PR disasters thread 30

[BigWillyLittleTodger]

Flying through these threads at a rate of knots! A shiny new thread for yet more Sussex shenanigans!

Totally disagree. She was highly manipulative and fell out with so many friends and family.

She also had at least 6 documented affairs - the first before Prince Harry was 2 years old, many during her marriage as well as with married men. She stalked their homes and didn’t cut any slack for the women and childrens lives she burnt to the ground.

Her Panorama interview was totally disingenuous - there were not 3 people in the marriage - by that point there had been at least 6 - the majority associated with Diana herself.

She showed no concern for the privacy or huge emotional impact on her young boys away at school when she rinsed the dirty laundry of their Dad in public.

She had a shocking upbringing and was duped in her marriage. This explains her emotional dysfunction - malevolence, manipulation, grandiosity, sexual incontinence - but never excuses the impact of the hurt her actions inflicted on those around her.

Wonder if Charles Spencer will go into Diana’s stalking and affairs in his book.

With regards to Meghans treatment of staff l think she needs to read Dame Jilly Coopers ‘Rutshire Chronicles’.

**Housekeeper/valued cleaner

”Annexing **treasures in Gloucestershire was a much worse sin than stealing somebody’s husband “ when Valerie Jones stole Mrs Makepiece in ‘Rivals’.

You have to treat your staff well! They know everything about you -even the stuff you don’t know- they know what everyone thinks of you, are amazing sources of gossip and are much harder to replace than a husband. I would have thought this was one of the first lessons to learn!

I believe the legal fees are being funded from elsewhere - so this end of the equation is not taking away from Sentebale. However if PH offers more as a settlement to avoid court than would / could be awarded by court then this is an ethical and financial consideration that the board at Sentebale need to make.

However they also need to consider if or what the coverage of the case will bring to the profile and then donations to their charity.

I hope that this is aired.

Wasn't Oliver Hoare the recipient of nuisance calls?

That’s very true - but shows that being nice to staff is actually strategically self-serving rather than altruistic.

VB has been bailed out by her husband because her business was going bankrupt. I don't think she is anyone to look up to in any way.

I agree - it’s up to about £30m assume in payment to keep the lid on his numerous affairs so that he can keep the sponsorships and ad campaigns rolling in. All very symbiotic. Not sure VB merching her 4 kids and the heartbreaking consequences for them all over the last few years is anything to aspire to either. A cautionary tale.

This is really true - children grew up much earlier in Diana's day than now. I am less than a year younger than Diana, but unlike her, went to a "bog standard comp"

In the mid-70s the majority of kids left school at 16 (nationally over 60%) to go to work. I remember being slightly surprised that the 2 brightest girls from my primary school class, who got into the super-selective grammar school, both left school at 16 after O levels to take up "good jobs" in a bank and didn't do A-levels.

Others went to FE college to do vocational courses - I remember some in my year were allowed to leave at the Christmas without taking any O-levels/CSEs to take up apprenticeships.

Nationally it was only 14-15% of the cohort who did A-levels.

So you have to look at Diana in that context that getting married 2-3 years after leaving home was not unusual - that she had been out on her own for several years. Obviously her family wealth made a difference to giving her more independence

• allowed her a second attempt at O levels which she also failed
• allowed her a term at finishing School in Switzerland
• helped her to find live-live in work among upper class families age 17
• family gifted her a 3 bed mansion apartment in Earls Court as an 18th birthday present - which she lived in with roommates until her marriage age 20.

KC3 has a long track record of protecting H from the consequences of his actions. We can go back to the Art A level where the teacher did the work and the Sandhurst entry on the back of those dodgy A levels.

In life, as in finance, the past is not always predictive of the future, but we still lean on past patterns of behaviour to anticipate future behaviour.

IMHO, one cannot say that KC will interfere, but based on his past enabling actions, he is more than likely than not to try to help his darling boy.

Whilst it is true that DB invested heavily initially on top of VB's own money she eventually reached a point where the company moved into profit.

But even before that point her fashion was met with critical acclaim and her beauty products have been both commercially and critically successful.

Her work is respected in the fashion and beauty industries.

MM on the other hand is a figure of fun who has spun gold into dross.

His family home with wife and 3 young children was plagued with hundreds of nuisance calls which when his wife reported to the police were traced to KP - Diana is reported to have blamed this on ‘Young boys messing about’ - she was quite unhinged and would throw anyone under the bus to satisfy her impulses.

Agreed, but even Meghan isn't strategic enough to do that! She's often terrible at playing the long game. Maybe that's why she's agreed to move back now. I'm still baffled by her giving up the power of being resident in Cali.

Harry didn't know his mother at all. He was too young when she died. For all his spin and merching of her, he's clueless. If he knew his mother at all, he'd know she believed in the Monarchy and she would be 💯 supporting her eldest son purely because he is the future king and would have cut all ties with HAM. Diana was savvy to the bone

Yes, I believe it was traced to her phone line.
Plus, her awful treatment of Tiggy Legg Bourke. Shameful.

I remember that. And blaming her sons. Particularly bad

You see I don't think Meghan thinks like that at all. I don't think she every "got" the way that Royals act and especially the royal/aristocratic sense of duty to treat the staff well.

Instead she took the "Diva Hollywood A-lister" as her template where temperamental actors have tantrums and scream, shout and throw things at staff. This was the woman -

• who didn't understand why she didn't get paid for royal appearances
• who had herself announced to an empty room
• who couldn't comprehend the hierarchy and announced that she would "collaborate" with the Queen
• who threw a tantrum at Angela Kelly when she couldn't have her pick of tiaras
• who was rude to the gardeners at the Windsor estate
• who threw a cup of tea at a staff member on the Australia tour
• Who shoved her way through chairs in St Pauls to jump the procession queue
• who mocked the curtsey
• who has a gigantic staff turnover in the UK and US
• immediately merched her Australian faux tour outfits after visiting an eating disorder clinic/Jewish massacre memorial

So I really don't think she has learnt at all - indeed doesn't even thing she was wrong

Thinking about that notorious interview with Martin Bashir, there are lots of parallels with the HAM’s OW one.

The highly manipulative demeanour of Diana (eye makeup which accentuated those enormous blue eyes, moist with tears), the collaboration in order to damage Charles, the dishonesty about her part in the situation etc.

Yes, I know the appalling background to the interview- there’s no excuse for that - but looking back it does seem like a prototype for the HAM’s devastating and damaging one.

When I was younger I did not appreciate just how dangerous Diana's treatment of Tiggy was.

Tiggy had access to Diana's children. A lesser woman could have hurt Diana's children in revenge.

Diana is lucky that Tiggy remained a discreet supportive presence to her children in the midst of the chaos created by their parents.

@Lunde

I agree - M just didn’t get it on any level. That’s partly her fault for her arrogance and refusal to listen and learn, but also down to stupid H’s failure to induct her or even warn her about what royal life would be like.

They are the authors of their own downfall.

Shaming her in company about an alleged abortion. Disgusting behaviour.

Diana was horrible to Sophie Rhys Jones as well. No notion of being supportive to another woman coming in to the family.

We can go back to before that. When Harry was 16-17 he was in trouble for drugs and underage drinking - plus throwing xenophobic abuse at the local pub manager when he was asked to leave and subsequently banned.

KC's response was very softly-softly - sending Harry on a single day trip to a substance abuse treatment centre. But this approach would never work with someone like Harry. The fact that he used to party and drive home (likely over the limit) in his late 20s, and despite what happened to his mother, shows that he learned very little. I seem to remember that Harry was also banned from pubs by the Army - something about "affecting his focus on pilot training"

I think Harry just got used to everyone tiptoeing around his tantrum and let him get him way.

I think he felt bad for what happened with Diana.

She also got very jealous of the first nanny, Barbara Barnes and sacked her on the spot and refused to let her say goodbye to the children despite having been William main carer for almost 5 years.