One of my favorite biographies of Princess Diana is Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles, which was written ten years after Diana’s death. It was even one of our featured books when we had a Celebitchy Book Club. I found Brown’s take on Diana’s life and times to be pretty fair to everybody involved, and Brown isn’t one of those “royal commentators” constantly chiming in on Meghan and Kate’s activities, which I think is a good thing. Anyway, ‘tis the season for Diana retrospectives and Brown is currently working on a follow-up to The Diana Chronicles, which is how she came to be interviewed by Camilla Tominey in the Telegraph (via the Mail). Some highlights:
Tina speaks of having lunch with Diana about a month before Diana’s death in 1997: Speaking to The Daily Telegraph’s Camilla Tominey, Ex-Vanity Fair editor Ms Brown, 66, told how she and Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue, met with Diana for lunch at New York’s Four Seasons Restaurant just over a month before she died. She recalled how Diana, dressed in a mint green Chanel suit, told her she and Charles enjoyed ‘some laughs’ together and discussed their philanthropies at Kensington Palace when he dropped round for tea.
Brown thinks Diana & Charles were on good terms in the last year of Diana’s life: ‘At the end of Diana’s life, she and Charles were on the best terms they’d been for a very long time,’ Ms Brown claimed, recalling their conversation ‘as if it was yesterday. Charles got into the habit of dropping in on her at Kensington Palace and they would have tea and a sort of rueful exchange. They even had some laughs together. It was definitely calming down, the boys were older. They talked about their philanthropies. And she had accepted Camilla.
Diana would have taken Charles back: ‘One thing she had finally done was really understand that Camilla was the love of his life, and there was just nothing she could do about it. But she said to me at that lunch that she would go back to Charles in a heartbeat if he wanted her.’ She added that the princess was ‘desperately lonely’ and told her she wished that her marriage could have survived because she and Charles would have made ‘a great team’.
Diana’s issues: Brown claimed Diana was ‘possessive’ and ‘terribly demanding and needy’ which meant none of her subsequent romances were successful. Despite being a little ‘delusional’ about what she could achieve, Ms Brown insisted Diana was on the cusp of trying to reinvent herself as a ‘seriously impactful person’ and knew what she wanted. According to Ms Brown, Diana had aspirations to help solve the Irish peace process and become a female equivalent of Nelson Mandela.
Diana had brass balls: Recalling the time plucky Diana danced with Wayne Sleep to Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl at the Royal Opera House in 1985, Ms Brown remarked: ‘Can you honestly imagine Kate doing that, or even Meghan? She had a mixture of understanding that she had a unique star power and natural magnetism which was something that evolved. She came to love that… Having the public love you, when your husband doesn’t, it’s something of a panacea. The more he spurned her, the more she sought public approbation.’
Brown wrote something similar in The Diana Chronicles, that once the divorce came through, Diana and Charles both relaxed around each other, and he would drop by Kensington Palace to talk often enough. And yes, I do think that despite it all, if Charles had suddenly fallen madly in love with her and wanted her back, Diana would have run to him. What a story that would have been. But no. ‘Twas not to be.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid and Avalon Red.
I’m very interested in her upcoming book, the Palace Papers, I think she has said it comes out in the spring? or maybe later than that.
I can believe Diana said this, whether she meant it or not is a different story. But if we acknowledge that one thing Diana was always looking for was to be loved – if Charles suddenly able to provide that for her, I do think she might have gone back.
I also believe it. The only man she really loved was Charles and she couldn’t understand why he couldn’t love her back. After the separation she mentioned to a number of people that she loved Charles. Her other dalliances were to make him jealous. It has been said that she dressed Hewitt up to look more like Charles.
Diana fell in love with Khan. She told her sons that although she loved their father they could never live together again. SHe also did not like the emotional coldness of Charles.
She did love him. Why wouldn’t Khan marry Diana? Was it religion or her fame or maybe he didn’t feel the same?
Diana didn’t marry Khan because he genuinely didn’t want the attention that Diana would attract globally. To his credit he has never spoken publicly about their intense affair. But l think that everything took its toll on him and l believe like Hewitt he remains a single man.
I also think that Diana wanted a mixed race child.
I think that maybe Khan would rather have been a bachelor. His marriage to someone of his own culture ended in divorce. Maybe he just did not want to marry at all. Diana ended the relationship with Khan by changing her mobile phone number.
I think that the Diana Chronicles is the best book ever written about Diana. A very balanced account of what happened and a lot to learn from, so much so that l sent Meghan a copy just after she got engaged.
What a pity that Tina Brown gave an interview to that awful biased Tominey woman who calls herself a journalist.
Charles never really grew up. That’s why he could not be a good husband to Diana He needed the Other Woman who was good at manipulation to say things she knew he’d like to hear (oh they don’t understand you Charles or appreciate you). He also never seems to take responsibility and blames others. Charles also had other women around besides Diana and Camilla (Janet Jenkins and Dale Tryon among others).
Diana was an adolescent when she met Charles and just twenty when she married him. It stunted her emotionally and she was trapped in that emotional adolescence for pretty much the rest of her life, when it came to men. And romanticizing that he was the love of her life is a part of a typical regression one might suffer when traumatized at that age (and due to her own parents’ disastrous marriage). She was physically free yet permanently trapped (and would have had to do a lot of work and therapy to break free emotionally).
What?
lol. Help me help you understand what I wrote. (I edited it for clarity.)
Funnily enough I understood what you were saying. Diana came from a dysfunctional family. Her first experience of rejection was her mother bolting from the family home. She was young a virgin and naive when she got married to a much older Charles. His rejection of her was a repeat of a major, life changing childhood emotional trauma. She then set out to earn/fight for his love to no avail. She also took up with other men who were also emotionally distant and unavailable as that was what she knew. So sad.
In simplest terms we all wish we could go back to our abusive gaslighter exes, and hope they can see us for the great people we are, as others see us, but alas it’s in creditably unhealthy and in the end they will never see us that way. They are toxic
I get this explanation because in a lot of ways I *am* this explanation. And thank you! You put something into words that I have a hard time understanding for myself about myself.
Diana had had enough by 1989-90 and would not be the abused wife who goes back to the husband.
This seems believable.
I’m sure all that she went through with Charles, basically marrying her for duty and then leaving her alone to fend for herself with the royals, affected her self esteem and self view especially being so young. I can see why she’d be clingy and have trouble feeling truly loved in future relationships. They really did a number on her head. It seems that just as she was on the brink of coming into her own as a person she died. Tragic.
POPPY COCK – after the treatment she received I think she was done.
Maybe she would have stayed to ensure Bill’s passage to the throne but for nothing more.
Charles was horrible to her, treated her with disdain, Camilla never gave them any breathing room. Diana had no love story. No love. But for her children and the public. It’s been a delight to watch Charles 30 year PR game explode. I’m glad Netflix is educating a new generation.
I have to agree. The actual total disregard of Diana’s humanity by Charles is disgusting. He’s… not a good person. Or at the least someone who needs intense therapy, but even then? Let’s be honest – William, aka rage monster, aka Duchess saboteur, is the result of this family’s sins.
I believe it.
I don’t know enough to comment about most of this, but I’ve seen the photos (and fictionalizations) of the “Uptown Girl” performance and it doesn’t look very challenging. I could do it, so I’m sure a performer with professional training and experience, like Meghan, could manage it easily. People do more complicated choreography on “Dancing with the Stars.” It was surprising at the time because those shows weren’t all over tv at the time, and because Diana did not have any professional performing experience.
It’s a small thing about the Diana Myth, but it gets my goat. She surpassed a lot of people’s expectations of her, and that’s remarkable, but that doesn’t make her the Absolute Bestest of Everything Ever. We don’t have to counter the Royal’s downplaying of her abilities by exaggerating them.
I don’t believe anyone’s exaggerating her abilities as a dancer. (At least, no one who isn’t a fan with no sense of proportion.)
When people rave about the performance, they’re raving mostly about the fact she did it at all, not that it was incredibly challenging. She took a risk. She could have gotten stage fright, or tripped, or done anything that made her look silly and the risk regrettable. Aside from the fact of public performance, she was putting it in the context of performing FOR Charles, and Charles’ sake. All of that together showed an incredibly willingness to be vulnerable. That was Diana’ whole gig: from taking her baby on international tour, to hugging a child with AIDS, to walking through a landmine-infested area — a willingness to expose herself to possible weakness and failure.
It’s hard to put into words how very anathema that is not just to the usual attitude of the British royal family but their entire ethos as an institution. And keep in mind this is a time before self-promotion on social media was even a conception. Hell, this was before even the tabloids really got their teeth into the main royals. The most the royal family “exposed” themselves as personal individuals, beyond puffed-up pieces approved by publicists, was a ’70s documentary that went down like a lead balloon. Even for a regular amateur, it would have begged the question “why are you putting yourself out there, like that?” to perform onstage before an audience who was used to seeing the very best. For a royal princess to do it — especially in the context of WHY she (proclaimed) she did it — that’s why it shocked and amazed, and won admiration.
I realize that. I am objecting to Brown saying Meghan would not be able to do the dance. Of course she could.
The reception of course would be very different. Diana was a posh white woman, and Meghan is not. The standards are low for the royals, but they are also lower for posh white Diana than they could ever be for Meghan.
@tcbc
He didn’t say she “wouldn’t be able to.” He just asked if people could imagine Meghan doing it. The most that can be implied from that is that it wouldn’t be part of Meghan’s brand to do it, he’s right, and I say thank god for it because she deserves to be her own person and not a Diana cosplayer.
I think Meghan would be inclined to a dance like Diana did–the only reason why she wouldn’t is that she knows she’s be torn to pieces by it–she’d be seen as upstaging Kate. I honestly wonder if, between the two of them, they knew all along that they would never stay, and that remaining in the royal family was untenable for both of them. They have literally nothing to do there. And “support” they are supposed to give William could be seen as supplanting him.
Dont mean to thread jack. Ultimately there was no place for Diana in the royal family because she was too charismatic. There’s no upstaging the Queen and the POW. The irony is the very thing the public love Diana and Meghan for (as different as they are) are the very things that prevent them from fitting in. The RF wants to benefit from their popularity and punish them for it at the same time. And when they have a dull doormat in the family, they aren’t satisfied with that either because she doesn’t sell media. Ultimately, the media wants married-in royal women served up to them as human sacrifices–that’s their only true purpose. Put them on a pedestal, then watch with glee as they are smacked down. The criticism of Kate will begin again, now that Meghan is gone. And they’ll never forgive Meghan for escaping.
You’ re right. I have seen a video of a young Meghan singing ‘Santa baby’, she has a lovely voice. We’ve seen Meghan dancing in South Africa. I mean performing was part of her JD as an actress. Meghan would never have done such a performance simply because she is well aware of her genetic make up. She would have been accused of being attention-seeking, gauche and narcissistic.
Very well said.
Harry DID say in an interview that leaving was something he and Meghan discussed before they got married, so yeah, I think it was ALWAYS something under the radar for them, until it was in the bullseye.
Don’t forget, leaving was something Harry talked about doing from the time he left the Army.
I believe it for the sheer fact that she had loved him and if he wanted her back it would have been a sense of affirmation for her. Not sure how long she may have stayed but I can see it.
I wouldn’t be surprised, in her eyes he was her first love and she likely spent years trying to win his affection and approval. I’m sad she did not get the chance to experience true love as she was such a romantic. I had always hoped that Dodi was that person.
Hadn’t she met/been dating Dodi for barely a month when the car crash occurred? They barely knew each other. It might have become a great love story had they both not died, maybe. But the likely truth is that Dodi was a rebound from Hasnat Khan, who Diana had broken up with just two months prior. This is why I will never consider Dodi Al Fayed her true love. As a child I didn’t understand this (I was 9 when she died) but later on I realized she and Dodi weren’t this amazing love story that got cut short. They had barely gotten started and rebound relationships don’t often work out. To be clear, I’m not saying none of them do but I really don’t think Dodi and Diana would have lasted all that long had they gotten a real chance.
Tina Brown’s book has Dodi and Diana on the outs from the start. She writes that Dodi had been dating and, I think, engaged to another woman and his father ordered him to break it off and come and entertain Diana that summer. One of the saddest parts of the book was that several witnesses saw Diana crying in the Ritz restaurant the night she died – Dodi had fairly serious cocaine issues and that last day and night saw them running backwards and forwards like chickens. It was totally chaotic.
There’s also quite a lot of evidence (including from the British pathologist who gave evidence at the inquiry into her death – detailed in his book ‘Unnatural Causes’) that had they realised she was bleeding internally earlier, she could have been saved. But she appeared relatively unscathed and Trevor Rees-Jones looked in a far worse way, so, not realising either who she was, they didn’t rush her straight to hospital and focused on the bodyguard. By the time she went into cardiac arrest from the blood loss, it was too late. All just horrendously tragic.
The whole ‘true love’ story was put about by Mohammed Al Fayed after they both died.
I have no idea, I was also young when she lost her life. When I learnt about Charles’ treatment of her many years later, I had been hoping that she had at least experienced love afterwards. This is so sad, she deserved better
This is what makes me so sad for Dodi’s father. Diana probably wasn’t the love of his son’s life. He died because he was in her proximity when the press chased her to her death. I bet he wishes they never met.
Dodi had given up cocaine by then. DIana would not have associated with him if he had. DIana was crying in the restaurant because the other diners were gawking at her making her uncomfortable. They left the restaurant and dined in their hotel suite.
It’s been a while now but I remember in that book Brown said that Diana was bored that summer. Most friends went to the country and couldn’t invite her either because they couldn’t provide the security she needed or didn’t want to get on the bad side of the rf. Dodi could afford the security she need so she went. Just tragic.
Nothing is worse than being devalued by the person you love and think loves you. Especially at such a tender age. It happened to me at that age, everything seemed wonderful until it wasn’t. He wasn’t royalty but he was a well known musician and I was in awe of him. Then the devaluing started, from there the infidelity, the gaslighting, etc. When you’re that young and vulnerable emotionally, when your trust gets crushed and your self-esteem is ruined it really changes you. I can absolutely see how she fell apart, became needy and insecure and fell victim to eating disorders. If only Charles had been a decent husband and nurtured her through her first years as a princess things would have been much different and I daresay William wouldn’t have turned out to be such a selfish, lazy man-child.
(((Hugs)))
I am so sorry. You did not deserve that. I hope your ex steps has wet socks and too small shoes for the rest of his life.
I would hope not, he ruined her life. If anything I could see them reunited for work with an understanding that it wasn’t anything romantic. she loved him though so I can see how this conclusion was made.
She was a bit of a beg so I believe it. All she ever wanted was him to just love her and have a single family unit where they just smile and wave, which is sad, but just the reality.
Why is that sad? What’s sad about wanting that? She wanted what anyone would want. She might have been stuck on the fairy tale aspect of it and that’s not great, but at the same time, who doesn’t have something the fantasize about, which they know will never really work out that in way reality?
let’s see.
Door number 1. Go back to Charles who leaves Camilla (hahahahahahaha, picks self up from the floor. never happen) and devotes himself to the girl who shares zero chemistry with him. let’s try again.
Door number 2. Go back to the man who would have likely kept cheating with his mistress and therefore accept the infidelity and live as a celibate. I’ll pass.
Door number 3. Go back to the man who will keep his mistress, agree this is fine and take a lover, accept this is your life and live happily ever after. ok. this one could have worked. I mean it’s what the aristocrats do.
Diana wanted to marry someone who loved her and perhaps have another child or two. I don’t think she wanted to “settle” for the sort of life Camlla and APB led, an open marriage. Diana would not have wanted that. ANd Charles was openly more contemptuous of DIana when he was near her. Nobody should have to “settle” for that sort of thing, Charles was not worth it. Plus Camilla had ambitions and she did not want to remain the mistress.
exactly. which would have made the story above untrue. i don’t believe she said that in the weeks prior to her death.
I don’t think he ever wanted her. 🙁
I don’t either. He was in his early thirties and his family pushed for him to find someone, anyone to marry. As long as she was an aristocrat and a virgin. Oh, and as malleable as possible so as not to make waves or steal the spotlight from anyone. How wrong they were (about the last bit, at least).
Exactly, yes. It was a business transaction, all for show and to save face. Remember “whatever ‘in love’ means”?! That’s not just your typical English reserve talking.
Question: Kate was clearly not a virgin when she and William married, so how when did the insistence on virginity for the bride of the future king change?
(And thank the stars it did. 😠)
@TeaForTwo, I don’t know about Kate’s virginity, and I don’t want to discuss that–but the issue here with Diana wasn’t that she was a virgin, although that’s how it was presented. It was that she didn’t have “a history” ie she wasn’t seen going about town with a different man on her arm every night, didn’t have a long term relationship with a man prior to Prince Charles, didn’t have a “reputation” as being one of “those types.” Yes, the virginity aspect was one part of it, but the other part of it was also how much did she care about keeping her reputation intact, and how much discretion did she exercise in doing that, even if the facts didn’t necessarily match up?
And that’s how that requirement has evolved with Kate. Kate didn’t need to be a virgin–but the most public, prominent relationship she had had was with William. She had been with William since she was first at university–when she was 18 years old. She had been with him, with the exception of a short break in 2007, all the way until they got engaged in 2010. We know *some* details of other relationships she had, and with whom, but her most consistent, permanent one, by far, was with William. So in that respect, how different was she, really, from Diana? She got married to the guy she’d been with since she was 18 years old. The only difference was that they didn’t get married. But the end result of it was the same.
no A back then there was the virginity and purity aspect. diana herself hinted at that. she knew she was being groomed to be an aristocrat’s wife and said she had to keep herself tidy in preparation of that. whilst her roommates would date and have their romps she did not.
I think what she meant was that she wished they could have found a way to stay married but more as a business arrangement, while accepting that they each had separate personal lives. I too remember that they got along well at the end. I remember a funny story that after one of their lunches together, she walked him out and said so that doormen/attendants could hear, “So, same time next week?!?” in a joking way to sound like it they had an standing date “with benefits.” I think that’s funny and shows she had moved on in her life.
Sometimes the first love is the only love and i think that in Diana’s case this was true and I think if there was a chance of a reconciliation she would have taken it – it was said that she had hoped they could work things out.
Again its been long said that they had started to get along as friends before she passed and I can see that being true – making it work for the sake of their sons. But who knows – both were/are 2 very dysfunctional people from very dysfunctional families. The Spencers were no better than the Windsors.
I think 1989 and earlier she would have. But she was not a masochist and Charles was increasingly treating her with Contempt. She did tell her sons she loved their father but they could not live together anymore. She was realistic.
When you think about how young Diane was when she married, had children, and died is really tragic. She was a baby growing up in front of the public with no mental and emotional help. Unfortunately, she passed away very young, 36 years years old. I know for myself at 39 years old I’m finally coming into my own and feeling comfortable with who I am. It’s sad that she died when she was just starting to figure who she is and what she wants.
Beautiful, intelligent (no not an “intellectual” but still smart enough to develop every advantage she had) charismatic, aristocratic and still she ran into a series of guys who all thought that once they had her attention that they themselves were all that and a brick of cheese. Come on ladies, put your hands up if you can relate. Her experiences with men were sadly universal in a way.
I have lost count of the number of women I’ve seen with everything going for them and still the men they’re with act like “well of course she’s with me, I’m great” even if they’re clearly punching above their weight class. Or they just become disinterested, think the grass is greener in another pasture.
Me personally, I’ve had better luck. But I’m not the type who was ever going to attract many men to begin with. I was one potato rolling around in the bin and rolled into another compatible potato. The end.
But I’ve seen Diana’s struggles play out over and over with women I know that had more going for them and you’d think the men would be making more of an effort for them. But nah. The male ego and sense of entitlement found in SOME men will never fail to astound me.
She was an intellectual though. Let’s not undersell that. It’s not that she had emotional intelligence, which she did. But she had an intellect, it just wasn’t the sort that was thought of as intellect at the time. She was a student of the media, of seeing how media personalities are created, and what works and what doesn’t. She was very fucking smart, and that is beyond just having emotional intelligence–that sort of thing requires someone to recognize patterns, assess them, make calculated decisions, etc. The truth here is not that Diana wasn’t an intellectual–it’s that the definition of an intellectual, at the time, was one that fit only a very narrow, specific group of people, and was ultimately just faulty for that reason.
*Raises hand* That’s why I find this anecdote (which I can see being absolutely true) so sad. Diana at 36 was coming into her own, and yet she still felt her value was defined by whether a man found her “lovable,” whatever that means. (Ha! “Whatever that means!”)
Charles could have been all “Diana, I love you after all, please come back!” and she would have run to him, and even if in this fantasy he’d been faithful and reasonably considerate from then on, they’d still be fundamentally incompatible. Different interests, different personalities. I’d like to think if she’d had more time she’d have been able to define herself to herself, and then use that as the point of departure for finding true compatibility and love.
NOPE don’t believe it AT ALL.
I feel like something big is coming out about PWT and Waity, this is just another article to prepare for it..
Photos never completely capture the glow and natural charisma she had. She had so little time to find her own groove in life. Like others, I don’t buy the Dodi myth. I think he was literally a summer fling.
It might be plausible that she wanted to remarry her children’s father, but she may have liked the idea of his wanting to get together again. Getting over rejection is hard enough for the non-famous.
If I remember correctly at the time she was in love with a surgeon, who dumped her because he couldn’t tolerate the press and all the crazyness, and she started dating Dodi only to make him jelous.
I believe she would have gone back to Charles as “a team” like a business arrangement, many celebrities power couple have this kind of arrangement. She was 36 another mindset.
I think her feelings for Hasnat Khan were strong and they may have gotten back together if she had not died in that horrible accident. It’s hard to say if they could have overcome the challenges they had but she was reported to be pretty crazy about him and he was one of the few men who respected her enough not to sell her out in any way. At least as far as I know.
If she had been my friend and told me she would go back to Charles I’d tell her to realize her own worth and keep it strictly coparenting business with that horse faced narcissistic mess of a man. So I fervently hope that if there was a man she entertained ideas of reconciliation with, it was Hasnat and not Charles. But ultimately it would have been great if she had lived long enough to surprise us all with fantastic things that had nothing to do with men at all.
After the way Charles treated her, giving DIana cheap presents and Camilla valuable jewelry, and taunting Diana in public, no way would Diana want to go back to him. She said at the time, “my life is torture.” Diana wanted Dr. Khan not Charles.
Her soul was too large for this world. Thats why she shone so bright. Just like a shooting star. You cant look away. You know youre witnessing a once in a lifetime phenomena.
Charles did her dirty. What a shameless coward he is. And *THAT* is the next king of England?! What a joke! No balls at all to stand up to his equally stupid mother. No balls to walk away from a useless crown and fight for that shameless so called love of his Camilla. No balls to man up and let Diana down slowly….this man and his family literally bullied her to death! All that money and you still cant get her the medical help she needed through the depression?
What makes me really sad is she was just a child; goodness, at 25 i was contemplating suicide because adulting was unnavigable for me; a whole existential quarter life crisis. Can you then imagine being a shy innocent child and having a grown adult INTENTIONALLY emotionally manipulate you into marriage (he NEVER told her he would continue cheating or that it was a marriage of convenience), make you fall in love, make you have feelings for him, make you have his babies hence deepening the connection…only to find out it was all a lie?! Orchestrated by an entire household of grown ups and a grown up married woman who was just so thirsty to be his sidepiece? Oh my goodness, its infuriating!!!
I hope Prince Harry never comes back. I hope the monarchy falls. It would be the ultimate middle finger. I hate that family!!! All except Harry. Phillip is the worst!!! I hope Charles never gets that stupid throne which he wants so bad he couldnt find his balls to say no to leading a poor innocent Diana to her death. Shame on you Charles!!!
I think Diana did want him back but she reached her limits and gave up on him ca. 1989-90. He also was publicly putting her down and making snide comments and could not conceal contempt for her. She moved on at that point, she at one point told Charles she wanted them to start over and perhaps they could have another baby he turned her down. ANd at that point Diana thought enough is enough. Also after she confronted Camilla, she was scolded by Charles and she countered how could you have done this to me. I think she would love Charles as the father of her sons but she knew it was OVER between them and did not want him back. I think she did fall in love with Dr. Khan. Tina Brown did not do right by Diana in that book hinting that she was the woman in the royal train when it was Camillla who was there. Diana was not even engaged to Charles then and I doubt she’d have risked being rejected for sleeping with Charles. I also don’t think Brown and Diana were friends.
The Dodi stuff is ridiculous especially the pregnancy stories. They basically spent a couple of weeks together over the summer. Diana would’ve been monumentally stupid and careless to get knocked up by a summer fling. And she wasn’t. It’s a total whitewashing (no pun intended) of Hasnat Khan out of her life.