Nearly 30 years after her tragic death, Princess Diana remains an influential figure in today’s society and culture. On what would have been her 65th birthday, we look back at nine iconic moments from her life.
Shy teenager to royal superstar
Diana’s appeal began almost from the moment she appeared on the world stage as an awkward, shy teenager in the early 1980s. Before becoming a global royal superstar, she was living in a London flat with her girlfriends and working in a kindergarten. Although hailed as a “commoner” when she began dating Charles, Lady Diana Spencer was a member of the aristocracy, born into a privileged family that had close connections to the royals.
Her wedding day
Diana’s wedding to Charles was billed as a true-life fairy tale. Amid pomp and circumstance, shy 20-year-old Lady Di married the heir to the throne in the grand St Paul’s Cathedral on July 29, 1981, watched by a worldwide TV audience of more than 750 million. Dressed in her Emanuel silk taffeta wedding gown with its billowing sleeves and huge train, the new Princess of Wales shared a kiss with Charles on the palace balcony – a departure from royal protocol.
Becoming a mother
Diana adored her sons William and Harry, and tried to offer them as normal and as fun a life as possible. They enjoyed trips to Disney World, played tennis and visited the cinema together, and on days out at Thorpe Park, she made sure they queued for the rides like everyone else. The princess also sought to educate her boys about those less fortunate, and would take them to Centrepoint hostels as children to show them the plight of the homeless.
Shaking hands with AIDS patients
The princess helped break the stigma surrounding AIDS and HIV when she was photographed shaking hands, without gloves, with an AIDS patient at the Middlesex Hospital in London in 1987. She championed victims of the disease when there was a widespread fear the illness could be passed on by touching. She later made numerous visits to the Mildmay specialist HIV hospital in east London.
Marriage breakdown
Behind the scenes, all was not well in Charles and Diana’s relationship. The princess found the palace courtiers unapproachable, and was overwhelmed by her role as a royal superstar. She was fighting personal demons such as bulimia, and was wracked by insecurities, doubting her own worth as a member of the royal family. Charles had turned to his former love Camilla Parker Bowles, while Diana went on to embark on an affair with Major James Hewitt. The growing distance between Charles and Diana began to be apparent on royal tours – with Diana sitting alone at the monument to love, the Taj Mahal in India in February 1992. On the same trip, Charles attempted to kiss his wife but collided with her ear at the Jaipur Polo Club. A disastrous trip to South Korea by the ill-at-ease prince and princess took place in November of that year. They were nicknamed The Glums and a month later it was announced they were separating.
Panorama interview
Charles later confessed to an affair in an interview and book with Jonathan Dimbleby. Diana then gave a Panorama television interview to Martin Bashir in 1995 in which she said of her relationship with Charles “there were three of us in this marriage”, questioned his suitability as king and admitted adultery herself. In May 2021, Lord Dyson’s inquiry into the BBC programme found that Bashir engaged in “deceitful behaviour” to secure the world exclusive, faking bank statements that suggested individuals were being paid to keep the princess under surveillance. Diana’s appearance prompted the Queen to urge the Waleses to divorce, which they finally did in 1996.
Becoming the people’s Princess
Diana brought a more touchy-feely approach to the royal family. Whereas the Queen and the rest of the Windsors were often perceived as remote and out of touch, Diana was seen as bridging the divide between the monarchy and the public. Youngsters presenting posies would be hugged, with the tactile princess often happily embracing other well-wishers.
The post-divorce photo shoot
A Vanity Fair photo shoot in 1997 with celebrity photographer Mario Testino reinvented the princess style-wise and redefined her life post-divorce. With newly cropped hair, the princess looked relaxed, happy and carefree, dressed in a variety of glamorous gowns.
Walking through minefields
In the wake of her divorce, Diana campaigned to outlaw landmines, walking through minefields wearing a protective visor and vest in Angola, and travelling to Bosnia to meet victims of the weapons in 1997. Diana never saw her work come to fruition as she died in a car crash just weeks after the Bosnia trip, before the international treaty to ban the military weapons was signed at the end of that year. The Mercedes she was travelling in with her lover Dodi Fayed was being pursued by paparazzi after leaving the Ritz Hotel in Paris, when it crashed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, while being driven by chauffeur Henri Paul, who was drunk and driving too fast. A sea of flowers was left at the gates of Diana’s home, Kensington Palace, by shocked members of the public and hundreds of thousands of mourners gathered in London on the day of the funeral. A 15-year-old William and Harry, 12, walked behind their mother’s coffin as it proceeded through the streets on its way to Westminster Abbey.
