. I can understand him stoking them up for coverage of the invictus games, but the next minute they overstep the mark and it's an intrusion and he's all scowls.

What Bashir did to Diana was absolutely disgusting though. It does explain a lot of what appeared like completely eratic behaviour at the time.

I can't believe Nicholas Witchell still covers Charles after the mike incident.

The press were always building Diana up as a saint and then a sinner and a saint again. They were just entering their usual cycle of sinner when she died. That cycle sold newspapers.

It is strange getting people who were not alive at the time or only children telling you things as fact that you lived through and know are wrong.
For example, Charles did a big televised interview first, before Diana's.

We are constantly reminded that Diana had affairs. It is posted on MN far more than anyone posts about Charles's affairs. rubbish. People are constantly referring to the fact that Charles had affairs. Even to the point that they feel Camilla shouldn’t have married him or that we shouldn’t accept them because of what they apparently did to Diana.

Diana had at least 2 affairs during the marriage and several afterwards. The reason why people bring them up is because people are so hell bent on painting her as an innocent victim who could do no wrong.

Charles and Diana had an arranged marriage. Everyone knew that, even her.

I do not believe Diana knew she had an arranged marriage. And neither did the public.
That is rewriting history.

Absolutely this. The tabloids may well have started to turn against her, but she was still hugely popular. I remember later thinking how after she died the Beckhams and all the reality tv stars started to come to the fore, whereas before that, other people were popular and famous, but she was beyond popular and her pictures were everywhere. Constantly.

Also agree that there are lots of people for whom Diana will always be the wronged party, even now, and who really would prefer William to be king. I'm not saying that a) it's even possible constitutionally, or b) that I agree with that sentiment, but there are definitely a lot of people who have never been fans of Charles.

I find amongst the demographic of women who wholeheartedly support the Queen, a sizeable number who do not like Charles and supported Diana.

I do not pick sides like this as I am not a fan. But real Royal fans do.

I am not up for rewriting history and trashing a woman either. I don't care about Charles, Camilla and a marriage that nobody really knows what went on and isn't anyone's business. I do care that a woman, who had faults and troubles, but was really up against it and still tried to help others, is being trashed. Series like 'the crown' are telling viewers that she was just a flaky girl with mh issues and a desire for attention. It is rubbish. She was a wilful woman who stood alone against a powerful institution and defended people who were ostracised and discriminated against, here and abroad. Nobody thought her a saint, her troubles were well known, but they loved her anyway. No matter the media or the haters who try to tell us otherwise, some of us remember who she was.

@gnilliwdog Good post. There seem to be pretty concerted attempts to trash her and rewrite history.

@antelopevalley yes, it seems there is an amount of character assassination going on. I am not usually interested in the royals but I dislike the injustice and was fond of her.

Yes, very much agree with you gnilliwdog and they kind of make it our business by holding weddings and funerals in public! No subjects, no monarchy!

It certainly doesn't seem too healthy. Sort of like a zoo.

sorry, that was for @Shortandfurry301

I genuinely don't think there could have been any other fate than that which befell her. It wasn't even up for discussion.

I wish Di was alive and an insta influencer. I would love that. I'm no royalist but she seemed like a sweet person.

The press attacked Diana, then built her up, then attacked her. It was a cycle. The same happens with Kate

when does this happen with kate? She seems quite low key and neutral in the press.

The role she was able to play, both in influencing fashion and in garnering support for other causes was largely due to the fact she was still young beautiful and glamorous enough to be of interest to the media, rather than down to any particularly compelling aspect of her personality or unique skill set though.
I remember her very well from the time she entered the public arena, and the vast majority of interest in her was always focued on her youth and appearance.
Realistically, beyond that, she was pleasant, charming, and warmer than we were used to in the Royal family, but I'm not convinced she had anything particularly exceptional that would have stood the test of time. I certainly don't recall seeing anything in her that KM doesn't also bring to the table

I don't get why people keep saying that when her beauty faded her popularity would have also. I'd see this if she was your average attractive woman you see on the school run but she was a very wealthy celebrity so would have likely at 61 still looked better than most women of 40 and even women in their 30s.

Money and the contacts she had can make a huge difference in how you age and she could look much hotter than the - just look at some powerful celebs on their 50s/60s who made their career through their looks and are not alot younger than Diana-Jennifer Aniston, Kylie Minogue, Brad Pitt, Demi Moore, Jennifer Lopez, George Clooney....

Age has not diminished their looks because they have money and the proper contacts.