Those Who Laugh Last Gets The Last Laugh
The methodical character assassination of The People’s Princess
A Royal Disaster
Over the past four years, the British Royal Family found themselves embroiled in one scandal after another. Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, signaled that this over thousand-year-old institution was heading towards modernity, as she’s a biracial woman who married Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex. The world became aware of the unpleasantries she and her husband had to endure as she laid it all bare during a sit-down interview with Oprah.
As this was unfolding, the palace worked overtime to downplay Prince Andrew’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein and to extinguish allegations made by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. He eventually settled out of court when the matter was set to go to trial. The Queen’s supposed favorite son was stripped of military titles and was taken off royal duty, but is still technically a prince.
At the end of 2021, Prince William became a trending topic on Twitter over allegedly cheating on his wife with Rose Hanbury. One Meghan Markle fan account went as far as to claim Kensington Palace colluded with tabloids to paint the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in a negative light to take the focus off the cheating rumors. The bad times continued to roll, as it was announced that the police were launching an investigation into Prince Charles’s charity, as relevant documents were unearthed that showed “cash for honors” took place. As to be expected, he vehemently denies any knowledge of this.
There seems to be a concentration of bad luck within the House of Windsor. Is it truly bad luck or an arrival of a karmic consequence? Diana, Princess of Wales, died over twenty years ago. She’s undisputedly one of the most iconic women of the twentieth century. Her style, approach, and genuineness captivated the world. She angered the family she married into as their popularity paled in comparison to hers. In 1996, she lost her HRH status, but her adoring public still refers to her as Princess Diana.
Decades forged on, and now and then, the parties who wronged Princess Diana attempt to tweak history by reframing events that portray her as paranoid or situational occurrences being complicated misunderstandings due to her so-called “mental illness”. Princess Diana blew the whistle about Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, in the early 1990s when she collaborated with Andrew Morton for Diana: Her True Story. The book also revealed how calculating and alienating royal life could be.
Was she a victim of an antiquated institution that used her as a pawn? Or a crafty public figure who used her visibility and access to the press to her advantage? With The People’s Princess not around to defend herself, let this be an exercise of weaving a tapestry using published works, firsthand accounts from the woman herself, and video evidence that will undo misconceptions.
The Matchmaking Grandmother
Princess Diana’s maternal grandmother, Baroness Fermoy, was considered an important member of the Queen Mother’s inner circle. It was widely believed that these two grandmothers of the Prince and Princess of Wales utilized their teatime to plot a match between their grandchildren. There were conversations about the suitability of a young Lady Diana, but it was the Queen Mother who was keen on the idea of her marrying into the family. There were accounts of Baroness Fermoy privately advising her granddaughter against it and another narrative that she was too timid to vocalize objections to the Queen Mother. Baroness Fermoy’s sense of duty to the royal family was ultimately at the expense of her granddaughter.
The engagement announcement was during a time of racial tension and political unrest. An anti-royalist politician went far as to accuse the British Establishment of using the engagement and eventual marriage to take the focus off the stark inequality that was rampant in Great Britain. It worked as “Di Mania” ensued. People around the world wanted to know everything about her, and women aspired to be like her. Formal royal correspondent, Stephen Baker, analyzed that the royal family saw Princess Diana as a “breath of fresh air who could revitalize their image”.
A nineteen-year-old Princess Diana could hardly believe that the World’s Most Eligible Bachelor chose her to be his bride. Before her engagement to Prince Charles, she lived in an apartment with her friends in a fashionable district in London. Princess Diana worked numerous jobs such as a nanny, kindergarten teaching assistant, and cleaning her older sister’s residence. Her life transformed overnight. She was quoted saying, “I didn’t have any idea what I let myself in for. One day, I was going to work on the Number 9 bus, and the next, I was a princess.”
Before her wedding, she expressed concern that marrying Prince Charles was the right decision. She felt she didn’t have time to get to know her soon-to-be husband, and she was being “pushed” into things. When Camilla Parker-Bowles entered the picture, it became a snafu-riddled ordeal. The two women had lunch together and were photographed at a horse race in 1980. During the lunch, Princess Diana became suspicious of the questions she asked, as she later realized she was strategizing how to carry on her relationship with Prince Charles. She found a bracelet engraved with pet names Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles gave one another. She was rightfully fed up and wanted out. She was told by her older sisters it was “too late”.
Her marital doubts during her engagement have been public knowledge since the release of Diana: Her True Story. It’s rather peculiar that back in 2015, an alleged Prince Charles “insider” revealed to Catherine Mayer, who published the unauthorized biography Charles: Heart of a King, claimed that Prince Charles almost jilted Princess Diana at the alter. Her “complex personality” and her bulimia were too much of a shock for him.
According to Diana: Her True Story, her bulimia began a week after her engagement announcement because Prince Charles commented on her weight. To speak on defining her personality as “complex”, Princess Diana became an instant public figure and had to face the reality of sharing her future husband with another woman. These were stressful situations. One must ask themselves, what does this new perspective achieve, and who does it benefit if people believe it to be true?
Jealousy is a Green-Eyed Monster
Princess Diana quickly became the most popular member of the British Royal Family. Her husband was the future King of England, but people lined the streets in droves to see her. Her popularity was political and cultural dynamite — a public relations success. The British Royal Family felt jealous of her popularity. For example, in 1984, Princess Diana was accused of trying to upstage Queen Elizabeth during the ceremonial opening of Parliament when she changed her hairstyle. Princess Diana made the heartbreaking claim that Prince Charles treated her horribly due to jealousy.
As mentioned before, royal experts theorized that the British Royal Family brought Princess Diana into the fold to rebrand themselves but expressed disdain towards her when she commanded attention. Her life became an environment where hostility and unpredictability manifested. Living this way had a serious impact on her mental health.
She became a prisoner in a gilded cage as it became undeniable she was in a loveless marriage. Everyone seemed to be aware of the business-like agreement of the marriage — even her husband. Prince Charles married for duty, not for love. His heart was with Camilla Parker-Bowles. She went to Queen Elizabeth to get help about the cancerous presence Camilla Parker-Bowles had in her life and marriage. The Queen had a cold demeanor and showed no compassion toward her dire situation. Princess Diana felt further alienated and went deeper into despair. To make matters bleaker for The People’s Princess, the Queen Mother sided with Prince Charles and expressed severe displeasure towards her. The Queen Mother’s estate was also one of the venues where Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles carried out their affair.
Princess Diana was unfairly described as mentally unstable because she stood up against the maltreatment her husband inflicted on her. She wasn’t paranoid, nor did she lash out at those around her unprovoked. Dealing with an onslaught of maltreatment and not being validated was her day-to-day reality. Even though Princess Diana was beloved on a global scale, she was still considered an outsider who married into the British Royal Family.
Despite Prince Charles acting cruelly towards his wife, the family closed ranks. Queen Elizabeth was rumored to have said that Princess Diana’s bulimia was the cause of the marital breakdown. Princess Diana’s treatment had characteristics of mental abuse. She wanted her husband to stop cheating on her, a situation he completely manufactured. He was the source of the problem, but Princess Diana was penalized for speaking about it.
The Secret is Out
As a way of coping with her life, she leaned into her public appearances and charitable endeavors. Her celebrity brought attention to worthy causes. As a schoolgirl, Princess Diana spent weekends volunteering for the elderly and mentally disabled. Being of service to others was ingrained before royal life.
The early 1990s was a gamechanger for Princess Diana, as she decided to secretly collaborate with Andrew Morton for Diana: Her True Story. The claims were Earth-shattering. According to Princess Diana, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles would maliciously taunt her behind her back, and their inner circle participated in whisper campaigns about her. Before the bombshell book hit the shelves, Andrew Morton claimed that his office was mysteriously broken into. Princess Diana worried that the palace knew what they were doing, and she had her sitting room swept for bugs, as this was the place she conducted interviews for the book.
The streaming platform Peacock released a documentary about Princess Diana in 2021. A participant in the documentary stated that her collaboration with Andrew Morton was a preemptive move. She had reason to believe that the royal family would take her children away from her. Her mother, Francis Shand Kydd, lost custody of her children and her family members testified against her. She didn’t want to meet the same fate as her mother.
Princess Diana made headlines months after the book’s publication with the “Squidgygate” scandal. Recordings from 1990 of a private conversation with her close friend, James Gilbey, were leaked. Many people found the timing to be suspicious. The palace denied any involvement in the leak, and the Prince and Princess of Wales separated a few months later. The royal couple eventually divorced in 1996.
Still, she was the most famous woman in the world, and the public didn’t lose interest. Princess Diana was worried that the family she married into, saw her as a loose end that needed tying up. Prince Charles continued seeing Camilla Parker-Bowles, despite still being legally married to his estranged wife. In November of 1995, she gave an interview with Martin Bashir for the BBC, where she provided more details on her experiences with the royal family and thoughts about the future of the monarchy.
In May 2021, it made headlines that Martin used fake documents and fueled Princess Diana’s “paranoia”, to manipulate her into doing the interview back in 1995. This caused widespread outrage. Princess Diana’s sons released statements condemning Martin Bashir’s actions.
How did an interview from 1995 take over twenty years to conclude? The BBC initially conducted an internal investigation into Martin Bashir in 1996. In Andrew Morton’s 2004 book, Diana: In Pursuit of Love, Martin Bashir’s deceit was discussed at length. Perhaps, this was a public relations exercise to continue the “paranoid” and “mentally ill” narrative that plagues Princess Diana’s memory. Coincidentally, around the time of the infamous interview, Princess Diana claimed brake failure while driving her green Audi. She suspected the brakes were tampered with. Even if it were a legitimate case of vehicular malfunction, it doesn’t make this alleged incident less terrifying.
The last year of Princess Diana’s life focused on her humanitarian endeavors and the issue of landmines she became passionate about. She aligned herself with the British Red Cross and Halo Trust. Princess Diana visited the most impacted regions. Her visit to Angola caused controversy as she was on air being accused of supporting the “Labour Party” and was referred to as a “loose cannon”. She clarified that she wasn’t a political figure but a humanitarian one.
England’s Rose Didn’t Wilt
August 31st, 2022, will be the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The impact she had on the world is still felt. One of the reasons why she’s so loved is that despite being a woman of such elevated status, she was reachable. People related to her as she was honest about her struggles. Princess Diana was a woman of immense wealth and privilege but used her status to be of service to vulnerable populations, and her accessibility was unmatched. The family she married into mistreated her. Maybe, she could’ve chosen a different way to resolve situations, but she was up against a powerful institution.
For decades, reporters, authors, royalists, and other sources, acted with bias against Princess Diana. Weaponizing her very real mental health struggles to depict her as uncontrollable or deserving of her maltreatment. She started as a naive nineteen-year-old who was pushed into marriage and was abandoned by those closest to her when she didn’t live up to unattainable expectations.
Camilla Parker-Bowles is projected to be Queen Consort when Prince Charles becomes king. How Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles treated Princess Diana should be remembered truthfully. Princess Diana didn’t deserve any of it. It’s an injustice she died without an apology or validation. As the saying goes, karma never forgets an address. Those who last laugh get the last laugh.
