The mystery of the death of Princess Diana: Unexpected details two decades later. The Mystery of the Death of Princess Diana: Unexpected Details Two Decades Later A Drunk Driver, Exorbitant Speed ​​and a Seat Belt

More than 20 years have passed since Princess Diana died in a car accident, but new facts about her life continue to appear regularly in the press. In the InStyle review - all the most interesting and unexpected things about the “Queen of Hearts”.

1. She was the fourth of five children in the family

Princess Diana had two sisters, Sarah and Jane, and a younger brother, Charles. Another Spencer child, a boy named John, was born in January 1960 and died a few hours later.

2. Her parents divorced when she was 7 years old.

Diana's parents, Francis Shand Kydd and Earl John Spencer, separated in 1969.

3. Diana's grandmother served at court

Ruth Roche, Lady Fermoy, Princess Diana's maternal grandmother, was the Queen Mother's personal assistant and companion. They were very friendly, and Lady Fermoy often helped her in organizing holidays.

4. Diana grew up on Sandrigham Estate

Sandrigham House is located in Norfolk and belongs to the royal family. On its territory there is Park House, where Princess Diana's mother was born, and then Diana herself. The princess spent her childhood there.

5. Diana dreamed of becoming a ballerina

Diana studied ballet for a long time and wanted to become a professional dancer, but she was too tall for this (Diana’s height is 178 cm).

6. She worked as a nanny and teacher

Before meeting Prince Charles, Diana was a nanny. She later became a kindergarten teacher. At that time, Diana received about five dollars an hour.

7. She was the first royal bride to have a paid job

And Kate Middleton is the first to have a higher education.

8. Prince Charles first dated her older sister

It was thanks to her sister Sarah that Diana met her future husband. “I introduced them, became their Cupid,” Sarah Spencer later said.

9. Prince Charles was a distant relative of Diana

Charles and Diana were each other's 16th cousins.

10. Before the wedding, Diana saw Prince Charles only 12 times

And he became the initiator of their wedding.

11. Her wedding dress broke all records

The ivory wedding dress created by designer duo David and Elizabeth Emmanuel made history. More than 10 thousand pearls were used to embroider the dress, and the train was almost 8 meters long. By the way, this is the longest train among all princess wedding dresses.

12. Diana deliberately left out part of her wedding vows

Instead of the traditional promise to “obey” her husband, Diana vowed only to “love him, comfort him, honor him and protect him, in sickness and in health.”

13. She was the first royal to give birth in hospital.

Before her, representatives of the royal family practiced only home births, so Prince William became the first future monarch to be born in a hospital.

14. She practiced parenting methods that were unconventional for royalty.

Princess Diana wanted her sons to live ordinary lives. “She made sure that William and Harry experienced everything: Diana took them to the cinema, made them stand in lines, bought food at McDonald's, rode roller coasters with them,” said Patrick Jephson, who worked with Diana in for six years.

15. She had many famous friends

Diana was friends with Elton John, George Michael, Tilda Swinton and Liza Minnelli.

16. ABBA was her favorite band

It is known that Diana was a big fan of the Swedish pop group ABBA. The Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William paid tribute to Diana by playing several ABBA songs at their 2011 wedding.

17. She had an affair with a bodyguard

Barry Mannaki was part of the royal security team, and in 1985 he became Princess Diana's personal bodyguard. After a year of service, he was removed due to his too close relationship with Diana. In 1987, he crashed on a motorcycle.

18. After the divorce, her title was taken away from her

Princess Diana has lost her title "Her Royal Highness". Prince Charles insisted on this, although Queen Elizabeth II was not against leaving Diana the title.

19. She invited Cindy Crawford to Kensington Palace

Diana invited supermodel Cindy Crawford to tea to please Prince Harry and Prince William, who were then teenagers. In 2017, on the anniversary of Diana's death, Cindy Crawford shared a throwback photo of the Princess of Wales on Instagram. “She asked if I could come and have tea with her the next time I was in London. I was nervous and didn't know what to wear. But when I walked into the room, we immediately started chatting as if she were a regular girl,” Crawford wrote.

20. She is buried on her family's island

Diana is buried at the Spencer family estate of Althorp in Northamptonshire. The estate has been in the Spencer family for over 500 years. The small island also houses a temple on the Oval Lake, where anyone can pay tribute to the princess.

The People's Princess, third out of a hundred on the list of the greatest Britons in history - Princess Diana - enjoyed the boundless love of her subjects. They idolized her and envied her, because the scenario of her life resembled a fairy tale: a kind and beautiful girl married a real prince and settled with him in the palace... Only the heroes of the real fairy tale did not manage to live happily ever after. The story was ideal only from the outside, but it ended with the death of the one whom they sympathized with the most in this couple.

Diana died in a car accident on August 31, 1997 in Paris, and this year, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the tragic event, the princess is remembered with particular reverence. We have prepared material about versions of what happened that appeared at different times and excited the minds of the princess’s fans. You can learn more about the life and death of the Queen of Hearts from the new documentary film “Princess Diana: Tragedy or Conspiracy,” which will be shown from August 29 to 31 at 10:00 pm on the TLC channel.

Misalliance and adultery - these two words haunted Charles and Diana throughout their family life. According to contemporaries, Miss Spencer, despite her noble origins, was not distinguished by a brilliant mind and was rather hasty in her decisions, one of which later completely changed her fate. Diana first met Charles 20 years before her death: in 1977, he came hunting at the Spencer family estate, Althorp House, at the invitation of her father. The prince already had the reputation of a heartthrob, but Diana was only 16 and Charles was not interested in her, and she herself had no time for romance: the future princess was preparing to enter college.

Princess Diana, 1980

The marriage of a 19-year-old lover of tabloid novels and a mature 33-year-old man, infatuated with another woman, was initially doomed to failure: behind the perfect glossy façade were hidden suicide attempts, mutual infidelity, hysterics and eating disorders, which would become known only years later. Diana called her marriage “crowded,” meaning her husband’s love for Camilla Parker Bowles, who later became his second wife. It is precisely betrayal that supporters of the “conspiracy theory” call the cause of the princess’s death: biographers testify that Diana cheated on her husband at least ten times and the royal family did not forgive her for this.

The accident is just a staged act

On August 31, 1997, when Lady Di's Mercedes crashed into a support of the Alma tunnel in Paris, the cameras were not working there, although the equipment was working on other roads in the city. This is just one of the many mysteries and oddities associated with the deaths of driver Henri Paul, Diana and her lover Dodi Al-Fayed, whom the press still awkwardly calls “friend.” According to one version, the Egyptian producer’s personal bodyguard, Ken Wingfield, was supposed to take the wheel, and not Henri Paul, the head of security at the Ritz Hotel, where the lovers spent the last evening of their lives together. Dodi and Diana were unable to be alone - the couple was besieged by a crowd of paparazzi, and Paul accelerated the car three times faster than allowed when driving through the tunnel in order to break away from the annoying reporters on motorcycles.

The driver lost control due to a difficult traffic situation - this version looks much more plausible than many mysteries associated with the accident, but a considerable number of people believe that everything that happened that night on the Seine embankment was nothing more than a re-enactment. Thus, the lovers decided to simply once and for all avoid the attention of strangers to their personal lives, which they had more than received. All this, perhaps, could sound plausible if you do not take into account the personal investigation of Dodi’s father, Mohammed Al-Fayed, who is still unsuccessfully trying to find out how his son died.

Dodi Al Fayed and Princess Diana

The driver is at fault

The driver, Henri Paul, was unknown to anyone before the accident. But after the incident, there were those who called him a pawn in the game of the powers that be, an MI6 agent who set up the accident, a drug addict who took a huge dose of antidepressants, and a drunkard who got behind the wheel after drinking at least three bottles of wine. Fields was considered the culprit of the accident and was cursed for the death of the people's favorite, until it turned out that the head of the French investigators, Jacques Mules, who was investigating the case, out of fatigue, mixed up the test tubes with blood in the laboratory. In addition, people who knew Henri denied both drunkenness and drug addiction - although the judges did not consider this evidence of the driver’s innocence, nor did Mules’ admission of substitution.

Diana's car after the accident

Soldier N

It was no coincidence that Diana died in an accident on the Seine embankment - she was killed, and not by anyone, but by the British intelligence services. This sensational version of the cause of Lady Di’s death shook up the world media 16 years after the tragedy. A certain military man, whom the press called Soldier N, was put on trial for illegal possession of weapons, which his ex-wife willingly told the jury about. She also said that the ex-husband had repeatedly told their daughter that Diana was killed according to the plan of SAS - the British Special Air Service, and he himself participated in this.

The Crown did not react in any way and did not comment, although this version was put forward by other people, including former MI6 intelligence officer Richard Thomplison. In his scandalous autobiographical book, he stated that the accident that killed Diana followed exactly the same scenario as the plan to assassinate Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 1992. By the way, the version with Soldier N also appears in the film “Unlawful Murder” by British director Keith Allen, after which another scandal erupted at the Cannes Film Festival, but the mystery of Diana’s death was never revealed.

Ghost rider

One of the main mysteries in the story that happened that night in Paris is the white Fiat Uno, which was allegedly seen at the scene of Diana’s death a couple of minutes before the accident. Various versions are put forward: it could be an unknown British intelligence agent who set up a tragic road accident, or the famous Parisian paparazzi James Andanson, who tracked Diana and Dodi back at the Ritz. The photographer did have a white Fiat, but his wife said James left the car at home that night. At the scene of the accident they found fragments of a broken turn signal and white paint from the car body, but after a large-scale check it was not possible to find a single white Fiat with similar damage.

It was also not possible to find out either the reasons for Andanson’s hasty flight from France to Corsica even before Lady Di died in the Salpêtrière hospital, or the reasons for his subsequent death. Some time after the accident in Paris, Andanson was found sitting in a car in the Pyrenees with a gunshot wound to the head, and all his work tapes and notes had disappeared from the agency for which he worked. What killed him is still unknown exactly - it was assumed that the photographer committed suicide, but no weapon was found next to him that would confirm this version.

Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed

Order from the Royal Family

There will not be a second Diana in the Windsor family - at least as long as Elizabeth II is alive. They say that she personally chooses names for all the heirs of the family, and in particular did not approve of the desire of her grandson, Prince William, to name his future daughter in honor of his mother. The Queen told William and Kate Middleton in no uncertain terms that Lady Di England was enough, and as a result the young princess became Charlotte Elizabeth, with Diana being only her third name, which is very rarely mentioned. The queen's hostility from the point of view of maintaining the status quo of the monarchy is justified: no one in modern history has caused as many scandals around Kensington Palace as Diana of Wales.

Her conflict with Charles, initially hidden behind the doors of Kensington Palace, over the 15 years of marriage turned into a battle open to the whole world. Diana told reporters about her unsuccessful marriage, and Charles promised in his interviews that he would never leave Camilla. After the publication of the memoirs of Lady Di's former butler Paul Burrell, the spreading horns over the prince's head loomed especially clearly: journalists, one after another, began to write that Harry might be the son not of Charles, but of the red-haired jockey James Hewitt, with whom Diana also had an affair. This has not been proven, but it is known for sure that Elizabeth and Philip were very angry with their daughter-in-law both for this story and for her other adventures, which Diana did not even try to hide, and they certainly did not want to even indirectly become related to the Egyptians, despite their impeccable reputation and multi-billion dollar fortune.

Princess Diana and James Hewitt

Mohammed Al-Fayed calls the royal family's attitude towards his son Dodi racist and bigoted. According to him, they did not even want to imagine that a native of Egypt, and a Muslim, could become a kind of stepfather for the heirs to the throne, not to mention the fact that the princes could have an adopted brother or sister. It is Diana’s possible pregnancy that is called another reason for her death: the Windsors supposedly could not allow this to happen and brought British intelligence into the matter to kill their pregnant daughter-in-law with the wrong hands.

Whatever actually caused the deaths of Diana, Dodi Al-Fayed and Henri Paul, this accident went down in world history, like the whole life of the Princess of Wales - a woman who was just looking for love, like everyone else. There really won’t be a second like this in the royal family: 2.5 billion people watched Diana’s funeral live, another 3 million, sobbing, listened to Elton John sing and followed the coffin through the streets of London. So many flowers were brought to the palace that they had to be distributed to hospitals and nursing homes - the queen of hearts, who had been involved in charity all her life, and after her death gave her subjects a farewell gift.

Twenty years ago, on August 31, 1997, Princess Diana, an amazing woman who changed the face of the British monarchy, died as a result of a car accident in a Paris tunnel. A woman who is remembered to this day.

The death of Diana became a real grief for hundreds of thousands of people: after her death, the square in front of Buckingham Palace was littered with flowers. People mourned the people's favorite and continued to carry bouquets, following the call of their hearts.

In the photo: a sea of ​​flowers in front of Kensington Palace in memory of Princess Diana, 2013. Photo telegraph.co.uk

And today, twenty years later, people still bring flowers to Kensington Palace, where a beautiful garden was laid out in memory of Diana.

New films about Princess Diana

Despite the fact that no official events were planned to mark the anniversary of Diana’s death in the UK, and Prince Charles did not even interrupt his annual vacation, nor did the Queen, the sad date did not go unnoticed. The People's Princess is remembered in the news around the world on this day, and several documentaries dedicated to her memory have been released in the UK.

Perhaps the most touching of them is “Diana, Our Mother - Her Life and Legacy Documentary” (“Diana, Our Mother, Her Life and Legacy”). This is an amazing film filled with personal memories and sincere emotions, in which her adult sons tell about the life and death of Diana.

In the photo: Princess Diana with her sons. Photo dailymail.co.uk

Despite my skepticism about the idealization of Lady Di’s figure, I couldn’t hold back my tears while listening to the warmth and love with which Harry and William spoke about their mother. After all, for them, Diana was not at all a princess who suffered in an unsuccessful marriage, but a wonderful mother who gave them surprisingly bright, joyful moments.

A few years ago I read the book “Princess Diana. A life told by herself." Turning the pages, I sympathized with Diana, at the same time marveling at her childish naivety, but at the same time I did not understand what made the whole world admire this woman. After all, Diana married not a person, but her dream, a ghostly “prince” from a fairy tale, about whom she knew almost nothing, whose hobbies she did not share and did not understand. And years later, having experienced great disappointment from her husband’s dislike, Diana plunged into the abyss of depression, which turned into attacks of bulimia for her. Surely you have read about this or at least heard about it.

The story of the tragic love triangle of Diana, Charles and Camilla is probably known to everyone who has been at least somewhat interested in the fate of Lady Di or the new history of the British monarchy.

In the photo: the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana. Photo dailymail.co.uk

We can endlessly discuss Diana's mistakes as a wife, but it is impossible not to respect her for how much she did for her children. She gave them a childhood full of fun adventures. According to William, there are still rare days in his life when he does not think about his mother and does not regret that she is not around. In that same film, both princes remember how they spent time with their mother, and how much love the world was filled with in her presence. Personally, I burst into tears at the moment when my sons remember their last conversation with Diana, that phone call when they were rushing about their children's affairs, greatly regretting now that they did not talk to her longer and did not say something important.

Perhaps we can say that Diana destroyed the traditions of restrained upbringing accepted in the royal family, based on distance and respect, but not on love for children. Diana loved and adored her children, and with great joy, which is noticeable in every photograph and every frame of rare surviving videos, she spent time with the boys. It breaks William's heart that he couldn't introduce his mother to his wife and children, imagining what a wonderful grandmother she would have made. Of course, the eldest prince, who has already become a father himself, is trying with all his might to preserve the memory of his mother, telling the children about grandmother Diana. Their house is full of photographs of Lady Di, but they will never replace a living person and his warmth, which the prince immensely regrets.

It is impossible to hear about this without tears. And if you are also remembering Princess Diana these days, find the strength to watch this touching film about the memory kept by her sons.

In the photo: Prince William, Prince Harry and Kate Middleton in the memorial garden on the anniversary of Diana's death. Photo abcnews.go.com

Good deeds of Princess Diana

Of course, on the anniversary of Diana's death, there is a lot of talk about her enormous contribution to charity. Diana was one of the first to draw attention to the problem of AIDS, a disease about which the press preferred to remain silent. Diana visited hospitals, touched AIDS patients, shook their hands, hugged them when not all doctors agreed to do so.

The princess's contribution to helping the homeless, cancer research and the fight against landmines is no less significant. Now, after Diana’s death, her good work is continued by her sons, whom the princess taught to love, respect and support people who have suffered troubles and misfortunes.

In the photo: Princess Diana in a minefield. Photo abcnews.go.com

Another film, the release of which was also timed to coincide with August 31, is dedicated to the circumstances of Diana’s death and the first days after it - “Diana, 7 Days”. Again, a lot of attention in the film is paid to the feelings and emotions of those close to the princess and, first of all, her sons. Princes Harry and William have repeatedly spoken negatively about the paparazzi, accusing them not only of the death of their mother, but also of the indifference and even cynicism with which they filmed the scene of the tragedy instead of trying to help Diana, who was seriously injured, but that’s all is alive.

The latest, although far from new, but probably the first film shown in its entirety in Britain, is “Diana: In Her Own Words,” based on several videos made by Diana’s public speaking teacher, who The princess spoke about problems in her personal life. He kept these recordings and, of course, sold them profitably after the princess’s death. In the frame we see a living, open, vulnerable Diana. This is a rare opportunity to see the true face of a public person. The film is interesting because of the incredible degree of frankness with which Diana talks about her relationship with Charles, how rarely he is in her bedroom, and how cold and even rude he is to her.

Documentary about Diana: "Diana: In Her Own Words"

These days, in various documentaries, programs and newsreels, Princess Diana is talked about so much that it is simply impossible to stay away. And one cannot help but be amazed at how much they loved her for her humanity, kindness, responsiveness and openness, which is not typical for royalty. Princess Diana was loved by many, and the fact that her memory is still alive 20 years later speaks volumes about what an amazing person she was. After all, they didn’t love her for the fairy tale that the life of a “simple” count’s daughter suddenly became (by the way, I still don’t understand why they talk about Diana as Cinderella, because she wasn’t one at all). She was loved for the goodness that this Queen of human hearts radiated and created.

Exactly 20 years ago, the world was shocked by the news of the tragic death of Princess Diana. During her lifetime, she became a national hero and changed the image of the British monarchy in people's minds. Lady Di charmed with her sincerity and warmth. Londoners bring her photographs and flowers to the gates of Kensington Palace; the day before, her mother’s memory was honored by her sons Princes William and Harry in the White Garden.

An old chronicle is like a feature film. Not a true story - a fairy tale: a beautiful dress, a real prince, a luxurious carriage. And a modest girl who became a princess. Is it possible not to love this?

What a shock her death was for everyone. His eldest son, William, was 15 at the time. “It either makes you stronger or kills you. I was on the edge. But I really wanted her to be proud of me. So I persevered,” he said.

All these 20 years, he basically did not visit Paris - Lady Di’s last city. I decided this spring. He and his wife Kate were here at the Alma Tunnel, the site of the car accident. The gilded torch, installed before the tragedy as a symbol of French-American friendship, has long been a memorial to Diana.

The details of her last evening are known to everyone. Surveillance video from the Ritz shows Diana and her boyfriend, the son of Egyptian tycoon Dodi Al-Fayed, walking into the hotel lobby. In a moment they will get into the car. They will try to hide from the paparazzi at breakneck speed. They will crash into a concrete support. He will die on the spot. She's later at the hospital. The jury will render a verdict: guilty - the driver who got behind the wheel while drunk; passengers who did not wear their seat belts. Finally, the photographers who created the emergency.

There is another version: the cause of the accident was a car, which by that time was allegedly already in the tunnel. The police found fragments of the Fiat Uno. Eyewitnesses also saw a white car zigzagging away from the scene of the accident. Among them is the doctor Frederick Miley. He then provided the princess with first aid. “You know, I don’t believe in fate, but it seems to me that it was no coincidence that I ended up there. I hope that the words that I whispered to the princess at least somewhat eased her suffering,” Miley said.

Investigators will never be able to find either the white Fiat or its driver. The British media will write that the fragments of the car were planted by those who wanted to disguise the accident as a regular accident. The British intelligence services allegedly acted on orders from the royal family. The newspapers will write: when the black Mercedes drove into the tunnel, suddenly a bright flash cut through the twilight. Perhaps the latest laser weapons were used, Richard Thomplison, a British special agent, said a little later. And many will believe him.

Diana really got in the way. At first I made a scene for my husband. Then she changed lovers like gloves. I was actually going to marry Al-Fayed. And she even allegedly expected a child from him. Elizabeth II certainly could not be happy about the half-brother of the heir to the throne, the Arab prince. The very fact of pregnancy is still being debated, but lawyer Virginie Bardet, who defended the photographers at that trial, has no doubts.

No one has ever proven the version of the involvement of the royal family. Many biographers of Lady Di believe that the queen would not have done such a thing, the price was too high if even one piece of evidence of a crime had appeared.

“Lady Contradiction” - from the very beginning she seemed to be deliberately bringing the tragic end closer. She didn’t love her, but she got married. She knew: the groom was courting her sister Sarah, sympathized with her neighbor Camilla, and only wanted an heir and a clean reputation from Diana. But I went for it. She was not afraid to shake the hand of an AIDS patient and admit to adultery with a groom. She fought against landmines and did not leave a penny to charities. She was desperately trying to be needed - looking for love. I found it - worldwide, but I didn’t become happy. She just really wanted at least one person in the world to love her not because she was a princess. After all, this is exactly what happens in a fairy tale.

Olga Oksenich, TV Center.

Princess Diana is a story that, even 20 years later, is shrouded in darkness. A lot of time has passed, and the question of the life and death of the princess has not yet been closed. What really happened in the royal family.

In Britain, it is not new to find books about members of the royal family on the shelves. Recently a new book, “The Real Diana,” appeared, authored by a famous aristocratic writer who is close in royal circles. It was she who wrote a book about the King Mother that shook the whole world.

Lady Campbell is the first to openly state that Princess Diana's father, Lord John Spencer, had been hatching a plan for many years to marry his daughter to Prince Charles. However, as it turned out, it was not intended for Diana at all, but for her older sister Sarah. And when Charles's father began to prepare his son for the wedding and chose candidates, Sarah Spencer was one of the first contenders. But these plans could not be realized due to Sarah’s statements, which were published in the press:

The Queen is known to be furious when anyone in her family discusses her personal life in the press.

Diana was the youngest of the three Spencer sisters. The princess's family hoped that she would become the wife of Prince Andrew. His photograph stood on the nightstand next to the girl’s bed. Her family even nicknamed her the Duchess, since if she had become Andrew's wife, she would have joined the family of the Duke of York. These two families were related for many years, so their children were always together and were friends from a very young age.

Charles and Diana got married in 1981; according to those present, the young people sincerely loved each other. In 1982 and 1984, the couple had two sons, Princes William and Harry.

A German magazine published an article that became a real sensation. Allegedly, the sons of Diana and Charles have a sister. According to their information, in 1982, Elizabeth II ordered artificial fertilization of the egg received from Diana. All this to make sure that the princess is able to give birth to Charles. Allegedly, instead of destroying the fertilized egg, the doctor who conducted the experiment planted it with his wife, as a result of which a girl was born. Due to numerous threats, the family moved to the United States, where Prince William and his wife Kate recently visited their daughter.

For 20 years, fans have been bringing flowers, photographs and lighting candles to the London review.

“We've been doing this for 20 years. I followed her when she was alive, my house is still a place of worship in her honor,” Nikki Surridge, 41, told the agency.

According to the girl, although Diana was a princess, she was kind and never became arrogant in connection with her title. Surridge said that she comes here in 1997, where at first she spent a lot of time, where everyone was sad and supported mourning, but now, according to her, people gather here not to mourn, but to pay tribute to the life of the princess.

Let's remember that the princess was Charles' wife from 1981 to 1996. In 1997, she died in a car accident, the secrets of which have not yet been revealed. The rescuer who arrived at the scene stated that the princess was alive and he did not notice any fatal injuries. It is because of this that many began to claim that it was a conspiracy by the royal family.