The Late Diana, Princess of Wales News & Questions Thread 8: June 2008- 2020

[Osipi]

Oh gawds... why is the Fail dredging up this stuff again.

With Diana being gone for 20 years now and her sons doing things to commemorate her memory and we, as the general public, reflect on her life and times, it seems the Fail is dead set on focusing on the negatives surrounding the marriage.

Bad move Fail. Very bad move.

 

[cepe]

Oh gawds... why is the Fail dredging up this stuff again.

With Diana being gone for 20 years now and her sons doing things to commemorate her memory and we, as the general public, reflect on her life and times, it seems the Fail is dead set on focusing on the negatives surrounding the marriage.

Bad move Fail. Very bad move.

I agree. And people wonder why William has negative views re some of the media.

However, people esp Diana fans will click on it and we need to remember that Diana chose to make these tapes and supported the book which followed.

I think it is a real shame that her sons are still having to reap the harvest she sowed.

 

[Leopoldine]

It might backfire. Diana's old gang of blabbermouths (Morton, Burrell, Wharfe, etc) don't really have anything new to say and people know this. People old enough to remember her, that is.

 

[Mermaid1962]

I shouldn't have been surprised that Morton put out a 25th anniversary edition, which just happens to coincide with the 20th anniversary of her death and ensures maximum publicity.

 

[Lady Nimue]

In 1991, few people knew the truth about Princess Diana’s marriage: that it was falling apart... and that Charles had rekindled his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles.

I disagree that Diana was devastated. The marriage was already in shambles and had been so close onto 6-7 years. Diana was in a long-term relationship with another man, and engaging in simultaneous flirtations. These facts were beginning to leak. If one looks at Diana's public persona during this time she does not look at all distressed (though Charles does).

Devastated, she decided to make her side of the story public by recording her thoughts for author Andrew Morton via a go-between. Her one condition: that her involvement be kept a strict secret. The book he wrote — Diana: Her True Story — caused a sensation.

This is the spin stated so many times it has acquired a patina of truth. However, fact is Diana's behavior was extreme and was starting to leak. There were the squidgy tapes. Diana did not state 'her side of the story' but rather a carefully crafted attack on Charles and the BRF to deflect from her own sins. It worked brilliantly.

She had to describe herself as distraught in order to justify her own wild behavior choices. But it was only as she began to suffer the consequences of her talking-outside-of-school that Diana began to appear 'devastated' in public. And as the aberrant behavior continued (stalking a married man, for one) she continued to unravel in public. From indiscreet talking to her death was a mere 6 years. Startling how short a time span during which she deconstructed her royal status.

It is my opinion that had we not had Rupert Murdock's new tabloidism-on-steroids at that time, the usual hands-off policy would have maintained. That being the case, Diana would have happily continued her lifestyle for decades perhaps, no one (in the public) the wiser, and Charles would have plodded along with his one mistress, still contentedly married to her agreeable husband. A different world.

 

[Dman]

People really need to let all this stuff go. It's old sad news, which no longer matters. It's done folks!!!

 

[MARG]

. . . One thing that gets me about documentaries and books about Diana is that so many paint their own picture of Diana. The "good" Diana, the "bad" Diana and the "ugly" Diana. In order to really understand the person Diana was, an objective view of all facets of Diana need to be presented.

Just my opinion.

I guess when you put all the for and against "Biographies" all together, there is some aspect of the truth. However, I don't think Diana or anyone else would have believed all this dross would haunt her beloved "boys" for 25 years and counting.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that Morton is the worst because he wrote what Diana herself told him in tapes and her notes written on the galley. The truth was and is still irrelevant and I am sure there will be even more "colour" in the 25th Anniversary edition.

It was shameful when the updated edition was printed after her death except that it "cleared" many of the RF's past friends of the stigma of selling out.

 

[Lady Nimue]

People really need to let all this stuff go. It's old sad news, which no longer matters. It's done folks!!!

Why come on a thread talking about topics you wish to be 'let go'? Makes no sense. You're the third poster in recent days/weeks doing this and I don't get it. Color me puzzled.

 

[Osipi]

It'll never be over. Diana was a fascinating person during her lifetime and that has carried on into the 20 years following her death. She was a very complex, unique individual that impacted a lot of lives and people are still wanting to learn about her.

Cleopatra was like that too. People are still interested in finding out about her and her life and times several thousand years after her demise.

 

[Dman]

Why come on a thread talking about topics you wish to be 'let go'? Makes no sense. You're the third poster in recent days/weeks doing this and I don't get it. Color me puzzled.

I'm not saying for you guys to not talk about it. I just came across the DM articles on the past drama. I'm just expressing that its time for them to let it go. The 20th anniversary of her death don't have to be commemorated on the tough times of her life. The media can focus on her charities, royal career within the U.K., Commonwealth and world. They can talk about her fashion hits and misses. They can even talk about how her children are continuing her legacy. It's just silly of them to rehash the Morton book and the Chuck & Di saga. It's all irrelevant today.

 

[Lady Nimue]

It'll never be over. Diana was a fascinating person during her lifetime and that has carried on into the 20 years following her death. She was a very complex, unique individual that impacted a lot of lives and people are still wanting to learn about her.

It's a bit more than that. We know a great deal more about what was actually going on at key points. From several years ago you can read posts on this very site that argued 'facts' that have since come tumbling down. The merest suggestion back then that Diana was 'unstable', or 'troubled', or actually lied, were viewed as smears, and now we know differently.

That's why I answered the above post in detail because after reading all the stuff across the years (in one go) you get a sense of the evolution of the 'facts' and the 'fiction'. It's a pretty stark evolution. It merits correcting, I think, because so much animus went into blowing up the bubbles in the first place. And still does to some extent.

 

[Duc_et_Pair]

It is like dragging old cows out of the moat. Yesterday's elections saw a firm boost for Labour, mainly thanks to the youth and first time voters. Many of these Corbynistas were not even born in Diana's lifetime. And remember, it is not out of love that the Daily Mail or publishers exploit Diana. Every controverse generates clicks. Every click is exposure. And exposure is money. The business model of Rupert Murdoch in short.

At the same time we see that the media have lost grip on the public. The Murdoch papers have slashed, witch hunted, axed, poisoned Corbyn and Labour but analysts concluded that the younger generation shared more from blogs and podcasts than from the regular media, leaving the Daily Mail and The Sun totally bewildered. With other words, in another 20 years Diana will be even more history and only 50+ olds will then have really experienced Diana's life. The DM of 2037 still pumping up Diana for clicks seems unlikely to me.

 

[Lady Nimue]

At the same time we see that the media have lost grip on the public. The Murdoch papers have slashed, witch hunted, axed, poisoned Corbyn and Labour but analysts concluded that the younger generation shared more from blogs and podcasts than from the regular media, leaving the Daily Mail and The Sun totally bewildered. With other words, in another 20 years Diana will be even more history and only 50+ olds will then have really experienced Diana's life. The DM of 2037 still pumping up Diana for clicks seems unlikely to me.

Interesting.

And as for the last bolded sentence, I do think that when one reads all about Diana 'in one sitting' (in a sense, though it took me close to a year to so do), I think one gets a different experience than if one was living through the events in 'real time'.

One example is the Morton book: what a firestorm that book fomented, and what a bewildering crash-and-burn of 'propriety' it initiated. And when one knows whose hand was guiding the whole endeavor, and how complicated and clever it's execution was, then watch the videos of Diana during that time, it's chilling. It's then you get real insight into the person.

One other aspect is Diana's public demeanor during the time everyone (she) states she was in catastrophic despair over her marriage, yet it is never borne out if you look at the videos and pictures from that time. Quite the reverse. Except for nervous moments very early in the marriage, she is radiant. Then of course one knows (with that long lens of history) that she was engaged in a long-term, stable relationship (her longest relationship, in fact, longer than her actual time of intimacy with her husband) that clearly gave her great joy (by her own words). (It's Charles who manifests outwardly as headed for the scrap heap, but not one peep out of him until much, much later, and even then it's pretty tame in comparison to Diana's laments).

The whole thing telescopes in a way that the living through the day-by-day and week-by-week revelations can never achieve. I think some are caught forever in that slow trek across the Himalayas of Diana's parsed out drama. Their initial impressions remain as vivid today as when they first heard the spin, no matter that we know a great deal more of the layers living in those moments back then.

 

[JessRulz]

Posts about the ITV documentary have been moved to the http://www.theroyalforums.com/forum...princess-of-wales-august-31-2017-a-42008.html thread.

 

[Curryong]

That's a terrific picture of Diana from her close friend Rosa Monkton. Few people knew her better, and it's true that her zest for life and love of a joke isn't celebrated very much. This is a sad time of the year for those who fondly remember Diana and it's good to see that she is not forgotten twenty one years on.

 

[royal rob]

Your right what a lovely photo. I can’t believe I have never seen it before.

 

[Curryong]

The panel of 'Loose Women', a British morning show, remember where they were and how they felt when they heard the news that Diana had died.

 

[royal rob]

Thank you Curryong for posting

 

[Curryong]

You're welcome, Royal Rob. I remembered her on the day of her death and still miss her, and I'm sure many people feel the same.

 

[royal rob]

You're welcome, Royal Rob. I remembered her on the day of her death and still miss her, and I'm sure many people feel the same.

I still remember everything about that day. My daughter and I crying not being able to believe she was gone

 

[Curryong]

Yes, I felt that way too. And, like the women in the clip above, the primary feelings were huge disbelief and shock among those I observed in that week.

 

[Dalriada]

The Late Diana, Princess of Wales News Thread 8: June 2008-

Paul Burrell has revealed (just now on C5) so much more about his motivation around his service for Diana Princess of Wales....like sleeping with her clothes & his deep emotional attachment to three people in his first & second marriages!

 

[Mermaid1962]

What was the name of the program?

 

[JessRulz]

It is time to close this thread. You can find the new one here.