Diana's Friends, Lovers and Bodyguards

[ysbel]

but that doesn't make any sense. MAF's dream was to get his ticket to the upper echelons of society, hopefully thru the Queen. when that didn't work the next best thing was to go thru the mother of the future king...why would he want to bring her down a notch. diana was at the top of heap, bringing her down a notch would make her look less important and that would go against everything he wanted. no, mentioning her lovers doesn't bring her down a notch, i agree with the earlier post that it only serves to say that were other lovers.

Sorry I just saw this post. I'm not sure whether al-Fayed was using Dodi's relationship with Diana to climb the echelons of British society or whether he was just thumbing his nose up at British society. I believe Diana's standing with the old guard and with the old aristocracy took a bit of a hit after the Panorama interview because she was seen as betraying her own kind to the masses. So a relationship with Diana I'm not sure would place the al-Fayeds in the upper echelons of society but it would be seen as a very good revenge.

However any good will the al-Fayeds ever drummed up in Britain disappeared when Diana died so I believe if al-Fayed ever had a reason to protect Diana's reputation before, he lost that reason when she and his son died.

But if the general impression was that Diana debased herself by associating with the al-Fayeds (and I have seen some reports that suggest that) then a good counteroffense to that accusation would be to assert that Diana wasn't that lofty in the first place. I think he's given up on being accepted by British society by now.

I hope that explains things a bit better.

 

[Skydragon]

I think he's given up on being accepted by British society by now.

He hasn't given up, he is trying to insinuate himself into Scottish society at the moment, probably with a view to getting in through the back door, so to speak! Trust me, there is no funnier site than Fayed dressed in full highland dress!

The only reason I can see for them mentioning Diana's other lovers, especially the 'and so on', is to show that as long as they were white English the RF had no problem with her affairs. The moment she looked 'serious' about an Egyptian muslim, they ordered her death.

 

[CasiraghiTrio]

Interesting article Casiraghi trio. Couple of things that strike me about it: ...

Princess Olga, I think I understand exactly how you feel! Diana behaved like a spoiled brat if that article is true. I was annoyed with her by the end of it. I totally sympathize with Dr. Khan running for the hills. And worse about Diana, how she stalked him after he made it clear it was over between them! Like a spoiled child, she could not accept the reality that she did not like!

I felt Diana came across badly in the Bashir interview too. Self-centered, pouty, controlling, "look at me, boo hoo, Diana The Victim." It was Diana's worst public moment, imo.

A lot of things coming out in the Inquest are turning me strongly more and more against Diana. I am liking her less and less day by day. I mean, I give her points for being courteous to Philip in the letters, but even those letters showed her to be so self-occupied. I mean, it was so nice of Philip to take time to write to her about her marriage; sure he had plenty of other things to do with his time than console her childish need for attention!!!!

 

[ysbel]

I think the fact that she was attracted to someone as unassuming and unpretentious as Hasmat Khan says a lot for Diana's growth. This tells me she was weaning herself away from flashy, suave men who would likely disappoint her and was willing to look for more than a title which she had as a young girl with Charles.

I think it shows that Diana was beginning to grow up and although the relationship with Hasnat didn't work out; that is not to say that she wouldn't have found later a similar relationship with a man who was not so shy of the limelight as Khan had been.

Khan may have loved Diana dearly but her fame would have killed his career as a heart surgeon and that is what he cared about more.

 

[Jo of Palatine]

He hasn't given up, he is trying to insinuate himself into Scottish society at the moment, probably with a view to getting in through the back door, so to speak! Trust me, there is no funnier site than Fayed dressed in full highland dress!

Oh dear! I was an acquaintance of late Lady Dunnett (the novelist, wife of Sir Alaistair) and through her got to know The Ross Herald, Mr. Charles Burnett. We had once a very interesting conversation (at least I was fascinated - maybe he just indulged me!) about the way heraldry is viewed in Scotland. Thinking about that I think there is nothing more embarrassing than seeing an Egyptian in highland dress. I understood you have to earn the right to wear this traditional dress with such an abundance of historical meaning - how dare he!

While I was delighted to see that HRH The Duchess of Rothesay, princess of Scotland is herself descended from two Scottish princesses (and thus: kings!) and I wonder if she ever wore the tartan or a reminiscence of that family at one of her dresses in Scotland?

 

[CasiraghiTrio]

I think the fact that she was attracted to someone as unassuming and unpretentious as Hasmat Khan says a lot for Diana's growth.

She didn't grow up at all if that article is true. If the article is true, Diana was a stalker and obsessive with Hasnat Khan, and not a mature lover to him at all. This article, if true, would show a good reason why Charles and Hasnat both ran for the hills. I'd be scared of her too. You never know what a woman like that will do.

 

[Warren]

You never what a woman like that will do.

Well, Oliver Hoare soon enough found out.

 

[ysbel]

She didn't grow up at all if that article is true. If the article is true, Diana was a stalker and obsessive with Hasnat Khan, and not a mature lover to him at all. This article, if true, would show a good reason why Charles and Hasnat both ran for the hills. I'd be scared at that crazy person (Diana) too. You never what a woman like that will do.

You're so right, CasiraghiTrio. Diana was not grown up yet and she still had a lot of problems. And yes I probably wouldn't have been her friend because I'd be too worried of getting caught in her unhealthy obsessiveness.

But what I meant is that at least with Hasnat Khan she was gravitating to someone who was more stable and more trustworthy. Previously she tended to reach out to people as unbalanced as herself and with company like that , its harder to get a healthy lifestyle going on. Her obsessiveness with Hasnat Khan was scary but one hopes that she had at least a glimmer of what a healthy, well-adjusted life was like and grew up a little in the process; although like you said, not enough to keep from some pretty obsessive behavior. If she got turned down by more men like Hasnat Khan there is a chance that at some point she would had reached down inside herself to try and figure out why such great men were not interested in her but of course, her untimely death prevented us from seeing whether that would really happen.

You never what a woman like that will do.

Well, Oliver Hoare soon enough found out.

I'm missing something here. What did Oliver Hoare find out?

 

[Skydragon]

Oh dear! I was an acquaintance of late Lady Dunnett (the novelist, wife of Sir Alaistair) and through her got to know The Ross Herald, Mr. Charles Burnett. We had once a very interesting conversation (at least I was fascinated - maybe he just indulged me!) about the way heraldry is viewed in Scotland. Thinking about that I think there is nothing more embarrassing than seeing an Egyptian in highland dress. I understood you have to earn the right to wear this traditional dress with such an abundance of historical meaning - how dare he!

While I was delighted to see that HRH The Duchess of Rothesay, princess of Scotland is herself descended from two Scottish princesses (and thus: kings!) and I wonder if she ever wore the tartan or a reminiscence of that family at one of her dresses in Scotland?

Wearing of the tartan is very important to the scots. There is nothing funnier but insulting than to see someone with very distant and unlikely heritage claiming he/she has every right to wear such and such a tartan because his/her great, great, great, great, great cousin 15 times removed was a scot. We call them the plastic scots!

When it is proven that someone has true Scottish descent like Camilla, the Clan Chief will often gift an item in the tartan which would be worn privately, especially when there is the expectation of the Royal Tartans for public events.

Fayed feels no shame at anything he does, that is abundantly clear, in his efforts to 'hit out' at the Royal Family by using the death of Diana in his campaign.

 

[Skydragon]

I'm missing something here. What did Oliver Hoare find out?

Oliver Hoare was the chap who she pursued after the affair was over. She is reputed to have made over 300 nuisance calls to his home. "A police investigation showed they were made from phones in Kensington Palace, where Diana lives, from pay phones near the palace, from Diana's car phone and from the home of her sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale". The calls only stopped, it was alleged when Hoare threatened to take out an injunction against Diana.

 

[ysbel]

My grandmother's family is Mackintosh and my father and uncles have visited the family seat close to Inverness. They are an old family but not titled (the head is simply called The Mackintosh) and they claimed descent from an illegitimate son of MacDuff, the legendary killer of Macbeth. I haven't kept track of the Scottish side of the family in awhile but the head of one of the Indian tribes here is a descendent of the Mackintosh and has been invited to Mackintosh events. When he comes, he'll wear his Indian chief headdress with full Highland dress.

It's quite funny but apparently he's very well received. Then again he hasn't angled for a British passport or to be let into British society. Also the head of the clan at one time was Canadian so maybe they have relaxed some customs.

 

[ysbel]

Oliver Hoare was the chap who she pursued after the affair was over. She is reputed to have made over 300 nuisance calls to his home. "A police investigation showed they were made from phones in Kensington Palace, where Diana lives, from pay phones near the palace, from Diana's car phone and from the home of her sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale". The calls only stopped, it was alledged when Hoare threatened to take out an injunction against Diana.

Thanks for reminding me. Yes that type of obsessiveness is scary. I also didn't like how she placed the blame on a boy in her household.

 

[Skydragon]

<SNIPPED>the head of one of the Indian tribes here is a descendent of the Mackintosh and has been invited to Mackintosh events. When he comes, he'll wear his Indian chief headdress with full Highland dress.

It's quite funny but apparently he's very well received. Then again he hasn't angled for a British passport or to be let into British society. But then again the head of the clan at one time was Canadian so maybe they have relaxed some customs.

The difference is, they can prove the right to wear the tartan. Fayed seems to feel that because he purchased Balnagown (the very pink castle ) and the little shop at Shin, that gives him the right.

 

[sirhon11234]

Well this article is from the Daily Mail so I don't place too much truth in it.
But I couldn't help but feeling sad after reading this article.

 

[ysbel]

The difference is, they can prove the right to wear the tartan. Fayed seems to feel that because he purchased Balnagown (the very pink castle ) and the little shop at Shin, that gives him the right.

Yes, that is correct. Only descendents of the Mackintosh can wear the tartan. It's ugly but they have the right to wear it!

 

[CasiraghiTrio]

Oliver Hoare was the chap who she pursued after the affair was over. She is reputed to have made over 300 nuisance calls to his home. "A police investigation showed they were made from phones in Kensington Palace, where Diana lives, from pay phones near the palace, from Diana's car phone and from the home of her sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale". The calls only stopped, it was alleged when Hoare threatened to take out an injunction against Diana.

I kept thinking the words "Oliver Hoare" when I was reading (in the DM article) about her obsessive, belligerent calls to Dr. Khan's hospital. Diana just had no sense of boundaries. She could be a sweet, kind, loving woman but when she wanted something, or someone, she cut loose and forgot about something called......... others' personal space!!!!

She is reminding me more and more of my maternal aunt Robin. Robin, just like Diana, is the funniest, kindest, coolest, warmest-hearted woman, and a great mother, loves her sons (has two boys just like Diana). But she is sooooo unbalanced emotionally. She makes obsessive phone calls to people (even to my mom, to everyone: men she dates.... well, as I said, everyone). She has no sense of boundaries, like Diana. She needs to have a psychiatric diagnosis but she won't follow through, and she won't take any medications. It's terrible. What can you do for a person like this? She doesn't listen to people. She argues against her own shadow.

 

[ysbel]

Well this article is from the Daily Mail so I don't place too much truth in it.
But I couldn't help but feeling sad after reading this article.

I'm quite surprised that Richard Kay would co-write an article that painted Diana in such a non-positive light! I wonder what happened?

She is reminding me more and more of my maternal aunt Robin. Robin, just like Diana, is the funniest, kindest, coolest, warmest-hearted woman, and a great mother, loves her sons (has two boys just like Diana). But she is sooooo unbalanced emotionally. She makes obsessive phone calls to people (even to my mom, to everyone: men she dates.... well, as I said, everyone). She has no sense of boundaries, like Diana. She needs to have a psychiatric diagnosis but she won't follow through, and she won't take any medications. It's terrible. What can you do for a person like this? She doesn't listen to people. She argues against her own shadow.

I'm sorry your family has had to go through with CasiraghiTrio. That must be hard. I think the hardest thing for families is that the person doing it seems like the most wonderful caring person outside the family so outside people can't understand why the family gets so wound up about a person they think is just wonderful. I think no one outside the Royal Family and the Spencers could have understood just what it was like to deal with Diana in the family.

Now I couldn't help but to share this. It is a comment from the Daily Mail article:

Sorry to disappoint you but I don't think he was such a peach of a guy. If he had done right by Diana she would never have been in Paris with Dodi.

- Harleanharlow, Phoenix, AZ USA.

I am amazed at this response. If I were a heart patient, I sure wouldn't appreciate my doctor taking a personal call when he's in the middle of operating on my heart!

 

[TheTruth]

I think her obsessive reactions were created by her great fear of loosing the person. Sounds paradoxal at first but it's a very common situation. When you're so afraid to loose someone, you want to do everything to avoid this loss, i.e. call continuously, even spy to be sure he's still there. Her fear of being let down began from childhood and haunted her during all her life. She became so paranoid about being alone and, unconsciously, made many people run away from her because of this fear. It's so sad to come to a point where you prevent people of living for your own survival.

 

[CasiraghiTrio]

^ Indeed, it seems with some admirers of Diana, she has no fault and the blame for her behaviors are always accredited with someone else.
Goodness [read sarcasm] how could Dr. Khan break up with Diana? Of course he deserved to be stalked by her for such an act of heartlessness. How could he not stop the heart transplant surgery to take her call? The nerve!!



As for Robin, she, like Diana, has a brilliant side to her, but just no boundaries, and if she does not receive some kind of treatment, I think there is a grave danger of her finding herself in prison. She has already had restraining orders against her for her behaviors to men who have the nerve the break up with her, to ex-husbands, and even her elder son is having nothing to do with her. It makes me sad because, if only she would listen to doctors, and take their recommendations, the "dark side" would go away and the world would know the wonderful person that she shuts away.

P.S. In short, Robin is a Lifetime movie in the making, tragically.

 

[sirhon11234]

Yes, the key word is some, CasiraghiTrio not all.

 

[TheTruth]

Anyway, no one's perfect and certainly not Diana. Like you said CasiraghiTrio, some admirers always find a way to exonerate her but what's the point doing so ? It just reveals how much they're in bad faith and, in fact, they even reject a part of her personality so they can't say they have endless love for her then.

 

[CasiraghiTrio]

Again The Truth speak the Truth. Some admirers of Diana are actually just admirers of her photogenic quality. Such persons know only an invented Diana, that is a projection of their own ideas of the victim princess, whose suffering is all caused by someone else: a busy surgeon, a cheating husband, a fame-and-money hunter, or whatever else.
She can't even be responsible, not even partly, for her own physical demise (in some people's minds). Even that has to be conspiratorial murder.
I just don't buy any of that Diana The Victim stuff. It is beyond being old. It is just BS.

 

[Skydragon]

I kept thinking the words "Oliver Hoare" when I was reading (in the DM article) about her obsessive, belligerent calls to Dr. Khan's hospital. Diana just had no sense of boundaries. She could be a sweet, kind, loving woman but when she wanted something, or someone, she cut loose and forgot about something called......... others' personal space!!!!

I think, more than anything Diana always presumed that if person X was the be all and end all in her life, so she should be in theirs. It is possible, IMO, to trace it back to her parents fight over custody of her. (With Frances own mother backing Spencer, not out of love or concern, but as a commodity).

 

[princess olga]

Princess Olga, I think I understand exactly how you feel! Diana behaved like a spoiled brat if that article is true. I was annoyed with her by the end of it. I totally sympathize with Dr. Khan running for the hills. And worse about Diana, how she stalked him after he made it clear it was over between them! Like a spoiled child, she could not accept the reality that she did not like!

I felt Diana came across badly in the Bashir interview too. Self-centered, pouty, controlling, "look at me, boo hoo, Diana The Victim." It was Diana's worst public moment, imo.

A lot of things coming out in the Inquest are turning me strongly more and more against Diana. I am liking her less and less day by day. I mean, I give her points for being courteous to Philip in the letters, but even those letters showed her to be so self-occupied. I mean, it was so nice of Philip to take time to write to her about her marriage; sure he had plenty of other things to do with his time than console her childish need for attention!!!!

Wow thanks for these comments because truth be told, I'm more used to being raked over the coals for my opinion on this one, lol!

The thing about that Bashir interview that really made me see Diana in a different light was how it revealed that she didn't seem much more enlightened a human than the average Hollywood star, for whom only three things count: "Me, Me, Me." And the rest of the planet be darned.

Of course, she also did a ton for Britain and that is also a fact.

But from the Bashir interview on, and stories like what she did to poor Oliver Hoare, to her careless courting of the paparazzi at the end of her life when cavorting with Dodi..
I have to say that when that end came, when I learned how she'd died, I couldn't help but think that it seemed a fitting end..

Don't get me wrong, I do think the paparazzi were directly responsible for her death, in conjunction with that reckless driver of hers. But she had been egging the paparazzi on, days before her death, telling them while in the Mediterranean, "you all will be surprised by the next thing I do." Well should we then be surprised the tabloid photographers started hounding her like there was no tomorrow?

To go back to the topic at hand, I think she applied that same extreme lack of judgment in the way she treated all these men she was involved with. And that perhaps was her tragedy: what sane man on the planet would be able to live with the kind of behavior she subjected them to? You could wonder whether even Dodi would have stuck with her on that one..I don't think he had seen that side of her yet, by the time they died together..

 

[princess olga]

Again The Truth speak the Truth. Some admirers of Diana are actually just admirers of her photogenic quality. Such persons know only an invented Diana, that is a projection of their own ideas of the victim princess, whose suffering is all caused by someone else: a busy surgeon, a cheating husband, a fame-and-money hunter, or whatever else.
She can't even be responsible, not even partly, for her own physical demise (in some people's minds). Even that has to be conspiratorial murder.
I just don't buy any of that Diana The Victim stuff. It is beyond being old. It is just BS.

I completely agree however perhaps Diana is a prime example of what extreme fame can do to someone. I think it went to her head, how could it not? She was a naturally insecure person with lots of empathy for others, when she married Charles.
That's what people liked about her. But then when she discovered how appealing her appearance was to the media and the world, it changed her, it seems. She still had that insecurity and vulnerability till the end, but with a heap of arrogance thrown into the mix. that kind of fame, it's extremely unhealthy for the mind, it seems to me.
It to a certain extent explains her irrational and troubled behavior in her latter years, imo.

 

[princess olga]

I think, more than anything Diana always presumed that if person X was the be all and end all in her life, so she should be in theirs.

What I wonder here though is whether she treated Charles as obsessively as she treated, say, O Hoare, when she was newly married. Compared to how she stalked O Hoare and Hasnat Khan, Charles almost seems lucky in the way she treated him, no?

 

[sirhon11234]

I don't agree with the last line of your sentence Princess Olga. But I also wonder if what had happened to Hasnat Khan O Hoare happened to Charles.

 

[TheTruth]

What I wonder here though is whether she treated Charles as obsessively as she treated, say, O Hoare, when she was newly married. Compared to how she stalked O Hoare and Hasnat Khan, Charles almost seems lucky in the way she treated him, no?

Well perhaps this obsession came with time. If (mind the bolding please) Charles was actually "the first" to cheat on her, then it may be a possible explaination to her constant spying on these men. She might have feared for this to happen again. What I can't figure out is why Hewitt didn't go through this treatment of obsessive phone calls, etc.

 

[ysbel]

Its possible that if Dodi was being pressured by his father to hook up with Diana then he may have just sucked up any strange behavior Diana threw his way.

I do think Diana's behavior towards Charles early in the marriage was excessive and that was a key point of contention between the two. She was extremely jealous of time he spent while not with her and she tore open his letters and read them and hid behind doors to overhear his conversations. And remember she said she tried to thrown herself down the stairs when pregnant with William so Charles wouldn't leave her alone.

She later said that it was because he was seeing Camilla and what normal woman wouldn't be jealous if her husband was seeing another woman. But I am more inclined to believe that Charles wasn't seeing Camilla when all this started happening and that Diana later changed the date when she claimed that the two started going together to give a rationale explanation for her jealous behavior so early in the marriage.

 

[ysbel]

Well perhaps this obsession came with time. If (mind the bolding please) Charles was actually "the first" to cheat on her, then it may be a possible explaination to her constant spying on these men.

I think Diana had this trait as a child before she met Charles. As a child she tended to be jealous of her father's attention too which was the source of the animosity towards Raine in her childhood years. So I think it was in her nature before she met Charles.

If she didn't have this obsessive trait to begin with, then I think even after an infidelity, she would have been cautious of being hurt but not so obsessive. There are a lot of women whose husbands and boyfriends cheat on them and they are cautious with men after an infidelity but not with the obsessiveness that Diana showed.

I know you didn't meant to blame Charles for all of Diana's problems but I just think it is too convenient to blame the situation with Charles on all of the mistakes that Diana later had and a lot of people tend to do that. I think Diana exhibited this behavior from before she met Charles.