Was Princess Diana really as saintly as Harry (in particular) and the media make her out to be?

[Nosleepforthismum]

Just curious really to hear from those that remember the news coverage from when she was alive. I was only a kid when she died but some of her behaviour i.e. the Martin Bashir interview seems a little … dare I say, twatty? Is it not a basic unwritten rule that when you have kids with someone and then you split/get divorced you don’t slag off the other parent? I find it an interesting decision that she did that interview despite knowing the global interest it would generate and seemingly not giving a damn about how it would impact her kids.

the media were very cruel to Diana on many occasions, they certainly didn’t treat her like a saint when she was alive. They just couldn’t get away with being so vile after she died.

In my opinion, she was generally a good person but like everyone else on the planet, was flawed.
She was incredibly young when she got married and I believe she was probably treated quite shabbily by the royal family (seemingly little support from a MH perspective). But times were different them generally about that kind of thing.
But Harry has clearly idolised her, which is so understandable, but it blinds him to any of her faults.
And i do think the narrative that he pushes that she was 'murdered' by the press is ridiculous. She would likely be alive if she had worn a seatbelt and not had a drunk chauffeur.

She was bonkers.
She had multiple affairs. Gave the famed interview etc
Behaved irrationally. The headlines were terrible until the day she dued and overnight she was deified.

The media were relentless around Diana so I'm pleased those rules have changed (albeit H&M don't recognise this ... and that crazy clip of them on Netflix with the filming of them being followed by a moped ... I had to turn it off .. what a farce .. nothing like what Diana had to endure!
But I don't think she was saintly. She used the press like many others. Lots of lovers, I think both her and Charles would have been better to have split up but joined as a family unit, brought up with boys somehow, without drama, then gone their separate ways. Stay loyal to the family unit. It didn't work, was always going to fail, and it did.

She was quite savvy with regard to the press, she definitely used them to her advantage at times.
i think she was way too young to get married to a complex man that she really didn't know.

No-one is saintly but Harry was his mother and he knew her for only a short time - it makes sense he would deitify her.

Diana was his mother I should say!

Di did a lot of good, had a turbulent time in her formative years and was shat on a lot by various quarters but was also a bit of a twat even taking all things into consideration.

She had an affair with a married will carling and her blindness to the damage her own actions caused her children always sat uncomfortably with me. I think the rise to sainthood after death was a surprise to quite a few people tbh.

In a word, no.

Of course not. She was a human being with flaws like all of us. She thought marrying a prince would be a fairy story. Charles was emotionally stunted and not able to cope with a woman with so many demons from her childhood, which was horrific. She was insecure and anxious. She had bulimia which was a manifestation of her inner turmoil. She was however a warm and loving mother, and a warm and charismatic woman. She had beauty and glamour and found her stride more as she got older. She participated in unpopular charitable works (AIDS, land mines) and was genuinely caring.

However her instability and her lack of love from Charles (who had his own problems) and who had returned to Camilla sent her off the rails. She sought love wherever she could. I think she just wanted unconditional love and never found it.

By the time of her death I think she was finding peace and was co parenting successfully with Charles. She made bad decisions like we all do. She wasn't a saint or a sinner.

She wasn't saintly by any means. She was actually quite naughty. But she was fun and she was beautiful!

She was 19 when she got engaged to a man who had know her for 6 months and was in love with somebody else.

Her family background was completely dysfunctional.

She was then part of the media circus for the rest of her life, but expected to quietly fade into the background when it became impossible to ignore the failure of her marriage.

It’s not clear what the RF expected her to do and very difficult to know what she would have been like if her life had been a bit more sane.

Of course Harry (and William) idolise her. They were children when she died and she was their mum.

Most definitely not a saint. I think she started off as a bit ‘Kim nice but dim’ but then experience made her incredibly media-savvy. She used that in a good way for all her charitable causes but also to get her side of things across too. I think the media started to be less deferential towards the Royal Family as a whole during the 80s/90s. I think she was expected to be grateful to be a breeding mare for Charles and the RF/ establishment as a whole got bitten by the consequences of not supporting her properly. I was completely bemused by the outpouring of grief when she died though - still can’t believe how many people were seemingly heartbroken by her death.
Hopefully we’ll be rid of the monarchy fairly soon as it’s obviously not good for them and is a ridiculous anachronism in the 21st century.

Like just about everyone on the planet, she had good qualities and not so good qualities.

I do think a lot of her appeal was down to her looks. Would she still hold such enduring fascinating had she been short, fat and plain?

She wasn't a saint but I think was was genuinely caring about those less fortunate than herself. There's lots of evidence that she visited hospitals etc privately and repeatedly and not just when it provided her with a publicity opportunity. (Yes, I know all about the Hasnet Khan business, but I don't mean that.)

So I think, in her charity work, she was great and really sincere and a force for good. That's all that should matter really. In her private life I think she was a bit dim, didn't seem to value education much and had awful taste in men! She put herself in the hands of some very dodgy people at the end of her life (Mohammed Fayed and his sleazy son) and it ended very sadly for her.

She and Prince Charles were not a good match though - it's pretty much official that it was an 'arranged' marriage, and unfair to both of them.

Do you know anyone who's a saint?

She had a dysfunctional childhood, was married off at 19 like some 18th century heiress into the most famous family in the world and promptly became the main tabloid obsession. Her marriage was dodgy from the start and rapidly went tits up. She was a flawed person in a very unique situation. Had little to occupy herself except imagining herself in love with a succession of men.

She did good work for the charities she was involved with though. Shaking hands with an AIDS patient was a big deal.

I remember Paul Merton on Have I Got New For You always called her "the overblown tart." She had lots of fans - especially overseas - but plenty of people here couldn't be doing with her.

I couldn't stand her. But she was older than me so I saw her from a child/young woman's perspective. I thought she was just a media-obsessed clothes horse. Now I've got children the age she was when she married into that disaster, I am a lot more compassionate in my view of her.

no she was a human being
had affairs with a few people when married

She was incredibly famous - I can’t think of anyone nowadays who is so well known as she was when she was alive. It felt like she was on the front cover of every newspaper every day and magazines and that seemed worldwide to me.
Maybe because of that her death was totally shocking. So I kind of see how William and Harry thought she might still be alive. It seemed incredulous at the time that someone who was everywhere suddenly was no more.
She also did quite a lot of groundbreaking stuff - touching AIDS patients, campaigning against landmines and had a real gift for building instant rapport with people.
She definitely wasn’t a saint but did stand out.

She was deeply flawed, had serious MH issues, and she used the media as a weapon when it suited her. Then tried to do a Harry and blamed them for having to withdraw from public life. The tide was already turning when she died.

It was never going to end well for Diana - I honestly believe that she wouldn't have coped with aging and becoming less relevant.

Personally I think she had more than her fair share of mental health problems. I see a lot of her in Harry.

What I remember is the biggest and fastest reverse ferret by the press that I have seen in my lifetime.

She wasn't a saint but she didn't claim to be I don't think. I think if (eg William) had at 32 decided to marry a rather vulnerable 19 year old who it turned out he barely knew, it would have been regarded with consternation rather than as "a fairytale". She wasn't treated well from the beginning and later on, the atrocious actions of Martin Bashir we now know fuelled an existing paranoia. She made mistakes, some based on misapprehensions and the well documented "war" with Charles, with the briefing against each other can only have damaged their sons as well as themselves.

I've always said that her transformation from shy Sloane Ranger to icon of style and beauty was amazing, but more than that, her espousement of causes like land mines and HIV/AIDS was laudable and I believe sincere.

I think had she lived she would hopefully have gone on to do more real good and also found personal happiness. I've never thought for one second she would have married Dodi Fayed but perhaps in time she could have found another Hasnat Khan, a strong and worthwhile man but this time prepared to take on the enormous pressure of being with her.

I remember the day before she died.
There where pictures of her all over the tabloid front pages with Dodi. Her popularity was on the decline at the time and the papers where less than kind about her.
Then she died. And everything changed.
I remember feeling amazed by the out pouring of love for her, people sobbing on the streets. The papers did a U turn and where 'full on' with the 'queen of hearts'
theme.
In my lifetime I think that the Queen is the only royal family member to escape any criticism of any kind (except when she wouldn't come back from Balmoral after Diana died).