THEThe countdown has begun: there are now a handful of days to go on the anniversary of that dramatic August 31, 1997. It must have been a monotonous end of summer like many others. Instead that Sunday night, the crash of the black Mercedes against the thirteenth pillar of the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, in Paris, it caused the whole world to wake up with a start. Thus died Lady Diana, in that car with his cool love Dodi Al-Fayed. He was also dying together to the driverwho ran like a madman to escape the paparazzi.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of his death. And to remember it Real Time broadcasts a special tonight 18 August, at 9.20pm in which it analyzes the relationship between the Princess, the press and the paparazzi.
Lady Diana victim of celebrities
Diana, victim of celebrity is the title of tonight’s special. This is the fourth appointment in a series of specials that Real Time broadcasts from 28 July all Thursday and with which he intends to retrace the salient stages of the life of Lady D.
In the previous specials we talked about the secrets of royal weddings, from Lady Diana to Meghanof the children of the sad Princess, Harry and William, of the alleged truths that hide behind the life and death of Lady D. And tonight, precisely of the link between the Princess and the media. A relationship that is too conflicting.
The conflictual relationship with the press and the paparazzi
That Lady Diana was destined to be forever in the spotlight it was known. She knew it too, ever since she became there Carlo’s girlfriend. All the more reason, after the wedding with the Prince of England (celebrated on 29 July 1981), she entered fully (in every sense, even with that of Royal Highness) in the English royal family, one of the most talked about monarchies in the world. What the press and paparazzi would invade, therefore, her privacy was a foregone conclusion. A sort of inevitable side effect that weighs on any crown (what remains famous is what Grace Kelly of Monaco told Diana in the restroom of London’s Goldsmiths Hall in March 1981 on the occasion of the first “gaffes” of the not yet Princess, but already nonconformist, who, at an official event attended by Carlo, showed up wearing a black chiffon dress that was too provocative: “Don’t worry, you have to learn to handle the media pressure, then it will get worse and worse “).
What, however, was not known, and that probably Lady Diana did not expect, it was to be of the all alone against the press and the paparazzi. Alone, without the support of her husband (not to mention that of the mother-in-law, the Queen Elizabethperhaps never taken into account). Indeed even against her husband. The shipwreck of the marriage between her and Carlo, what earned it the nickname of “Sad Princess”, in fact, it was experienced (indeed fought) also through interviews and use of the media.
The betrayal revealed on live TV
In ’94, when the separation between Charles and Diana was already officialand the image of him definitively stained by being considered the cause of the breakup (due to the bond he had with Camillanow his wife), he, in an attempt to regain popular consent, granted to the BBC interview in which he confessed to betrayal with Camilla. It was a flop: not at all empathetic, not very sincere in saying he was “sorry”, perhaps he gathered even more antipathy than the one he already aroused.
Instead it was a resounding success the interview that Diana granted to the BBC a few years later, in ’95, in which he said the famous phrase: “There were three of us in this wedding, a little too crowded.” And also: “I would like to be the Queen in people’s hearts, but there aren’t many people who want me Queen.” Really suffering, sincere as only she knew, candid even in admitting betrayals, with that magnetic charisma that has always distinguished her, Diana admitted having had an affair with the major James Hewitt (“Yes, I loved it”), to suffer from bulimia, depression and self-harm.
This interview however resulted in one storm of controversy (including legal ones). The reporter who did it, Martin Bashir, in fact, later admitted to having extorted it by deception, reporting to Diana the fake news that former royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke would become pregnant with Carlo and have an abortion (Bashir even showed a fake receipt of the fake abortion). In the wake of anger Diana opened up, but without those falsehoods it wouldn’t have happened. The fact is that after this series of public revelations, the Queens Elizabeth demanded the divorce. And this was only the beginning of a relationship with the media, which over time, even after losing the title of Royal Highness, has obsessed Diana.
And the death linked to the escape from the paparazzi
Praised by people all over the world who adored her, Diana was sought after by the paparazzi as happens to a few divas. Even her death is linked to the paparazzi chasing her to steal a shot with her new love Dodi Al-Fayed (they had only been engaged for a month). Diana and Dodi’s car was racing. It was a desperate and frantic escape, like the ones you see in movies where criminals are hunted down. But unfortunately it was all true. Diana died at 36 not even two months old. Dodi was 42 years old. They were in love. They could be happy. Then everything was embroidered around this death: several emerged conspiracy theoriesone of the best known would like the British secret services and the Crown itself are involved, who wanted to avoid Diana’s marriage to a Muslim tycoon. Or, it was said, he wanted to prevent a new pregnancy from Lady Diana. Theories that sound like legends and that fail to obscure the blame of the media.
The other Real Time specials on Lady Diana
Next week, August 25, close to death, in the penultimate round of this series of specials, Real Time talks in detail about the tragic end of Lady Diana. Then the programming ends the following week with The Diana Investigations, an unpublished special that analyzes the investigations carried out by the two police forces that were involved in the Paris incident: the English and the French. Reconstructions and comparisons try to clarify a death about which everything has been said, and which remains a mystery.
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