Different Facets of Diana


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Thanks for sharing your story. I think what people most related to about Diana was that she was so beautiful and glamorous and famous yet she still had problems in her life, not so different from the problems that many people have in theirs. She was a first in that regard in the British Royal family.
 
I think that Princess Margaret was the first to be young and glamorous and have problems that people knew about (Peter Townsend), but Diana was the first to openly talk about her problems.

Diana will always be special to me too.:flowers:

Thanks for sharing your story. I think what people most related to about Diana was that she was so beautiful and glamorous and famous yet she still had problems in her life, not so different from the problems that many people have in theirs. She was a first in that regard in the British Royal family.
 
Diana's favourite songs.

So we all know she loved Duran Duran, George Michael, Elton John, Verdi & Faure. Paul Burrell took her ABBA - The Album EP (it's on the police list), but what else did she like?
 
All the music played and sung at her funeral was selected from her known favourites, except for "England's Rose."
 
That was originally a song about Marilyn Monroe, another tragic beauty who died at 36 in August, as did Diana. Did Diana have any familiarity with the original Candle in the Wind Song, and if so what did she think of it? I know she was a friend of Elton John's and liked his music in general.
 
That ghastly, corny song! I can't stand it that they adapted a song originally about MARILYN MONROE and made it about the Princess of Wales. I hated it.

I remember reading that her brother said she hated being compared to Marilyn because she saw Marilyn as a victim, and I so agree.

She much preferred to be compared to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, whom she considered a strong woman and a survivor. She read many bios of Jackie.
 
Where did you read the quote from her brother about how she disliked comparisons to Marilyn? I don't recall reading it. I've read a few references ( maybe from Paul Burell's books) that she compared herself to Marilyn in passing, as in don't I look like Marilyn in these photos, or something, but that was in a very casual context for a comparison between her and Marilyn.
 
I've read so many bio's of Diana that I get confused but I think it came from Sally Bedell-Smith's tome about her.

I don't blame her for being irked about the Marilyn comparison if true..in my opinion it's not a very flattering comparison.

Toward the end of her life she is said to have commented that she understood why Jackie married Onassis after the death of JFK...for peace and for privacy and security.
 
I think it might have been in that book too. I read it about ten years ago. If I get the time, I'll look at it. She has defintely been compared to Marilyn over and over. I have a few quotes from a book on that I'll post. These quotes are from the book Requiem, which is a collection of tributes to Diana, from 1997. Have you read that book? Marilyn and Diana are both on the cover of a magazine from Aug 1992, I think it was People. One was the main picture ( Diana) and the other was an insert ( Monroe). It wasn't intentional to have both their pictures on the cover of the magazine, but obviously they are both famous icons.

There's a book that compares Diana to Jackie. I haven't read it. Have you? Diana's romance with Dodi towards the end of her life some have said mirrored how Jackie married Onassis after her husband's death. I don't know, I doubt Diana and Dodi would have married. I've read that quote somewhere about what she said about Jackie, too. I don't know as much about Jackie as Monroe. Monroe and Diana shared only superfcial similarities, like being blonde, dying young at the same age, and being famous icons whose personal lives were troubled. They both died in August too, only a few months after their birthdays ( Marilyn June 1st, Diana, July 1st). Diana was a little over a year old when Monroe died. But they had very different personalities and lives.
 
Yes I did read the Jackie/Diana book and found it trite and a little boring. There are only surface similarities between the two woman, IMO.

Both were young women from a broken home married in big splashy weddings to famous/powerful men twelve years older. Both were adoring, devoted mothers trying to raise their children out of the spotlight. Both felt put upon by the rather overbearing families into which they married. Both were glamourous fashion icons.

That's the end of the similarities. Jackie was worldly,a bit jaded and impeccably educated. She had a very strong sense of self from a very early age and a close, quasi-incestuous relationship with her alcoholic debauched father. She was not at all close to her mother and did not like women in general...she had few close women friends. She adored horses, hunting, dogs, country life. She was not an aristocrat at all in fact, but was the product of a family with aristo pretensions, and with enough $$ and the "right" marriages managed to project the aura of aristocracy. Jackie was strong, private and self reliant and would never have dreamed of exposing herself and her personal life in the way Diana did...her emotions were always tightly under control. Jackie seemed primarily driven by a need for money and financial security.

Diana was a true blueblood from an ancient, dysfunctional family. She adored both her parents but had a distant relationship with both of them-particularly in later years. She was virginal and naive, the very opposite of a sophisticate. She had a very poor self-image, damaged self esteem, and was very needy. She was not at all bookish and intellectual as was Jackie, and she had a famous aversion to horses and the hunt.
Diana craved the attention of females, particularly older mother-figure types and valued her girlie groups. She made friends and dropped them quickly and seemed unable of establishing healthy long term relationships. Unlike Jackie, Diana did not appear to be driven by a love/need for money and financial status since those were things she was born with...her entire life of bad decisions all seemed driven by a desire for one thing...love.
 
I find it interesting that everyone argues about Princess Diana. I am a huge fan of her and I realize that she was a good person who did make some bad decisions at times. I believe that her choice of where she spent her last summer was probaly a bad decision. I believe that she desperatly wanted her marriage to work with Prince Charles, but that was not meant to be by his choices. IMO she did not know how to handle the rejection that she felt from Prince Charles and or/the Royal Family up to the end of her life. I believe in time she would be become better in that area, but we will never know. So I'm proud of all of the wonderful things she did whatever the cause was. It was shown in her death that the people loved her. It is to bad that she never realized the love that people had for her or maybe she would have made different decisions. Who knows! Maybe if we were in her shoes we would be more understanding of why she did what she did! I choose to believe that she did her best with what life dealt her and appreciate any good that came out of her life! Her sons will someday be her legacy! They are what she loved the most!
 
Diana craved the attention of females, particularly older mother-figure types and valued her girlie groups. She made friends and dropped them quickly and seemed unable of establishing healthy long term relationships.-----
IMO, Diana craved the attention of men more than women. She seems to have been incapable of being a friend to either sex, wanting to possess them rather than befriend them.:flowers:
 
How did you come to that conclusion Skydragon? :)
 
With many of her female friends, an imagined slight was the end of the friendship, a complete cut off. Charles had many female friends besides Camilla or Kanga but Diana saw them all off, IMO this equals a possessive nature. :flowers:

At some of the events we both attended, she appeared to pay more attention to the men rather than the females, if a group was talking and Diana came over, she would single a male out to talk to rather than any of the females.

Perhaps we were too boring! :D
 
At some of the events we both attended, she appeared to pay more attention to the men rather than the females, if a group was talking and Diana came over, she would single a male out to talk to rather than any of the females.

Perhaps we were too boring! :D

Perhaps you scared her! :ROFLMAO:
 
IMO, Diana craved the attention of men more than women. She seems to have been incapable of being a friend to either sex, wanting to possess them rather than befriend them.:flowers:


She was defintely looking for love in her life. Charles had long since disapointed her, even before their separation. But while she was certainly looking for the one great male love of her life, she also seemed to want older female friends too, like Annabel Goldsmith, Lucia Flecha de Lima, and there was another one- maybe Rose Monckton? I do think she was possesive towards the men she dated, for example the phone calls to Oliver Hoare. Some say that her possesiveness and always wanting Prince Charles around during their marriage, for example expecting him to put her before his royal duties, helped contribute to the end of their marriage, among other things.
 
With many of her female friends, an imagined slight was the end of the friendship, a complete cut off. Charles had many female friends besides Camilla or Kanga but Diana saw them all off, IMO this equals a possessive nature. :flowers:

At some of the events we both attended, she appeared to pay more attention to the men rather than the females, if a group was talking and Diana came over, she would single a male out to talk to rather than any of the females.

Perhaps we were too boring! :D

Maybe Charles' female friends intimidated her and she was uncomfortable around them.
 
Defintely, that's true. His woman friends were all older and more sophisticated than her. I think that made her feel inferior, especially because she was a very insecure person, who put herself down, as for example when after almost hitting her head on something ( I believe this was during a foreign tour in the '80s), she said that it wouldn't have mattered if she had hit her head, since there was nothing in it, or something like that.
 
Defintely, that's true. His woman friends were all older and more sophisticated than her. I think that made her feel inferior, especially because she was a very insecure person, who put herself down, as for example when after almost hitting her head on something ( I believe this was during a foreign tour in the '80s), she said that it wouldn't have mattered if she had hit her head, since there was nothing in it, or something like that.

British sense of humour I think.
Obviously the older men friends didn´t intimidate her, she seemed to flutter her eyelids at them quite a lot, or at least it seemed as if she did, she was a very beautiful young, important woman so they, the men, naturally felt very flattered and gave her the attention she craved.
 
Yes, that may have been said in jest, I didn't consider that. Certainly though it's said that Camilla thought Diana was a good bride for Charles precisely because Diana was so young and unsophisticated. Charles was 12 years older than Diana and they didn't have much in common, in general she related better to men more her own age, at least in the '80s, men like James Hewitt, James Gilbey, etc. But I agree with what you said.
 
Defintely, that's true. His woman friends were all older and more sophisticated than her. I think that made her feel inferior, especially because she was a very insecure person, who put herself down, as for example when after almost hitting her head on something ( I believe this was during a foreign tour in the '80s), she said that it wouldn't have mattered if she had hit her head, since there was nothing in it, or something like that.
I can't recall there being any problems before the marriage, Diana seemed to get on OK with them, (and his much cherished Labrador, Harvey). It was only after they married that his female friends were ostracized, even those that had made every effort to include Diana.

As Menarue has said, the empty head comment can be put down to typical English humour.
Perhaps you scared her! :ROFLMAO:
Moi? :devil::devil2::viking:
 
For a time Skydragon I thought you were Camilla herself. :lol:

IMO Diana was very possesive of Charles when it came to women. She was very insecure.
 
In some ways, she was right about Charles and women, or at least about Camilla. But she also showed such possessivness later in life with other men like Oliver Hoare and also Hasnat Khan, whom she wanted to marry, but who she was very possessive of, at least judging from some books I've read.
 
I think her fear of losing Hasnat like she did with Charles made her possesive.
 
I hadn't thought of that, but I would have to agree. She and Hasnat Khan basically broke up in the end. In Dodi, wherever the relationship was going, she had someone who seemed very attentive, but I believe he was engaged to a American model shortly before Diana whom he was in the midst of breaking it off with even as he dated Diana. But Dodi didn't have a job to interfere with being with Diana all the time. By contrast, Hasnat Khan was a heart surgeon and devoted to his job, and Prince Charles of course, had his royal duties.
 
IMO Diana was very possesive of Charles when it came to women. She was very insecure.
I think it extended to any of his 'before' friends, anything or anyone that might be seen to steal him away from her, to take away his undivided attention. The fact that he tried to allow her freedom to spend time with her choice of friends, only added to her upset.

I honestly think it started with her father, when her mother left, they fought over her, she could get staff removed - that is how important she believed herself to be. Her world came crashing down when her father 'betrayed' her by remarrying. I think she envisaged controlling Charles as she had her father. She tried to control most conversations in the same way, IMO.:flowers:
 
She did later get along with Raine though, after her father's death and the years had passed. I doubt she would ever have forgiven Camilla, although I'm sure as the years went by Diana would have moved with her life and maybe found a second marriage and maybe another child and would have started getting more perspective on her first marriage.
 
:previous::flowers:Raine was a very forgiving person, but I still believe that Dianas possessiveness started with her parents divorce. I don't know where the controlling aspect of her personality stemmed from, perhaps having been powerless to control what her parents did, she tried to make sure she was always the one in control. If her friends didn't do as she wanted, they were discarded.:ermm:
 
That's true and that's an aspect of her the public was not aware in of in her lifetime when they related to her, the discarding of her friends like that, in some cases. That was a very hurtful thing to do. I guess it reminds you that Diana was human. It's really surprising she ever made up with Raine. She and her mother I believe weren't speaking when she died and she and her brother certainly didn't get along with her either at times, although some of that was his issue too, as when he didn't give her that house on his estate ( Althorp) that she wanted.
 
At the time of her death she was not talking to her mother or second sister, Jane. She was somewhat close to her brother Charles. I think they made up about the house on the estate and Diana, Princess of Wales last Christmas was spent in South Africa with Earl Spencer. The only living family member, Diana was close to, was her sister Jane. Countess Raine Spencer's friendship was a promise she made her father. Also, Diana did have a support group of three women that she counted on through her life. She did not freeze everyone out.:rolleyes:
 
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