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.

Well maybe if she had spent a few years having a lovely fun time with her friends and an enjoyable sex life (pass the smelling salts, Marjorie!) with a couple of Ruperts and Tarquins she wouldn't have ended up having such a tricky personal life that ended as it did.

grin]

Bez.

Not for me, i have seen a few famouse people including other royals, somehow she was different, another worldly and i wasn't even a fan of her.

Like all (or most, at least!) of us, she was a flawed human who did both good and bad things.

So do I. We were similar ages had sons at a similar time. There the similarity ends. I thought then she was was unbalanced compared to her peers. Felt sorry for her boys long before she died.

The fact that Harry has these issues is no surprise. William has his demons too and owes a lot to the Middleton's

I also remember this. I was working in a legal position for the press at the time and there were a lot of stories ready to go that were pulled.

She was one of the first I know of who would set up pal shots, eg to call the paparazzi when she was leaving the gym for example.
I have some respect for her for that. Why not control it?

I do however don’t respect the way she went for several married men despite her own experiences with Charles, and how she was away from her children a lot, including for a month before she died. Or how she used William as an emotional crutch.

so could hardly have not realised what her life would be like when she married him.

That he was and would be in love with somebody else?

I know people who are still married to their teenage boyfriend, but that is more luck than judgement.

Some 19 year olds are very sensible and mature, but the RF had no reason to think that she was.

Back then, people had a little more respect for themselves and most women didn't sleep around like they do today.

I think that according to statistics suggest that teenagers were more likely to get to get drunk and have sex in the past, if for no other reason than boredom.

She, like Harry, managed to feel affronted and hard done by, despite living a hugely privileged life where either of them could have done whatever they pleased. Imagine being able to champion great causes, make real changes to charities, highlight issues and then messing it all up by complaining about what you don't have?!

And for both of them - the press pack only chases if you run from it. If you stop, smile and have your photo taken, there's no scarcity or value to the photos. Pap pictures are a commodity, like anything else.

I could be wrong but I thought the story about the multiple phone calls had been put out there to make her look crazy and had been subsequently disproved ?

A bit like the story that her brother rejected giving her sanctuary on his estate! Charles Spencer subsequently sued the newspapers about that one and won but of course it’s never reported because it’s not as salacious as saying he rejected his own sister! But you still
see it being reported here.

And it’s well known that the then Prince Charles spent about £150,000 (a lot of money back in the day) employing Mark Bolland PR to rehabilitate Camilla in the eyes of the public. And one of the tactics he used was to discredit Diana’s image in the process.

Sound familiar?

All of this has been documented by her ex private secretary.

So we had stories in the papers about Diana being flaky when she was actually famously punctual, energetic, and professional when doing her job.

And stories about her reading Hello magazine and liking pop music when she played the piano, liked classical music and ballet.

And stories about her being a “loose cannon” from Charles’s establishment friends and her being “damaged goods” from the Queen’s friend Lady Kennard.

And stories about her affairs when it wasn’t the affairs anyone objected to as much as the “happy family” lies about it fed to the general public by the palace.

She did highlight very good causes such as AIDS, leprosy, and land mines and it was her high profile that brought the spotlight to them.

She had to speak up and , as you say, “ruin it all and complain” as she was afraid that the most powerful family in the land might take her dc from her, which is exactly what had happened to her mother.
She knew there were stories circling out there designed to make her look unstable.

Anyway, she didn’t ruin it all, she died in a car crash and her work was cut short.

Who knows what she would have gone on to do had she lived? I suspect she might have been like Jackie O, married someone rich and protective in the US and become a serious benefactor.

And stories about her affairs when it wasn’t the affairs anyone objected to as much as the “happy family” lies about it fed to the general public by the palace - I would think the wives of those she had affairs with objected very much, however she didn't appear to care about that.

There were also plenty of stories about her liking ballet etc as well as pop music. If I remember rightly, she was quoted as saying she would have liked to become a professional ballet dancer but she grew too tall so it wasn't possible.

And finally, absolutely no one thought she was a saint! I don’t know where that came from! Mawkish tabloids again probably.

She was just very charismatic and good at putting people at ease.

I could be wrong but I thought the story about the multiple phone calls had been put out there to make her look crazy and had been subsequently disproved ?

Im pretty sure that was true, and put out it confirmed by a friend of hers. But this is from memory and a long time ago.

What I do know from personal experience is that the press had a lot of “dirt” on her that they didn’t print, even when she was alive. She was known for being very manipulative, self-obsessed and ‘wild’. I think a loose cannon is a very factual description.

I was also a young child when she died.

Since then obviously she was converted to saintly status by the media and that's how she was portrayed and remembered forever more by the world.

But....I'm not one to be swung by the media.

Looking back through archived stuff, and what people have said since.

She wasn't a saint. She had many a flaw, she had serious mental health issues, was also complicit in affairs. Yes Charles started it, but it didn't mean she had to go free for all also.

To be honest it was a situation of two very poorly people matched to marry, and produce some children in dysfunction.

I do believe she was rather abusive in today's eyes to William using him as an emotional crutch, and over sharing/burdening him. So I don't think she gets mother of the year award either.

But you know you shouldn't speak ill of the dead. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The press largely printed the vilest things about her while she was alive so I doubt they are guilty of holding that much back tbh!

And you say she was “known” to be manipulative etc? Who exactly “knew” her to be those things?

Yes I remember the sudden U turn in feeling too. I was in France the week she was. She was everywhere, all the time. She died the same week as Mother Theresa, an actual saint, and I recall thinking MT deserved more coverage.

I remember my DM, who did not ever read the tabloids, saying that she and Charles both used the media against each other and being a bit fed up of it.

Since then obviously she was converted to saintly status by the media and that's how she was portrayed and remembered forever more by the world.

I don't think this is true. I mean the media did their fawning shtick when she died, but she hasn't been remembered forever more as a saint.

She certainly wasn’t a saint, and I think Harry is very naive to think he knew her better than anyone else. How many 12 year olds actually know their parents? They know them from a child’s perspective but I think I was at least 30 before I really understood my mum at the time
of my youth.

I think regarding the outpouring of grief, the country was in a strange place in 1997, a new labour government after years of
Tory rule, no one knew what would happen politically and then this huge thing happened. I can remember feeling bemused at seeing all the people sobbing on tv at the time and my arrogant 21 yo self would say ‘how can you cry for someone you didn’t know?’ But now im
older, I recognise that it was probably an overwhelming feeling that came with being there surrounded by flowers and other stuff going on in the country.

Interestingly though, in real life and even on here, I’ve never seen anyone admit to sobbing at the time, very strange.

Look, absolutely no one vaguely objective and intelligent with any experience of life, thought of her as a saint. I was born around the same time as her and I remember!

She just happened to have a lot of good qualities like unstuffiness, good humour and a bit of warmth about her and of course she was physically attractive too, which rather showed up the RF at the time. She was actually likeable! She wasn’t, for example, too posh to hold someone’s hand without wearing gloves. She became hugely popular of that.

And we saw her transformation from shy girl to woman who was on the brink of finally taking control of her rather tempestuous, and very public life, however that would pan out.

She was the most famous woman in the world at the time, there was no Internet at the start, but she was on the front page of most papers almost every day. One photograph of her sold for thousands and thousands of pounds.

It’s only now, decades after her death, that people seem hell bent on trying to prove she wasn’t saintly, when to my knowledge, no one called her that at the time!

That’s perfectly worded. My thoughts exactly.

She has been canonised by the press since her death

She was slagged off by them before then .

I remember one journalist (I think it was Mariella Frostrup) saying that it was very easy to dedicate your life to charitable works if you didn't also have to go out and earn your own living, or worry about who was looking after your children whilst you were out there playing Lady Bountiful. In other words, Diana's "saintliness" was definitely overhyped.

Diana admitted at some point that she had only met Charles about 12 times before their marriage. So she was really in love with the Prince, rather than the person.
She was pushed into it by her family. And so was Charles.
Personally, I did not like Charles revealing his affaire with Camilla, and I did not like Diana admitting her several affaires, some with other married men.
The newspapers were not so kind to her at one time. Visiting hospitals to witness operations, sounded really weird. Of course we now know she was visiting Hasnat Khan, a surgeon, with whom she had a 2 year affaire. The kissing babies thing I found a bit naff. Its the sort of thing politicians do to make themselves popular.
It seems before her death that she and Charles were much more cordial to each other, and she regretted the Panorama interview.
It was a marriage my colleagues at work at the time, thought was ill-matched, as they kept saying at the time. Although I disagreed, probably because I really hoped it was a love match, and Diana was very beautiful.

I thought Emma Corrin’s portrayal of Diana in The Crown made her look very scheming and unpleasant with none of the good humour and likeability that attracted Charles in the first place.