After Princess Diana’s death in 1997, I believe many people just stopped caring about the British monarchy. They either stopped caring about the Windsors permanently, or they just needed a break from the Windsor psychodrama for several years, then their interest was renewed when Diana’s sons became young men. My point is that there was definitely a “Windsor Lost Years” period where few people were paying attention and there was something of a vacuum. Well, Sophie Rhys Jones tried to step into that vacuum. Sophie, who is now the Duchess of Edinburgh, began dating Prince Edward in 1993, and they married in June 1999. The wedding was one of the first big royal events since Diana’s death. Sophie and Edward were an established couple (but not yet engaged) when Diana died, and people have always said that Sophie sort of believed that she could step into Diana’s shoes. As in, Sophie thought she could become a major star and royal celebrity, that she would be the glamorous blonde who replaced Diana as Queen of Hearts. Delusional? Yes. But just how delusional? Well, a new biography is trying to answer that question.
Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh has been a central member of the royal family for years, but she didn’t attend Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997 — and a new book claims to unveil the real reason why. In Sophie: Saving the Royal Family by Sean Smith, the author wrote that Sophie did not go to Princess Diana’s funeral on Sept. 6, 1997, because of the striking resemblance that she and Diana shared.
“She had an obvious and reasonable excuse: a friend at the palace explained, ‘Sophie decided it would be too upsetting for the crowd if she went,’ ” Smith wrote in the biography published on July 17, the Daily Mail reported. ” ‘She’s well aware that she looks like Princess Diana from a distance and made her decision in a caring and thoughtful way. The royal family fully supported.'”
Both the late Princess of Wales and Sophie wore their blonde hair in cropped haircuts, which Sophie, now 60, later grew out into a longer style that she continues to sport today. Diana and Sophie shared similar features with blue eyes and light hair, and the Duchess of Edinburgh reportedly once commented on the likeness.
“I don’t deny that we do look alike. But I couldn’t ever compete with Diana’s image. I’m not Diana,” Sophie told the Daily Mail in the 1990s, according to the Daily Express.
At the time of Diana’s death, the future Duchess of Edinburgh was a public relations professional known by her maiden name, Sophie Rhys-Jones, and was dating Queen Elizabeth’s youngest son, Prince Edward.
I laughed reading this – “Sophie decided it would be too upsetting for the crowd if she went…She’s well aware that she looks like Princess Diana from a distance and made her decision in a caring and thoughtful way.” “From a distance” is doing such heavy lifting, LMAO. “The royal family fully supported.” I’m sure they did – they fully supported Sophie, a royal girlfriend, not attending Diana’s funeral because Sophie was clearly bonkers!! I went back and grabbed some photos of Sophie in the ‘90s – the only “resemblance” to Diana is Sophie cutting and dyeing her hair just like Diana. Sophie even wore similar styles and mimicked Diana’s poses! Sophie must have been so disappointed to learn that the public’s interest in Diana didn’t transfer over to the closest blonde. Is this why Camilla can’t stand Sophie? Because Sophie tried to be the new Diana?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- HRH PRINCESS OF WALES (HRH Princess Diana) Seen at the 1995 Wimbledon Tennis Championships. COMPULSORY CREDIT: Talking Sport/Photoshot Photo UGL 009812/G-04a 09.07.1995,Image: 501805420, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call Photoshot Global HQ – London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , also New York Office Tel : + 1 646-429-8731 and Hamburg Office Tel +49 (0)40 530 240 5959, Model Release: no, Credit line: Photoshot / Avalon
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- SOPHIE RHYS JONES Girlfriend of HRH Prince Edward Bandphoto Agency Photo B21 007184/D-17 31.01.1994,Image: 502646293, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: For queries call UPPA + 44 (0)20 7421 6000, Model Release: yes, Credit line: © Band Photo / uppa.co.uk/Avalon
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- HRH PRINCESS OF WALES (Visiting the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London) COMPULSORY CREDIT: UPPA/Photoshot Photo UKWT 011125/26 06.03.1996,Image: 502658732, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call Photoshot Global HQ – London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , also New York Office Tel : + 1 646-429-8731 and Hamburg Office Tel +49 (0)40 530 240 5959, Model Release: no, Credit line: Photoshot / Avalon
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- HRH PRINCESS OF WALES Pictured in Birmingham, where she opened the National Institute of Conductive Education. COMPULSORY CREDIT: UPPA/Photoshot Photo URK 010559/A-23 31.10.1995,Image: 502659794, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call Photoshot Global HQ – London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , also New York Office Tel : + 1 646-429-8731 and Hamburg Office Tel +49 (0)40 530 240 5959, Model Release: no, Credit line: Photoshot / Avalon
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- SOPHIE RHYS-JONES British PR Executive Fiancee of HRH Prince Edward (Attends a performance of ‘Dracula’ by the Northern Ballet) COMPULSORY CREDIT: UPPA/Photoshot Photo UC 015971/A 23.03.1999,Image: 502726734, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call Photoshot Global HQ – London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , also New York Office Tel : + 1 646-429-8731 and Hamburg Office Tel +49 (0)40 530 240 5959, Model Release: no, Credit line: Photoshot/Avalon
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- DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES At Northwick Park and St Mark’s Hospital, Harrow to open the new Children’s Ambulatory Care Centre COMPULSORY CREDIT: UPPA/Photoshot Photo UIW 013520/B-08 21.07.1997,Image: 502739184, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call Photoshot Global HQ – London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , also New York Office Tel : + 1 646-429-8731 and Hamburg Office Tel +49 (0)40 530 240 5959, Model Release: no, Credit line: Photoshot / Avalon
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- HRH PRINCE EDWARD With his fiancee SOPHIE RHYS-JONES Pictured at St James’ Palace following the announcement of their engagement. COMPULSORY CREDIT: UPPA/Photoshot Photo UA 015717/G 06.01.1999,Image: 559550764, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: For queries call UPPA + 44 (0)20 7421 6000, Model Release: yes, Credit line: UPPA ./Avalon
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- SOPHIE RHYS JONES SOPHIE RHYS JONES GOING TO WORK IN MAYFAIR, LONDON ON HER BIRTHDAY – 20 JAN 1999,Image: 688895658, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: PNS/Avalon
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- Princess Diana at the Tate Gallery for a Gala Show on Her 36th Birthday, London Featuring: Princess Diana Where: London, United Kingdom When: 15 Jun 1997 Credit: Cover Images
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- Princess Diana And Her Butler Paul Burrell Visiting Sarajevo Featuring: Princess Diana, Paul Burrell Where: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina When: 15 Aug 1997 Credit: Cover Images
Well, I guess I can’t ever go to my mom or sister’s funeral. Too upsetting for the crowd!
If Sophie had attended the funeral, I think the reaction from anyone who even bothered to notice her would have been “Sophie who?”
Nobody cared about Sophie during that period between Di’s death and funeral. If the Rottweiler had made an appearance, she would have been lynched.
The press got the heat during that period especially the paps that when Lazy was being papped before she got the ring, people were shouting to them to leave her alone.
And honestly 30 years later does anyone really care about Sophie? Maybe she’s big in England but as a Canadian she is not known. I only know about her from this site. She’s a background character in this soap opera please.
She isn’t even big in UK. An actor called her out publicly for disrespecting him and she had to apologize. Can you imagine any actor who got the chance to handshake a BRF member calling them out for being rude? They wouldn’t dare. Nobody respects her.
What made her human for me – at least – was her struggle in giving birth to Louise. Other than that, she’s pretty much a non-entity and her lavender marriage to Eddy has all the hallmarks of nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Perhaps she really is the forerunner to Lazy.
i dont even think she’s a big deal in England. I think she’s kind of a throwback in some ways, where she’s this under the radar royal who does regular engagements and tours (certainly more than Kate) – kind of like the Gloucesters or something. So she serves her role in the royal family well without stealing any spotlight.
but for some reason her team has decided to push her as the secret weapon or the backbone of the royals or something and its just not doing her any favors. She’s a nonentity like @Blogger said above and that can be both good and bad for the royals.
I think even today, at a major event like a state dinner, people wouldnt know who she was AND would completely skip her over except for her tiara and sash. And even then…..she’s mostly skipped over.
She’s a mean girl with a very ugly soul.
Pretty sure that’s the same reaction she gets now too. Who?
Exactly this! She looks like she tried very hard to copy Princess Diana but as we have seen with Waity the copy just looks pathetic and desperate.
Wow delusion is an understatement. Yes she had a short blonde haircut but a Diana look a like? Hardly!
Perhaps Eddy wanted the Diana look alike. They were closer in age too.
She has always been delusional on that score. Nowhere near as beautiful and less than zero charisma.
I remember that being the narrative when she and Edward got married. “Oh my god, she looks like Diana!”
I recall when Sophie first came on the scene I thought she looked like Diana. Not that I couldn’t tell them apart, mind you. Diana is and always will be inimitable.
The only part of her that looks like Diana is her hair — and that is a deliberate choice she made. Copy-catting really is ingrained in that family
I was thinking that too. No wonder she and Kate get along.
Ha! This is hilarious. What a wannabe.
The people who were invited to attend Diana’s funeral came from her Christmas card list IIRC. Sophie wasn’t on it because she was the live-in GF of Eddy who was outed by her ex with topless photos.
She is the antecedent to the copy-keen. As for the Rottweiler, she copied Diana too.
To even think that Sophie thought she was on Di’s level when she was a PR broad who sold her RF connections, is so odd. And today is the anniversary of Diana’s ill-fated wedding to Chucky.
Dear Diana, you had such an impact on the world. 🌬️🕯️
Camilla’s attempts to copy Diana’s “revenge dress” was, quite honestly, hilarious. If anyone hasn’t seen the photos, it’s a must-Google.
That was so embarrassing for her. Do not compete where you don’t compare. I wish these people had some self-insight. It would save them from embarrassing themselves publicly.
The copycatting is so weird and, Frankly, stupid. They clearly think that if they dress like Diana (or now Meghan) these women’s popularity will transfer to them. Except that is not how it works. Diana and Meghan are so massively popular because of who they are as persons, charismatic, caring and authentic. That cannot be replicated by copying their style.
She really thought she could pull it off.
No Rottweiler, Di took care of herself. She didn’t smoke like a chimney and went to the gym where she was secretly papped.
When the Rottweiler wore that revenge dress, her awful décolletage was on show and it was the skin that made it worse due to her ciggie and sunbaking topless habit.
Both Diana and Meghan had/have an innate sense of style and poise/self-confidence that you cannot imitate. That’s why copying them so often falls flat especially when its Camilla/Kate/sophie doing it. They also both had impeccable posture, which makes a difference in pulling off something like the revenge dress. Diana owned that dress. The dress isn’t famous just because of the dress. It’s because of how Diana wore it – that iconic picture of her walking with her hand outstretched to greet someone. She knew how she looked in it. Kind of like Meghan’s arrival at the Commonwealth service in that gorgeous green dress. I cant even imagine what she was feeling at the time, but she owned that look.
Do these married ins get a shot of the ” copies” by force at some point in that family ? This is WAY before my time but I felt like I was looking at production stills of Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh looking at those last two photos.
They don’t look anything alike other than being blond with a short cut. Which I’m positive there had to be 100,000 other women in London and the surrounding areas at that point in time who had that same cut for the obvious reason.
To even say this is the height of narcissm and I would be humiliated if people knew this. I hope they go through their usual channels and deny this, because if she thinks this looks good 30 years later, wow.
Imagine thinking that literally ANYONE was ever going to notice Sophie’s bland ass at the funeral of the most famous woman in the world.
EXACTLY THIS. hahaha. MY god the ego.
What an ego. Sophie neither looked or acted like diana.
They’ve had years to come up with this cover story. Wonder if the truth was that she was snubbed from it as just a girlfriend or some other reason. Funny how QE with her old-fashioned thinking has no problem with living together before marriage and then wearing white and a veil.
They don’t have anything else to talk about. Sophie gets a headline either with Diana’s or Meghan’s name attached to it. Nobody cares otherwise.
Agree. The Waleses are still on the yacht so it’s Sophie’s turn after so many Meghan stories.
SOMEBODY that is one of the many reasons why I don’t believe any lies they say about the Queen not liking anything about Meghan or what she wore to her wedding. There are too many examples of women marrying into that family who obviously weren’t virgins wearing white and veils. Her own daughter was a divorcee wearing white to her second wedding so, I don’t believe any of it. Besides the media has been telling us for years the Queen was the authority and it was a requirement to get her approval about everything before the wedding, so how is it so many things weren’t okayed by her, yet she still had Meghan’s dog Guy riding in the car with her to Windsor?
I imagine QEII was VERY relieved that a woman was willing to marry Edward.
Sophie doesn’t look anything like Diana. She didn’t go to Diana’s funeral because at the time she was just the girlfriend.
Exactly. She was neither fiancee nor wife. If she had attended it would have been a de facto engagement announcement. And there is no way that the Royal Family would allow a feel-good upcoming wedding announcement to be squandered at Diana’s funeral.
From the distance, if you are short sighted and forgot your glasses.
AHAHAHAHAHAH
I can’t stop laughing!!
I too didn’t attend Diana’s funeral*. It must have been because at the time I had blonde hair (dyed) and I’ve always had striking blue eyes (when everything else is pale, a dash of color always sticks out. Sophie and me, apparently twinsies with Diana.
*The real reason I didn’t go to the funeral: I was 18, starting college in the USA where I’ve always lived. But you know, reasons the BM could lie about….
Yeah, my mum didn’t go either because she had a similar colour and hairstyle. 🙄😉
Having said that… it is RIDICULOUS that they are scraping up 30 year-old meh tea? NOBODY noticed if Sophie was there anyway. What lunacy.
Oh Sophie…bless her heart. Wasn’t Sophie’s wedding (one of )the very first photoshop things with William? Didn’t they have to photoshop a smile onto his face for the big group photoshoot? Or was that some other blessed event?
It’s just odd to think Sophie would go to Diana’s funeral. She barely knew her and wasn’t married to Edward.
This is startlingly tacky. Not to mention disrespectful of Diana.
Let’s just say it was actually true, which I highly doubt — little Miss “I Look Like The World’s Most Famous Princess, Worship Me Too Please” was too dumb to just wear a wig or a scarf or a big hat?
Good grief.
Someone needs to tell her to stand down because her pathetic fetch ain’t happening.
Sophie Who???? 😡🤣
What a load of rubbish. She desperately tried to look like Diana, to the point Diana called her ‘my clone ‘.
She didn’t go to the funeral because she was only a girlfriend at that point, not part of the family. And since Diana and her weren’t friends, she wouldn’t have been invited. She’s so full of herself, sadly she ain’t all that.
“But I couldn’t ever compete with Diana’s image. ”
Yeah you couldn’t. But you tried.
This is very embarrassing.
What is it that these people are smoking? The desperation smells all over the world. The can’t with these delusional people. This belongs in a stand up comedy.
Ford Fiesta thinks she looks like Diana? 😝😂🤪😂😝
She WISHES.
This was 30 years ago and it wasn’t until Meghan that I realized that Sophie even existed. To be fair, I didn’t know about her or Edward until maybe the day of the wedding and even then, it was no different from seeing the more elderly members of the family who were also there, yet I forgot them the moment they walked past the camera. I honestly don’t even remember how many years after Harry and Meghan’s wedding I recall seeing them again. They were irrelevant then and are irrelevant now. Sophie, Camilla and Kate are all cut from the same mediocre clothe of wanting to copy and imitate more attractive, intelligent, accomplished and charismatic women and it will always fail because it requires more than just knockoff clothes or hairstyles. It takes an IT factor which none of them will ever have.
I didn’t know who any of them were until I started reading here. I knew a little bit of Andrew bc of Epstein. But seriously when I started reading here I had to google who Anne was, Sophie was, Edward was, Peter, Zara, Louise. I knew the York sisters, Fergie, Camilla, Charles, Diana, William, Harry, Kate and Meghan…and Pippa, lol. Pretty sure I only knew the York sisters bc of the infamous hats at the wedding. But yeah, the IT factor only belongs to Diana, Harry and Meghan imo. Not to say the rest aren’t interesting in their own way but that IT factor is rare. No shame if one doesn’t have it. And arguably it’s better if people just be themselves and not try to chase something another person has.
@Nerd – couldn’t have put it better myself.
In KM’s case, she’s her mother’s interpretation of how to do royal hence the dowdy but always done up to the nines /OTT styling.
“Sophie, Camilla and Kate are all cut from the same mediocre cloth of wanting to copy and imitate more attractive, intelligent, accomplished and charismatic women and it will always fail because it requires more than just knockoff clothes or hairstyles. It takes an IT factor which none of them will ever have”.
So Sophie admits she tried hard to emulate Diana’s style?
I guess style-jacking has been in the play book a while….
Sophie. The Temu Diana.
Back in my day she was called chain store Diana
I don’t understand why you’d want this idea circulating. It makes Sophie seem even more pathetic.
It was Diana’s family that decided who was invited. And I can’t help noticing from the pictures here that Sophie does not have Diana’s warmth.
Literally every mid-30s woman in the 90s had this hair cut and color. My mom had it! She looked more like Diana than Sophie did.
I do remember her being called ‘Debenhams Di’ by some of the snootier women around at the time.