Princess Diana Her Life and Mysterious Death

In the collective memory of the people, Diana, Princess of Wales, was everything a royal should be. She was beautiful, composed, and full of compassion for those in need. And when she died in 1997, it was a horrific tragedy that shook the world. She had been robbed of a future that was looking incredibly bright, and her sons would forever be without a mother. But the dark secrets of Diana's life prove that all that glitters is not gold. Some people believe that her death was no accident, and that it was actually an elaborate conspiracy designed by the royal family to silence her. In today's Biographics, we look at Diana, Princess of Wales. Early Life Diana was born on July 1, 1961, to John and Frances Spencer. It had been tradition for members of the nobility to marry one another for centuries, and her parents were no exception. Together with her two older sisters and two brothers, they lived in a mansion called Park House in Norfolk, England. As you can imagine, Diana grew up with the best things money could buy, and she went on playdates with children in the royal family. But all of the money in the world can't buy happiness. John and Frances had a toxic marriage. All her life, Diana's parents never said I love you to one another, or to their children. They pushed off most of the parental duties to nannies or governesses. At age nine, her father sent her to boarding school. Her mother remarried to a man called Peter Shandkid, who was the heir to a successful wallpaper company. Her father married a woman named Rain McCorkadale, who was the daughter of a famous romance novelist. The children weren't present at their second father's marriage, and they had to find out about it through the newspaper. Diana and her siblings deeply resented Rain as an evil stepmother, and blamed her for tearing their family apart. Diana was a shy girl, and she struggled in school. She was labeled as the thick one by her family, and this was enough for her to end up crying in school every time she got a bad grade. Deep down, all she really wanted was to be loved and accepted for who she was, and dreamed of a prince who was going to take her away so she could live happily ever after. When she was just 16 years old, Diana met Charles, the Prince of Wales, for the first time. He was 29, and dating her older sister, Sarah. The relationship between Sarah and Charles never went anywhere, so they went their separate ways. However, Charles said that Diana made a big impression on him, because he thought she was very cheerful and beautiful. When she came of age, Diana could have chosen to party like a socialite, or travel the world with her family's wealth, but when she was 18, she chose the very normal life of working as a kindergarten teacher. She used her own paychecks to share an apartment with a few friends. Diana loved taking care of children, and it made her very happy to give them the love and encouragement that she never got as a little girl. At that time, Diana was filled with a lot of hope about her future. She said that she felt this deep sense of destiny, and that one day she would grow up to do great things. Prince Charles had been dating several women over the years, including Camilla Rosemary Shand. Camilla was not wife material in the eyes of the Queen, so she married a multi-millionaire named Andrew Parker Bowles. But Charles and Camilla had never actually broken off their relationship, and they continued having a secret affair the entire time she was married. Charles was now in his 30s, and under a lot of pressure from his mother to settle down and produce an heir. He needed a wife that was a member of the aristocracy, and Diana had all of the qualifications of a perfectly acceptable bride. After going on only 13 dates, Charles proposed to Diana when she was a barely legal 18-year-old. Even though they hardly knew one another, Diana felt as though becoming the princess was the sense of destiny that she had been waiting for all along. A couple of weeks after their engagement, the couple was interviewed by the press. Towards the end, the reporter said that they were very much in love. Diana replied, Of course. Charles laughed, saying, Whatever in love means. Watching the tape, you can clearly see that Diana was heartbroken. In later interviews, Diana defines that instance as the moment she knew that marrying him would be a huge mistake. However, the entire world had their eyes on her, and she knew it was her duty to go through with the marriage. Even to this day, Diana and Charles still go down in history for having one of the most expensive weddings. Experts estimate that today, their wedding would cost anywhere from $70 to $100 million. From the perspective of the people watching the wedding on TV, it seemed like a dream come true. Diana later said, It was the worst day of my life. Their honeymoon was on the Royal Yacht Britannia, where Diana reportedly spent most of the time sleeping. In 1982, Charles and Diana had been married for less than a year, and she had already discovered Charles' secret relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. He started to gaslight her, saying that she was paranoid. This made her so devastated that she threatened to kill herself. Charles ignored her, and started to leave to go on a horseback trip. Diana threw herself down the stairs. The Queen rushed to her aid, screaming for a doctor. While all of the attendants surrounded the Princess, Charles just kept on walking. To the outside world, the marriage between Diana and Charles seemed like a fairytale that had come to life. For the first time, people around the world were fascinated and invested in the royal couple. No matter what was going on behind closed doors, she had to smile, wave, and pretend everything was fine. Diana was still just a teenager when she was put under pressure by the media to be this perfect princess. Combined with her unhealthy marriage, it was enough to make her spiral into a deep depression and she became bulimic. She had so much empathy for other people that a particularly difficult meeting, visiting the poor, sick, and wounded, made her mental health a lot worse. Instead of recognizing that she needed help, Diana was treated like a child throwing a tantrum and the royal family just continued to ignore her issues. William was born when Diana was 20 years old. Just barely out of her teenage years, she was supposed to raise the future king. Little William brought a lot of joy and purpose to her life. During interviews, the press would mostly ignore her, while they spoke with Charles only to ask Diana how the baby was doing. Even though this was actually very demeaning to her, Diana's face would light up and she would gush about how much fun she was having with him. Even after giving birth to the heir, her relationship with her husband remained cold and distant. She eventually decided that if she was going to be stuck in an unfaithful marriage, she would have an affair, too. When she was 23, Diana fell in love with a cavalry officer named James Hewitt. They were together about a year before her second son, Harry, was born. In pictures showing the two of them side by side, it is easy why people believe that James Hewitt might actually be Prince Harry's biological father. This is such a popular theory that it was even turned into a stage play that was performed on the West End. Diana pushed Charles to be more involved in raising the boys, instead of relying totally on nannies. When the boys were old enough to go out, she made sure they had normal experiences, like water parks, McDonald's, and shopping. She also brought them to homeless shelters to pass out hot tea and food. Prince Charles scoffed at these ideas, asking why all of that was necessary. When she was 25, Diana fell in love with her bodyguard, Barry Mannakee. They became best friends, and she felt very safe around him. He brought a lot of joy to her life, but Diana claimed that they never actually crossed the line. However, most people still consider this to be an emotional affair, at the very least. Once their friendship was revealed, Prince Charles fired Mannakee. Not long after leaving his job at the Royal Palace, Barry Mannakee was killed in a motorcycle accident. Charles and Diana were on their way to the Cannes Film Festival in France when he told her the news. Charles mentioned Mannakee's death so casually, it was as if he was talking about the weather. Diana wanted to cry, but she knew that within a few moments, she would have to step out of the car and be photographed by hundreds of people. So she had to put on that smile once again and just pretend like nothing was wrong. She later said, I think he was bumped off, but we'll never know. Diana felt that if she did not escape the marriage, she really might want to take her own life. She knew that her only hope at getting a divorce would be to get the public on her side. It was at this point that she decided to speak with a journalist named Andrew Morton about the truth of the dysfunctional household. Morton eventually published her biography, called Diana, Her True Story, in her own words. For the first time in history, the public got a glimpse into the life of a royal marriage and it certainly wasn't pretty. Charles responded by being interviewed for a documentary in 1994 called Charles, The Private Man, The Public Role, where he admitted he had an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. Diana responded by doing an interview on BBC Panorama in 1995. During this interview, she said that she believed Charles was not a good person and he wasn't even fit to become the next King of the United Kingdom. She believed that her son, William, would do a much better job serving the people. Diana said of herself that she wouldn't go quietly, saying, That's the problem. I'll fight to the end. Diana and Charles were separated for years and were seeing other people. After the bickering back and forth in the media, the Queen herself demanded that they In 1995, Diana began dating an Egyptian millionaire named Dodi Fayyad. His father was the owner of the successful Harrods department store and has a net worth of $1.6 billion, which, by the way, is far richer than the Queen. Charles and Diana were officially divorced in 1996. Charles would eventually go on to marry his long-time girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles. Even after leaving her position as Princess of Wales, Diana wanted to continue her destiny by making a difference to the world. She was pretty terrible at public speaking, which really was necessary during charity events and public appearances. So she started to receive vocal lessons from a former actor named Peter Settelan. During the lessons, Settelan set up a camera to record her progress and he asked her questions about her personal life. These became like much-needed therapy sessions for her. She revealed secrets about her marriage and the royal family. Through these lessons with Settelan, she was able to find her own voice and learn to thrive as a public speaker. After her death, these tapes were confiscated by the royal family and the public were not able to see them until years later. Diana became a traditional celebrity. Without the benefit of royal security, the paparazzi continued to follow her and write about her in the tabloids. Instead of allowing the press to only write about her hair and fashion choices, she decided to make the best of being in the spotlight by getting involved in causes that mattered to her. She raised awareness about the AIDS epidemic and traveled to several African countries to fight for the end of landmines in public spaces. One of the most famous photographs of her was with a young amputee who had had her leg blown off. Almost immediately after getting the attention of the press, the laws about landmines were changed. However, this was making a lot of politicians unhappy. They said that she was getting involved in issues that she didn't fully understand. Her response was that she really didn't care. She was going to fight for the people, not the politicians. Instead of wilting into quiet obscurity, Diana was thriving. She was no longer bulimic or depressed. She was glad to trade her title for a life of freedom. She auctioned off all of her designer gowns and gave millions to charities she cared about. All of this only made the public love her more, and she was still a princess in the hearts of the people. After her divorce was finalized, Diana was dating an Egyptian man named Dodi Fayed. He was a multi-millionaire who lived a very glamorous life. Paparazzi took photos of them on vacations around the world. The British press called him a playboy and wrote negative connotations about the fact that he was Muslim. He was actually a successful movie producer who was best known for the Oscar-winning movie Hook, starring Robin Williams. He was also the heir to the multi-billion dollar Harrods department store fortune. The two of them were very much in love, and they planned on someday getting married. Some even believe that Diana may have been pregnant with his child. If this was true, it would have caused a lot of issues for the royal family. The idea that William and Harry could have a Muslim half-sibling was unacceptable. She was also threatening to reveal more and more secrets about the royal family to the press. Her charity work often interfered with money-making schemes among the nobility. Indeed, she even received death threats on a regular basis. Not long before her death, Diana wrote a letter to her butler saying that she believed her ex-husband, Charles, was trying to have her killed in a car accident. She also called Dodi's father, Mohamed Al-Fayed, and told him the same thing. On August 31, 1997, Dodi Fayed and Diana were being driven through Paris by a man named Henri Paul. Just as they entered the Alma Tunnel, they were apparently running from paparazzi and ended up in an accident. For whatever reason, every single one of the security cameras inside the tunnel just so happened not to be working that day, so there is no recording showing exactly what happened. According to witnesses, the car went into a pole at 65 miles per hour and no one was wearing a seatbelt. On September 6, 1997, the streets of London were lined with people mourning Princess Diana's death. Millions tuned in to watch the funeral procession on TV. The royal court held a trial and found that the crash was simply an accident. However, everyone present at that trial was obligated to side with the royal family and their findings were totally biased. However, in 1999, the French government also investigated the car crash and they came to the same conclusion. It was simply an accident. However, in 2008, a new independent investigation found that the driver, Henri Paul, had been drinking heavily that day and the original trial had failed to mention that. They also concluded paparazzi vehicles were, in fact, tailgating the car. The jury concluded that Henri Paul was responsible for the deaths and that if he was still alive, he would be convicted of manslaughter. For some, this investigation was not enough and one of those people was Dodi's father, Mohamed Al-Fayed. He had spent years of his life struggling with racism while running his business and he was disgusted by how the media was portraying Dodi, even though he was a victim, too. Mohamed Al-Fayed claimed that he had evidence for 175 separate conspiracy theories and paid for a documentary called Unlawful Killing to cover them all. Obviously, in this video, we can't go too deep into all of the conspiracy theories, but it was enough for the British government to ban the documentary from being seen in the United Kingdom. According to these conspiracy theories, Henri Paul was actually sober that day because the receipts from the hotel showed that he only had two drinks at dinner and had gone through a medical exam by security beforehand. He had actually outrun the paparazzi and a mysterious white Fiat Uno followed them into the tunnel with a group of motorcycles. Some believe that these were MI6 agents who were being paid by the government to kill her. After inspecting the car, they discovered that the seatbelts in Henri Paul's car had been tampered with, which is why no one was wearing them. It also took over an hour and a half for the ambulance to get to the hospital, even though they were very nearby. Doctors believe that if Diana was wearing her seatbelt and had gotten medical attention sooner, she would have survived. Unfortunately, without videotape of the crash, we may never know the whole truth of the circumstances surrounding her death. Today, Princess Diana is not truly gone, because she lives on in Prince William and Prince Harry's legacy. Because of her, they both do charitable work, and they married for love instead of finding a mate inside the royal family. And we're sure that if she could see them today, she would truly be proud. Thank you for watching.