Katie Nicholl at Vanity Fair published a piece about Princess Diana and her sons on Wednesday, the eve of Diana’s 60th birthday (which is today). As the world waits for Prince Harry and William to unveil the statue of Diana in Kensington Palace’s Sunken Garden, Nicholl’s VF piece is a reminder of how toxic men have tried to revise, gaslight, smear and recreate Diana for their own purposes. Nicholl quotes men like Dickie Arbiter and Andrew Morton, who talk about what Diana would have been doing at 60, and how disappointed she would be with her sons fighting. It’s a macabre reminder of how these men would prefer to create their own narratives about Meghan and Harry as well. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
The spotlight on William and Harry at the unveiling. Aware of the huge media attention into the day and that the focus will largely be on their body language and interaction, palace officials have done away with the usual royal rota in favor of a “Palace rota,” which comprises one agency reporter, one photographer and a single camera crew. It is understood there will be no livestream from the event, but footage will be released to media outlets afterwards.
Harry’s leaving soon after the unveiling: Those who know the brothers say they will rise to the occasion on the day, and according to one source “put on a good show,” particularly because members of Diana’s family are expected to attend. But the prospect of the brothers sorting things out will be slim if Harry plans to return to California immediately after the event, which one source believes is his plan. “I get the impression Harry isn’t going to stick around for long which leaves very little time for any really meaningful talks,” according to one source.
The Spencer family is trying to help: Added a second source, “It is going to take a lot more than just a couple of conversations to repair the damage that has been done. Friends and some family members on the Spencer side have tried to pave the way for a reconciliation but it doesn’t feel imminent.”
Dickie Arbiter on how Diana would feel about her sons: “She would have banged their heads together and told them to sort it out. The rift would never have gotten this bad and I think Harry would still be here in the U.K. if Diana were still around.” Arbiter imagines she might have still been living in Kensington Palace, as the “safest place for her,” and that she would have been a “hands on” grandmother—and maybe even alongside Prince Charles. “I think her and Charles would have developed a decent relationship. They did talk to each other at the end and the relationship was better after the divorce than in the latter stages of their marriage. They adored each other at the start and they learned to like each other again at the end.”
Andrew Morton on what Diana would have done: He believes that, like Harry and Meghan, Diana would have started her own charitable foundation, something she was unable to do when married to Charles. “I think she would have continued that work, as reaching out to those in need was in her DNA. She once told me: ‘I don’t like the glamorous occasions any more—I feel uncomfortable with them. I would much rather be doing something with sick people.’” One of her dreams before her death was to build a global group of hospices run under her name, according to Morton. “Given her incredible pulling power I think her plan could have worked. By the time she was 60 she would have had a quarter century to do what she wanted, free from the palace.”
For what it’s worth, Dickie Arbiter sucks and he’s wrong. I seriously doubt Diana would have stayed at Kensington Palace. That was the whole reason why she was in France with the Fayeds – she was exploring her post-royal options and looking for the next phase, which was probably not going to include working through the royal routes. At the time, Tony Blair was said to be considering Diana for different ambassadorships, and I think she would have ended up moving out of the UK by 2000.
As for Harry not sticking around… lol. I hope he arrives at the statue-unveiling with his packed bags. He does his speech and waves to the small crowd and gets the f–k out of there. It’s what his mum would have wanted.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Arbiter is basically saying that Harry would have stayed in the UK because he wouldn’t have been with Meghan under Diana’s watch. The implication is that he would have married a ‘nice English rose’. Honestly, how many ways can these people dog whistle?
The same Diana that had relationships with two men of colour, both Muslims? Sure Jan!
They’ve all been saying that if Diana was alive Harry would have married someone from his ‘own background’. Never mind Diana was no stranger to interracial relationships. Funny they don’t speculate on William’s marriage prospects if Diana was alive..
It’s funny how the press have just been reporting on claims that people in William’s camp called Harry damaged goods who can’t be trusted etc & they all hate his wife but now this statute meet up will cause them to reconcile. That’s a magical statute
I would guess Diana would have been more proactive if Harry & William were fighting. Apparently one issue is that they don’t respect Charles& will only listen to Elizabeth. My guess is she might have had their ears. I also think the power vacuum with Elizabeth, Philip being old & getting rid of Geidt has helped exacerbate the conflict when Meghan married in
Because Diana would’ve never let Carol(E) get her claws into a grieving Willy, if she was still alive. That’s why they don’t like touching on the marriage optics when it comes to William, instead they direct all their dog whistles to Harry & Meghan’s marriage. These people are laughable.
It’s strange to me how they give scenarios which are the complete opposite of how Diana lived, who she was and what she said. Diana seemed to love the US so I’m sure she would have been ecstatic about Harry’s new home and choice in bride. She also allegedly didn’t like grown women in headbands…
Lord, I’ll be counting the hours until I hear he’s landed on US soil.
They are DESPERATE to force a reconciliation. But if William was actually serious about it, he wouldn’t have been pumping out the hit pieces against Meghan the weeks leading up to this.
Luckily Bulliam and his handlers are so self centred and inward-looking, they don’t even recognise that constantly attacking Meghan is their biggest own goal to date. It doesn’t make him any more charismatic popular or loved. He is tolerated (barely) and his granny having to go to Scotland for a charm offensive is telling everyone he can’t quite get the job done. He is still young but his constant rages and talks of putting his foot down make him sound like a mini despot dictator. Good luck with the reconciliation. He needs Harry more than Harry would ever need him.
Frankly i don’t care how it makes william look. Its does real damage to meghan and her mental health and its inhumane. He needs to call of his handlers.
They really are desperate. The new narrative is that Harry wants to reconcile with Will but Meghan won’t let him. They are even trying to say Harry and William texted recently. They had so many different narratives out during Phillips funeral and none of them were true. KP doesn’t want to look guilty so they are trying to sell that Harry is reconnecting with Will. It’s really sick.
Harry is going to act like a civil adult today. This unveiling is about his mom and not Will. The press know he will act cordial so they will push whatever narrative they want.
Some stans think William is a saint and did nothing wrong and they blame Meghan for “causing all the trouble.” This is the spin among them now.
I am really struck by how much fantasy is sold as news by the rota. That’s all they have left, their twisted imaginations, because Harry and Meghan have left the scene.
Exactly! That doesn’t sound like Diana at all. I hate that they get to talk on behalf of a dead woman who can’t speak for herself
People like Dickie Arbiter are really hurt that Harry left his role in the Royal Family but even worse that he left the country.
If these racist pigs wanted Harry to stay in the uk, then treating his wife the woman he loves like a human being and not like dirt stuck to the bottom of their shoes would have been the way to achieve that. I don’t understand how these people look in the mirror knowing how hateful and vile they are to a woman, the woman Harry who they claim to love when clearly they don’t understand the meaning of the word. How they can treat his wife this way. It hurts my heart and I am not even related to her.
I think Diana would have intervened long before it got to this point. I think she would have reined in William more if she possibly could have.
William I believe would be quite different had his mother lived. Not the man Harry has shown himself to be but likely Wills would be less of an ass.
Diana couldn’t rein in Cain as a teenager, this guy was use to pushing her around.
I’m sure Diana would have intervened but I’m not sure how much influence she would have had over William, as he reportedly spent a lot of time with the Queen mother who in part shaped his thinking. I will just leave that there.
That bigoted old woman (TQM) also was “quite close” to Charles and shaped him. Coincidence? I think not.
She would have one 100% gone to bat for Meghan and had her back publicly and to the media.
I understand that these are dusty old men, so I think I have to break it to them and give them shocking news:
YOU CAN ALSO COMMUNICATE OVER THE PHONE.
There’s also some new-fangled options like video-chats, which use a computer and what is referred to as a “web” camera.
They make reconciliation sound like the f-cking Yalta Conference.
This. 👍
Yep. Not only that but planes fly BOTH directions. It’s the usual Harry needs to make all the concessions garbage.
I didn’t see this when I posted below – but yes! It’s like they’re envisioning Harry sitting at the end of loooong, cavernous hall, waiting for a bewigged footman to tell him, “The Future Future King will now see you.”
@Laraw, that newfangled communication technology sounds pretty great! Maybe I can stop using this tin can with a string…
Seriously though, we know William can zoom in for “work”. Even the Queen has been video chatting with Harry’s family! Maybe she’ll have to give him some tech pointers while he is in Scotland, hiding from his brother, er, I mean, saving the union with his charm.
Jay, it is truly a wonder! I had been sending telegrams all this time, only to find out that there’s something called Unlimited Talk and Text. It blew my mind!
I do recommend using tins from chicken soup. Something about the salt content really enhances the reception. 😝
Diana would have been appalled at the way William behaves.
Agreed. I don’t know what she would’ve thought of Kate but I’m sure she would’ve been livid at William for cheating on Kate.
While I agree she would also be appalled that Harry left the RF. She even said she regretted leaving the RF. She would have prevented this riff from getting out of hand & she would have been able (I think) to help Meghan so she hadn’t felt so abused. She wanted W&H to be a team, a dynamic duo of sorts & that would have been powerful force which Charles wouldn’t be able to outshine
No, Diana knew Cain, he was a prat from a child, a lot of his rearing was done by the courtiers, (teaching him how to look down on people) who blew smoke up his arse, and that is why he is such a turd.
Dickie Arbiter, lol! He must be senile. I bet he thinks Diana and Camilla would be having tea together. I think Diana would have moved to the US and maybe married again. Who knows, maybe Will and Harry both would have married Americans. At any rate, I believe Diana would be enjoying her freedom and I think she would encourage Harry to do the same. They would have had the same problems in a sense of them accusing Diana of creating a “rival court” and “overshadowing” but I could see Harry leaving to work with an organization she founded rather than stay under William’s thumb. I think she would want to be a hands on grandmother but I also could see William “punishing” her by trying to limit access to his kids regardless of who he married, unless he reconciled with her when he got older.
Sounds like a much more likely scenario.
I stumbled upon some old quotes from Diana and was surprised to find out how much she loved it here. I didn’t start royal watching until Meghan , although I was very familiar with Harry, and I was too young for Diana, so it was really interesting to find that she liked the states. She said she felt she could be herself and she didn’t feel judged. She felt americans cared more about who she was as a person more than anything else. I think she would’ve moved here. I could see her in New York or even LA had she lived and America is a great place to start a foundation.
Yes, he would have taken his mother in law places instead of Diana to “punish” her. Had he married Kate that is.
I see that there’s still a lot of projecting going on here. These people have know idea what diana would have done, tho im sure she doesn’t like the fact that her sons are fighting (no mother does).
It’s more than fighting, it was that William was allowed to try to control his brother’s life and act like he’s in charge of the family. Also the horrible way William acted with Meghan.
Oh absolutely. Still, its difficult to say what she would have wanted or done had she still been alive. Personally i think that if she still was around william wouldn’t have been who he is. But maybe im wrong and he would have cut his mother completely off, swallowed by the institution he’s going to lead one day.
William would still be awful if Diana were still alive. He was a bratty kid/ teenager. I don’t think they were even that close. He would have definitely kept his kids from her as a form of punishment so he could get his way. I honestly don’t think Diana could have reined him in.
Even if she had lived William would still be the horrible man child he is today – he’s been this way as a child and often acted out toward his mother. William always had/has unresolved issues around his relationship with Diana – there are many reports of how awful he treated her. For a child to repeatedly lash out verbally and physically to a parent says a lot more about William than anything else – there are very clearly behavioural issues that were never properly addressed. It will take intense lifelong therapy for William to manage his anger and other personality issues. But he has to want that.
William has a bad relationship with his father and as I say above, would have very likely had a bad relationship with his mother. He blames a lot of his issues on them.
@Ginger I feel the same way. William was 15 and was treating her badly already. He was already screaming and shoving her. I think William was already too set in his ways to have been a completely different person had Diana lived. Maybe their relationship would have gotten better with time, but I don’t think it would have been sunshine and roses if Diana was still around.
Maybe Diana would have brought William to therapy to deal with his anger and the issues in their relationship.
Diana would have told William to stop interfering in Harry’s life . And to mind his own business. I don’t think William would have gone to St. Andrew’s had Diana lived and she might have pushed him to work instead of his clubbing and taking expensive vacations.
…William was just talking ish about his wife through his friends last week. F these people for expecting the wronged to make amends with the wrongdoers
That Katie Nicholl chats with and quotes Dickie Arbiter and Andrew Morton really tells you all you need to know about this horseshit. A true circle jerk. The cockamamie notion that Diana would have ever lived at KP again is delusional. My god. Oh, and Harry (not Meghan, Archie or Lili) would still be in the UK if she was alive??? This outright racism is making my teeth ache from the clenching. I’m incandescent. 🤬
Blah, blah, cut and paste, cut and paste. It’s like a game to see how many ways they can shuffle words around to say the same thing.
I love the image of Harry showing up with his bags packed. “We’ll just stow them away behind this statue, shall we?”
Wasn’t there talk of Diana settling in the United States before she died? Malibu? I think we all know which son she would be visiting and which son wouldn’t have married a woman with no work ethic under her watch.
That picture of Diana in the white suit with the flowers…..one of my all time favourites. Thanks. Really miss her. She was such a source of inspiration and strength for me.
Absolutely! She was literally one in a billion! Diana inspired all of us, especially Keen MiddleButtons. I bet Carole and the keenest linchpin saw that pic years ago and the Great Button Cosplay was born.
He has a 2 year old and a one month old at home. Of course he’s going back there as soon as he can. I don’t know if that means today or tomorrow, but I know he’s not hanging out in the UK in the event that William may want to talk to him.
Like I said yesterday, its hard to talk about what would have happened with the brothers had Diana lived, because history doesn’t work like that. It’s not like everything about their lives would have taken the same course, just with Diana there. William may not have attended St. Andrews, may not have married Kate, etc. Harry’s life likewise would have taken a very different path. He likely would not have founded Sentebale, and while I think he likely would still have gone into the military, he may not have pushed so hard to be deployed to Afghanistan, etc.
So we can’t say “well the rift wouldn’t have gotten this far” because EVERYTHING would be different.
I agree about the pointless speculation – other events could have happened in that alternate timeline. Charles could have been run over by a bus…
As for Harry hanging around the UK – It’s the 21st century, not the 18th. There are such things as communications devices – no need to meet in person, like some kind of audience with the FFK. But the I guess the media is looking for embraces and/or fisticuffs.
I agree. It’s really hard to do the whole “what would x be like if y had lived to 2021/*insert whatever date*” because there’s SO many factors to think about. If Diana was still alive, William and Harry most likely wouldn’t have the lives they have today (I’m talking about personality and wives rather than wealth)
All i can see is the utter depravity of “joiurnalists” presuming to know what would have gone on in the mind of a long-dead Diana. They are all sick, the lot of them, a disgrace, and failures at life. The above article made me want to vomit.
oh please. Dickie Arbiter will always be that racist fossil who immediately scoffed at the idea that a relationship between Harry and Meghan could possibly be serious when news first broke they were together. The projection is strong with that one. His Prince Harry? A Race Traitor? So unthinkable that those girls are for anything but a good time that it’s actually funny people care about this news. Like that was his legit reaction. He gives off the vibes of a man who probably still calls African countries by their colonial names and has a flag of Rhodesia squirreled away somewhere. He’s an old school royalist and was a Buckingham palace spokesperson during the marriage and divorce and probably hated Diana. He can choke on this fanfiction.
“A flag of Rhodesia?” ROFL! The accuracy of your description.
He and Arthur Edwards are two peas in the RR pod. Both old, both out of touch with the real world, still living in the musty past of Empire and Royal Tradition – with the added touch of Arthur crying into his pint about Harry not coming round for drinks with the chaps, and Meghan not inviting them to tea and posing for pictures. They embody the Institution in a nutshell – the royal family, the courtiers, the tabloid press, the aristos – all doing the same things over and over again, because “but my dear, we’ve always done it that way.” We will always get the same recycled garbage from them, because they refuse to change.
Artiber is a bitter old man who has spent years cashing in on his former Royal position (he’s a former Private Sec to TQ). Same goes for Edwards whose been all over the news today about the rift and unveiling.
Sure, Harry and William have probably spoken and the fact that it leaked to the Fail tells me that it came from KP – TQ ordered everyone to stop leaking about the Sussex’s and who is ignoring it and getting away with it??? The Keens. If William didn’t leak it – Keen did via her mother.
It will be interesting to see their interactions today as I can’t imagine H will be happy that his convo’s with his brother made it into the press to embiggen Cain.
Trust – we’ll be getting stories about how Top CEO was behind it!!! Just you all wait…..
So much would be different if she was alive that speculation is a little ridiculous. Like, she probably would have wanted them to sort things out because she’s their mom. However, would they have even been in a fight this bad if she had lived? William’s bad behavior is part nature, but it certainly wasn’t helped by Charles’ hands off approach after Diana’s death. So, he probably wouldn’t be this bad if she had lived.
Who knows what would be going on if Princess Diana had lived. No one can know. I doubt she would enjoy her sons fighting, though.
“I hope he arrives at the statue-unveiling with his packed bag.”
lol, me too.
I’ll be glad when this is over with.
Do you think William will ever be able to let this go? I think it is going to haunt, hound, and harass his peace of mind for the rest of his life. Even when he tries not to, he is going to compare his life, actions and family to Harry’s forever. William is going to age hard.
Diana had two relationships with men of color, one being an Egyptian man. Do they know that Egypt is in AFRICA? These fools are so obsessed with Meghan’s blackness they cannot see straight. And the fact that Meghan is THAT girl sends them into a tizzy. What a bunch or racist wankers.
Diana could’ve remarried and had other children. She could’ve started new charities or become a recluse. The whole “Diana would’ve wanted” fan fiction is just that.
It’s rather nice to seeing photos of Diana. She was so beautiful. I love her nose! The article – all nonsense!
from what i read on this site ,William was called Basher,cause he had a temper. i am sure these 2 boys growing up before boarding school had lots of issue with William picking on Harry,and Diana had to always keep William in check. but then i also read on this site that as William got older ,he was not nice to his Mother Diana either. so one wonders if she was alive and at this stage of her boys life, I doubt William would have listen to her, cause he is the future king ,she needs to bow to him,their roles changed. don’t think with or without Diana, William would never let up on Harry. William made Harry his servant.So, whoever Harry had married, William would have still want Harry as his servant.plus the things he told Carole about his mother, seems William had no respect for his mother privacy at all. makes me wonder if William told his close friends what Diana said to him in private..
Let’s be real. Diana would have moved to California with them & befriended Doria.
My gosh, Diana was such an icon. These people forget that she hated and resented the BRG with the power of a thousand suns. Of course she would have supported Harry. She probably would have told William that he could come play with his brother or continue to pout in the garden while Harry had all the fun, like she had in the past 🙂 Can you even imagine Ambassador Diana?! That would have been something. Sigh.
My God, Diana was sooooo elegant.
My parents came to visit me incurring some time, cost, expense, and a lot of miles shortly after I had both of my children. It was natural at the time for the grandparents to visit the mother and new-born.
Why can’t Charles (and possibly Camilla) go to California for a trip? I’ve heard about royals traveling overseas for weddings and parties and horse races. I am certain that there are some very posh and discreet spa/hotels in the Santa Barbara area. Why wouldn’t he?