I have some somewhat interesting news about both of HRH Prince George of Cambridge’s grandmothers. First, let’s talk about Prince George’s most famous grandmother, the grandmother he will sadly never know. August 31st will be the 16th anniversary of Diana’s death. She would have been only 52 years old this year. You would have thought that after 16 years, they would just let her rest in peace, right? Not so much. Diana is featured on the September issue of Vogue, with a story about how she was really in love with Hasnat Khan, “the only man who never sold her out.” And now this little piece of news as we come upon the terrible death anniversary – her death is being re-investigated following claims that it was a military (special forces) hit. A Sky News reporter claims: “The information we’re told was passed to Scotland Yard quite recently through the Royal Military Police. It also includes, we understand, references to something known as Diana’s diary.” And here’s what it COULD be about:
A newly revealed claim of conspiracy in the death of Princess Diana has royal watchers buzzing once again, nearly 16 years after the woman who would now be a royal grandmother died in a Paris car crash. But British police seem to be knocking down the claim — that the British military was involved in the deaths of Diana, her boyfriend and driver in August 1997.
“This is not a re-investigation,” London police tersely stressed in a statement that revealed none of what it had been told.
The claim appears to have been sent first to military authorities and then London police by the parents-in-law of a British special forces sniper after his marriage had fallen apart, according to an article on the website of the Sunday People newspaper. It did not offer a source for its reporting. Sunday People said it had seen a seven-page handwritten letter by the in-laws alleging that the soldier, whom the newspaper did not name, had boasted to his wife that the elite British Special Air Service commando unit was behind the deaths.
The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence told CNN only that “this is for Metropolitan Police to investigate.”
Military authorities have been aware of the claim since the 2011 court-martial of the soldier’s former roommate on weapons charges, Sunday People reported. The unnamed soldier mentioned in the letter was a witness in that case, according to the newspaper.
Neither the Sunday People piece nor an earlier version carried by Press Association offered details of the claimed involvement by soldiers in the deaths.
Diana, 36, and Dodi Fayed, her 42-year-old boyfriend, died when the Mercedes-Benz they were traveling in hit a pillar in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris. They were being followed at the time by the paparazzi after leaving the Ritz Hotel. Their driver, Henri Paul, also killed, was drunk and driving at high speed, investigators concluded. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was the sole survivor.
A British coroner’s inquest in 2008 concluded that their deaths were the result of “grossly negligent driving of the following vehicles and of the Mercedes.” The inquest found no evidence of murder. Yet the deaths have always been paired with conspiracy theories accusing British and French intelligence services and members of British royalty of orchestrating her death. Diana remains wildly popular in death, and news of the new claim sparked an immediate surge in discussion of her death on news sites and social media.
It’s unclear whether these allegations will make it any farther than previous claims have. London police certainly aren’t about to make any big announcements, based on the terse closing line of their statement.
“Not Prepared to Discuss Further,” Scotland Yard said in its statement.
After 16 years, do you think there’s really all that much we don’t already know? I mean, sure, there are some gaps in the information that has been publicly disseminated. I believe that Henri Paul was not only drunk off his face, but he was probably employed by one if not several spy agencies. I always thought that Trevor Rees-Jones (the only survivor of the crash) probably knew more about what happened than he said. But beyond that… what? Henri Paul was sh-tfaced and he lost control of the car. The paparazzi were in dangerous pursuit. Diana wasn’t wearing her seatbelt. Why do we need to drag this up every few years?
As for Prince George’s other grandmother, Carole Middleton, well… Prince George is going to be spending a lot of time with granny. A LOT. After spending four weeks at her mom’s house, Kate has finally decided to move back in with William. And Carole is moving in too:
She was the first to visit her daughter in hospital when Prince George was born nearly four weeks ago. And since then, Carole Middleton appears to have taken on the role of granny-in-residence.
For after having the Duchess of Cambridge and her baby to stay for three weeks, she followed them up to north Wales. Kate’s closeness to her mother is well-known. So it was no surprise that she chose to go to her parents’ Berkshire mansion shortly after leaving St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington following George’s birth.
And when Kate and the baby moved back to Anglesey at the start of this week to be with Prince William, who returned to duty as a rescue helicopter pilot ten days ago, Mrs Middleton was persuaded to go with them to help the duchess and the baby settle in.
Friends say she has taken to being a grandmother with ‘gusto’, and it is understood that she accompanied the couple as they travelled up by car. William was seen by locals out and about with Mrs Middleton while Kate remained at the isolated, whitewashed farmhouse.
Yesterday morning the prince dropped Mrs Middleton at the nearest railway station, Bangor, for her to take the train back to Berkshire after spending the best part of a month in the company of the new parents. While some would find living in such close proximity to their own mother/mother-in-law claustrophobic – barely a day has gone past since George’s birth that Carole hasn’t been present – the couple are said to be ‘immensely grateful’ for her help.
Sources said Kate ‘just feels safest and most secure’ with her family, particularly when her husband returned to work after paternity leave. She believes that no one could be better placed – or more trusted – to teach her about bringing up a baby than her mother, who has three children of her own.
Although Kate has eschewed the services of a maternity nurse, it is believed that her new housekeeper, Antonella Fresolone, who used to work for the Queen at Buckingham Palace, has travelled to Anglesey with her. As well as light household duties, Miss Fresolone has been cooking for the royal couple.
It is not known how long they plan to spend at their rented farmhouse but William is due to complete his posting at RAF Valley in mid-September, after which the couple are due to move into a newly-refurbished home in Kensington Palace.
Eh, I think it’s fine. I think the royal family – the Queen and Charles in particular – are treading lightly on anything to do with the Middleton family for the moment. No one is going to say anything about Carole spending time with William and Kate in Wales. It’s just a farmhouse. It’s not a palace. Because if Carole was trying to “move in” with William and Kate in Kensington Palace, then the Queen would say something. You know? Because that would be “too much” for the Queen.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, Mario Testino.
Three people thought they were above the laws of the land (wearing seat belts in the backseat was compulsory and strictly enforced in France at the time, as was drink-driving natch). And it was the laws of physics that got ’em in the end.
As for her/ Mohammed al Fayed’s horse manure about a Palace plot to do her in, wearing her seatbelt coud well have saved her as they wouldn’t have been flung around so hard their heads became cannonballs. 🙄
She did amazing work with AIDS patients and landmines but if she were alive the Middletons wouldn’t get a look in, as she could be as jealous as hell. Just ask Tiggy Legg-Bourke.
True to everything you just said..
Or as these guys put it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4meFC1ee7Q
On the topic of seat belts, I’m a very faithful seat belt user (as was Diana reportedly), but I have also been guilty on rare occasions not to wear a seat belt. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I wear a seat belt whether I am in the front of backseat of a vehicle, throughout a flight, on buses if they are available, on amusement park rides, anything that offers a seat belt. But there is that one percent when I’m in a taxi or chauffeured vehicle and I’m just too tired or the latch isn’t completely exposed so I don’t bother trying to pull it out. We all make mistakes and take risks however large or small they may be. However, the combination of a few judgment lapses can form a chain of events that can lead to disaster.
Unfortunately, Diana made the mistake of not wearing a seat belt that night in a car that was driven at an excessive rate of speed by someone under the influence of alcohol. Even if someone had been out to kill her, this incident alone seems to have just been a tragic accident caused by those three main factors. Conspiracy theorists might find more by analyzing events, documents, and Diana’s personal writings prior to that night in Paris. Diana could have very well been followed by spies for the Royal Family who were conspiring against her at the time of her death, but I don’t think they had anything to do with the accident. I believe that Diana had the right to be paranoid though. You don’t mess with the Queen and embarrass her son in the media and expect to walk away from that completely unscathed. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were people out to get her, but the car accident did her in before they got the chance. I doubt we’ll ever know the complete truth as almost everything that is publicly known about Diana has already been written about. We can only form our own opinions on what the Royal Family had intended for Diana during the months and days prior to her death.
No, the seat belt which Diana was supposed to wear was found to be jammed. She was known to always wear her seat belt.
And her driver was not actually drunk. The blood results were doctored and then disappeared when the Inquiry asked for a retest. A receipt for the evening showed him only having had two drinks, and the CCTV before they left showed him acting quite sober.
The French coroners never showed up to the Inquiry proceedings despite being required to; they were protected by the French government, citing the need to protect State security. Their work on the autopsies was found to be summarily shoddy by the doctors involved in the secondary investigations, with over fifty mistakes being recorded.
You should do some more research.
If the seatbelt was defective then that is a different matter and possibly something that would’ve come out from Mercedes or NCAP testing because that particular car type has one of the best safety records anywhere and has always brought innovations, such as anti-lock steering, into standard road cars. You don’t happen to know the report that had that in it by any chance? A link would be great.
As for the blood alcohol level, he didn’t need to be staggering drunk to be dangerous behind the wheel. Many people just need one or two drinks for it to impair their driving by slowing response times and impairing judgement. Lack of sleep would also have exactly the same effect. The Selby train crash being the most famous example.
My research into this hasn’t been exhaustive,true, but I think Occam’s razor supports the generally accepted theory that the crash was caused by driving at speed away from a following paparazzi pack, when something caused Paul Henri to lose control of the car – exacerbated by the alcohol he had taken. The fatalities and severe injuries were also exacerbated by the fact that none of the people within the car were properly restrained, in line with standard EU legislation.
Did the white Uno ( that my mate Alan – who was there at the time – swears wasn’t his 😉 ), Paul getting spooked by the following motorcycles, or Prince Phillip and his murder-corgis cause it, who knows?
If the investigation comes up with something genuinely useful, such as an arrest of one of the contributors or improved safety in cars or on that road, then brilliant. But I fear it’s just to sell more papers and hitchhike onto the birth of Prince George which is really skeevy in my opinion.
Mairead,
the investigation Nikki is talking about was written about in a very good piece in vanity fair several years ago.http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/05/dunne200805
Thanks for that bros, although that link is more of a summation of the personalities than the events of that night.
I did look a little around the Internet (and damn the person making me see those crash pictures, horrible grubby things that made me feel horrible and grubby by looking at them).
I accept that later investigations showed that her particular seatbelt was faulty, although it wasn’t conclusively proved if it was pre- or post- accident.
Nevertheless, photographs show that she wasn’t wearing a tree-point seatbelt:
http://concen.org/forum/thread-14543.html
Many people are sticklers for putting the belts on in the front, but not so good when they’re in the back seat- especially in the 90s. I guess they think the front seats will protect them. I’ve had to have some serious arguments with people over this where I’ve refused to turn on the ignition.
Every death in a crash is a needless tragedy, and I used to visit mydeathspace a lot, and it was so sad to see all these teenagers die in crashes, where invariably they didnt haveseatbets on. Although modern safety devices cannot guarantee everyone will survive, they will give a fighting chance.
I brought that pic of Di shot by mario testino to my hairdresser she looks like the goddess she was..love u di…peace n
love
Diana does look beautiful in that picture. What I find most interesting is that I’ve become so used to plastic surgery enhanced celebs (including Catherine *cough nose job cough*) that I’m jarred when I see someone who is naturally beautiful. Diana was gorgeous au natural.
Didn’t Diana also have a nose job?
KAI – if that is a nose job, she should ask for her money back. in reality it was big and not straight but she often tilted her head such that that flaw wasn’t immediately apparent.
I read this article about Carol Middleton at the Main Online last night and don’t get why it’s news. She hasn’t moved in with them, she went up for a few days to help Kate and baby settle in, she’s home now!
I like that she got the train back.
I don’t think the conspiracy theories over Diana’s death are ever going to stop, you only have to look back at royal history. I’m sure people will still be talking about it in 500 years. But not great timing for William, I hope this latest news doesn’t taint his joy over George.
And I totally understand that Kate wanted to have her mother around instead of employees she cannot fully trust. Imagine the rumors about her being a good mother or not – horrible.
Only time will tell. The Daily Mail online is terrible with stories full of holes. I enjoy their print editions, but online is closer to a tabloid imo.
At least Kate moved back in with William so he can be closer to his son. You can’t get those early baby days back and they go by so fast.
I agree. 530 years later and people are still debating whether Edward V and his brother, the Duke of York (aka “the princes in the tower”) were murdered by Richard III. No doubt, 500 years from now, people will still be debating Diana’s death. Royalty comes and goes, but palace intrique never ends.
Interesting theory you have about Henri Paul, Kaiser. Makes sense to me. But if they hired him to spy on Diana, who’s to say it’s unlikely they had her erased so she wouldn’t embarrass the RF further with her love shenanigans? Considering that Diana was mum of the future king, especially. I’ve always thought Trevor R-J knew more than he was saying, and that THAT, more than his injuries, was the reason he dropped off the map afterwards.
Diana was bringing *certain elements* into embarrassing proximity to the future king and his fam.
And yet Fergie is still kicking around? Hell even Edward on his own had some clangers.
…but no one else was the mother of a future king…and no one else was dating a flashy, disreputable man who was also a Muslim, which was said to have any number of Royal britches in a twist. It would have been impossible to banish Diana as they did Fergie, because she was the mother of Prince William and SO wildly popular and deeply admired. Imagine the sleazy playboy do-nothing Dodi Fayed becoming the stepdad of the future king. Word was, the Family Business was deeply distressed and even enraged by the rumors about an engagement to Dodi in the offing. (Though in reality Diana was never going to marry Dodi.)
LahdidahBaby – What was distressing for the family was Diana conducting her business in full view of the media. William himself was distressed by this and had rows with Diana over it.
For these people, being in the media except under their own terms is anathema. As the saying goes, one should only be in the media for 2 things only. Birth and death.
The stuff about Dodi being a Muslim was only advanced by the conspiracy theorists AFTER her death and took on a life of it’s own especially when bankrolled by Mohammed Fayed who wouldn’t/couldn’t accept his own culpability in the night’s proceedings namely;
1. The route to be taken that night was changed and OK’d by him. Dodi never operated independently of his father. Trevor Rhys Jones, the survivor said he was unhappy about the changed plans which had to be OK’d by Mohammed.
2. Due to change of plan, Henri Paul was asked to come back on duty despite having gone for the day and thinking he was off duty had proceeded to have a few drinks. Sidenote – immediately after the accident, it came out that he had only 2 drinks, and the video of him from that night doesn’t show a person who is drunk or even incapable. Again confirmed by Trevor Rhys Jones.
3. Trevor Rhys Jones has given an account of events that doesn’t support many conspiracy theories, but is always ignored. Granted he has taken a long time to recover and be able to tell his side, and he doesn’t remember the night 100%, but there is enough to form a picture.
4. As Diana had refused to keep her RPOs, she was under the guardianship of Fayed Security which failed her every step of the way. And as i always say, RPO security beats any garden variety security and especially Fayed security. For a start, the paps only started to harrass her at close quarters after she removed her RPOs. The Palace always wanted them reinstated, but she would never agree.
My personal thought about it is that it was a tragic accident as a result of many failings including the lack of seat belts, being chased by paps, and a driver who was impaired by both alcohol AND flashes from the chasing paps driving at top speed – this wasn’t a sedate chase. Trevor Rhys Jones surviving the accident is a miracle, and only because he was wearing his seat belt.
Quite frankly if Mohammed al Fayed told me oranges were orange, I’d be skeptical. The appalling way he was treated when he tried to become a citizen aside, the man would hide behind a corkscrew.
See, there’s a lot to be said about living in a republic – at least the sidewinders are in charge because we put them there, not because of some nebulous idea of divine right to rule invested in one family.
Mairead – sidenote: the AL in Mohammed Fayed’s name is a definitive that he has no right to. He added it to present himself as a scion of a royal house for business and later social purposes. He has since been outed on this point, and doesn’t use it anymore although you do have the occasional person referring to him with the AL in his name.
Also, with regards the citizenship business, i think he went about it the wrong way and didn’t really understand the difference between British and Arabic culture in terms of differences in how they operate. He never really tried to adapt to that.
Further, openly bribing MPs and boasting about it, not to mention the very public kerfuffle with Tiny Rowland over the sale of Harrods was never going to win him friends.
The entire episode was shameful all round.
Excellent summary, LAK, thanks. I don’t necessarily agree with your ultimate conclusion – for me, the jury is out on the possibility of a hit on Diana – but I do certainly concur with your array of deets, including the fact that Diana was (intentionally, I always thought) ruffling the feathers of the RF with her in-your-face crossing of certain lines of tradition and decorum. I always have thought she did that very specifically and directly because of the fact that Charles had so blatantly betrayed her with Camilla (who as you know is the person who suggested Diana to Charles in the first place), and then he seemed not to suffer for that behavior at all, except through the embarrassment of Diana’s public indiscretions. It has always seemed to me that Diana must have felt the Palace was more than willing to overlook Charles’ blatant betrayal of her, a sort of men-will-be-men tradition. Maybe she simply wanted to exert her will in an equally blatant way. For whatever reason, and whatever the cause of her death, she died because of the man she was dating.
I did not know that LAK, I just assumed it was like Mac or O’ in Irish names or son in English/Scottish and Scandinavian names. Thanks a million for clearing that up.(and for proving my point about Fayed 😉 )
She managed to cut a swathe through a few marriages and relationships herself, hence the embarrassment to the Palace; if she had moved onto Khan for example I would say it would have been tolerated. But her behaviour was drawing too much media attention and not all of it positive. In many ways it was to the benefit of her charities as it meant they got publicity, but personally it wasn’t benefitting her at all really other than for pig-iron.
I hate to sound so shallow given what you all have written but when I think about Diana’s death, in particular the things LAK has enumerated, I can’t help but to focus on how “random” yet tragic these things are. When we contemplate accidents (if her death was that), there are always these minor “but for this” or “if only” types of variables involved as if every other day were perfect days. If every other day was a perfect day, then what’s the tipping point? What’s the fatal cocktail of minor indiscretions that bring on such tragedy?
As far as Dodi Fayed goes, and if she was dating him particularly “out of rebellion,” I often asked myself (if the latter is true and looking at it from her perspective)—was it worth it/was he worth it—her death, that is. My questioning that has nothing to do with him being Muslim (for her, perhaps, given her relationship with Hosnat Khan (sp/name), but sometimes we hunker down and take stupid *ss positions and do stupid things—that really don’t serve us well—just to prove a point. I guess it’s the principal of the thing but at the end of the day, you’ve spent time, energy, and emotion doing this “unproductive thing” or being locked into a relationship that ran its course sometime back just to prove a point.
Of course, I wouldn’t know the intimate details of her life, but the photos of her with Dodi suggest to me that he was just somebody with which to speed some time. . .
Conspiracy theories about Diana will probably continue. This one is apparently due to a guy’s marriage ending and the in-laws having a story to repeat. Next we’ll hear that someone on their deathbed revealed some grand conspiracy. It could go on for years.
The accident involved significant judgment errors. Driver had been drinking. Excessive speeding as they attempted to flee the paps. And, the decision of the backseat passengers not to wear their seat belts. Did someone force all those bad choices? The paps shouldn’t have chased them, but someone in that car made the choice to try to speed away, and it proved fatal.
What do you make of the vanished security video from the tunnel?
And the white car that’s never been found.
..and weren’t there questions about whether or not the driver was actually drunk? Plus, the long delay when near the hospital? I need to look this up again when I have time. I think it was a VF story.
I think the alleged pregnancy, lack of *recorded* video, white Fiat, blinding light and other allegations are covered here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Diana,_Princess_of_Wales_conspiracy_theories
My point being there may always be questions and accusations, but nothing is going to bring back the victims.
By that logic, why ever bother investigating any death? I’m not alleging she was pregnant (or engaged). But her death was awfully convenient for some powerful people. If you were aware at the time there were many questions. And there should have been recorded video.
I remember that summer very well and stayed up the night of her accident watching the news footage. The more I’ve heard about her beau, the current assumption I personally buy into is that he was trying to impress her by arranging a hasty escape from the paps.
As for recording video footage, my understanding is that the accident happened after 11PM, when employees monitoring the live (not recorded)roadway/tunnel footage were off duty. Other various cameras along the route were for businesses that did not necessarily offer a broader street view.
I find it pretty creepy that she told her lawyer prior to the accident that they would probably try to kill her by car accident – and then she died in a car accident!
She knew she was a thorn in their side, no doubt.
The JFK conspiracy theories are now going on 50 years, and Diana’s will be probably be no different.
Your comment made me wonder if the seat belts were not available in the car – like maybe the one part of the belt was tucked under the seat – this can happen fairly easily – and Di and Dodi overlooked it at the time.
The seat belts were found to be present and in good working condition according to the inquest. They simply weren’t used.
Where there is smoke there is fire.
Not all conspiracies are false. You all are going to call it that until you find out it’s true, like many other subjects of this nature.
Do we really know what occurred causing that horrible accident? No, we only know what we’ve been told. The official narrative can come up with any story they like. How do we know for sure what they tell us is indeed the way it happened?
Sorry for being cynical, but I just don’t believe everything we are told is the absolute truth. Why are conspiracy theories mocked and ridiculed, are people not allowed to question anything? To me it seems when certain events occur, those responsible bank on the “theories” to wash over what has really happened. Like the outlandishness of a situation will be just what they use as a means of laughing off anyone that questions them. IDK if I’m expressing myself the way I want to, but I just don’t things are so cut and dry.
I agree that conspiracy theorists have the right to question; that is coming from the scientist within. If it were not for constant probing and going against popular thought we wouldn’t know half of the molecular biology we know today and still believe the world is flat.
That being said i think out is insensitive to the family to publicly announce their hypothesis without proper evidence to back the claim. Otherwise it would just be someones way to a quick buck in the tabloids.
In any case, whatever happened that night, i hope she is happy and finally found peace in the afterlife.
I agree that conspiracy theorists have the right to question, that is coming from the scientist within. If it were not for constant probing and going against popular thought we wouldn’t know half of the molecular biology we know today and still believe the world is flat.
That being said i think out is insensitive to the family to publicly announce their hypothesis without proper evidence to back the claim. Otherwise it would just be someones way to a quick buck in the tabloids.
In any case, whatever happened that night, i hope she is happy and finally found peace in the afterlife.
ITA
If the British Royal Family wanted Diana “removed” there’d be no way actual evidence would ever be available to prove it.
I suspect Trevor was paid an enormous amount of money to tell a prescribed version of the truth. The fact that of all people, Diana, died in a “random” car accident, in a tunnel with no CCTV footage and the blame conveniently placed on a “drunk” driver and no seat belt is rather too convenient.
We’ll never know.
Thanks for posting such a beautiful photo of Diana.
+1 No matter how much people dig, it will ALWAYS be speculation and no way to prove it.
16 years??? Has it been that long? Well that just ruined my lovely Sunday. o_O
All kidding aside, they all need to just stop it. I get that conspiracy theorists will never let this go but Scotland Yard? What could possibly come of this? There were so many contributing factors to their deaths, it was always impossible to tell exactly which one killed them in the end. The drunk driver certainly did his part, as did the paparazzi. And no, not wearing seatbelts didn’t help either. Everyone knows these things so whatever might be unearthed after so many years, it won’t change these facts. Good grief, some people.
But I guess Diana will always increase magazine sales.
I figure they pretty much HAVE to look into it. Even though they know nothing will come of it.
Maybe, but the whole thing sounds ludicrous to me. If they have to look into this, wouldn’t they have to look into every single crazy unsubstantiated claim? People will never stop with this insanity it seems. Yikes.
littlemissnaughty – a spokesman for Scotland yard said on BBC that they do investigate every possibility that is put to them. Whether or not that is truly the case is questionable, but as previous poster said, this will not go away any time soon.
I agree that conspiracy theorists have the right to question, that is coming from the scientist within. If it were not for constant probing and going against popular thought we wouldn’t know half of the molecular biology we know today and still believe the world is flat.
That being said i think out is insensitive to the family to publicly announce their hypothesis without proper evidence to back the claim. Otherwise it would just be someones way to a quick buck in the tabloids.
Do you think it’s a coincidence that this investigation is happening as a movie about her life is about to come out? It’s a little fishy. Part of me feels badly for Diana, even in death she can’t get peace.
As far as Carole is concerned, I think Kate is the golden one. So if I were Will, I’d get used to her being around non stop. I also think Kate’s a little needy and couldn’t do this without her mom.
It was an accident, period. It was tragic, but it happens everyday all over the world. I’ve never understood that when someone passes, they are elevated to Sainthood. PD was notorious for using the paps & anyone else if it suited her. Why this is being brought up again, is beyond me. Slow news day?
Amen, Janie. Kim Kardashian is a rank amateur compared with Princess Diana’s expertise at media manipulation.
Being a seltbelt-less passenger in a car driven by a guy wasted out of his mind is what killed the woman. No mystery, no conspiracy.
That photo of Carol Middleton cracks me up. Very reptilian.
Okay someone clear this up for me: I thought William didn’t have the Search and Rescue job anymore because it’s been privatized? And if he doesn’t have it anymore then there’s really no reason for them be in Angelesey. What gives?
As for Diana’s death, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but if there turned out to be more to the story than the public has been let on, I wouldn’t be surprised.
William’s been leaving Anglesey for ages now; longest job leaving in history. That being said, he’s supposed to be done in September.
LOL!
In other Diana news, Naomi Watts is claiming the spirit of Diana spoke to her on the set of her godawful-looking new movie and told her to go ahead with it, or somesuch…
I just don’t understand women who want their parents around after they have their babies. When my daughter was born, I couldn’t wait to get home from the hospital and for it to just be me, my husband and daughter. I wanted to do everything myself. Personally, I would feel very smothered. Different strokes, I guess.
Yup. Everyone has their preference. Both of my friends who have had babies had their mothers stay with them for a couple weeks to help. The hubby and I are trying for a baby and I hope my mom will be able to do the same personally. I fear that ill be overwhelmed.
It really depends on the type of mom you have. Mine was with me when I had my children and it was great. When I had my first, she said, “This is your child, and don’t listen to anyone else who tells you anything about what to do or not do, me included.” Then she cooked and cleaned so I could sleep and spend time with the baby, and left us with a freezer full of meals. I wish a mother like that for both of you.
My mother helped me A LOT after my first was born. She was supportive without being overbearing. I had post partum depression like crazy, and without her I wouldn’t have made it. She didn’t stay with us, but she did come over regularly. She helped cook and clean so I could rest. It was awesome.
To have your mom there for emotional support is wonderful. No nanny can replace what a parent can give their adult child in that way. As far as helping with house work and a baby that’s covered by the staff. I think that’s why so many people took issue with Kate living with her mom for an at the time reported span of 4 weeks to 6months instead of living with her husband.
Like above, Different strokes, but it wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion that Kate was not fully emotionally mature to choose living with her mother and not her husband. Taking out the being overwhelmed factor because of staff and having a choice in living with her husband since military families cannot always live together due to location assignment. They are not a normal military family.
My mom and i have a comfortable but not needy relationship, and she was around a lot with my babies. When my oldest was born, i was loving in amother country and needed a lot of help. Now i live five hours from them and see them a lot. They were here for my second daughter’s birth and visit with the girls frequently. I don’t need help, but i live that they are around to bpnd with my girls. Wish i had grandparemts who loved to see me whenever possible when i was a kid.
And as it happened to turn out, when my oldest was born she ended up in the hospital for three weeks. I would have gone nuts without her help and moral support.
To each their own. I have heard women who preferred not to have anyone around and women who did. It just depends on what works for you and your family. After I had my twins, my husband was off work for two weeks and then my mother stayed for a week after that. Believe me, her help was welcome. To add, she is my children’s only surviving grandmother (now only surviving grandparent), so I encourage my mother to come around as much as possible. Unfortunately, our family is well acquainted with losing loved ones way too soon.
I don’t know what I would have done without my Mom around after my kid were born. My husband sprained his ankle a few days after our first was born, so he was useless. When our second arrived, she stayed a few weeks and mostly took care of our two year old whine we were consumed with the new baby.
Gaps in information + very convenient for the royal family = suspicious circumstances. Investigations often last longer than 16 years.
Could it be true that they did not want the future King of England to have a muslim step brother?(IMHO) Diana dated Hasnat and then moved on to Dodi to apparently make the former jealous. I think this rubbed the Palace the wrong way. Imagine if Prince Harry wanted to marry someone outside his race, that would be awesome loll
Lainey has insinuated that Harry likes ladies of color but has to be super-discreet about those hookups because the Palace would have a stroke if that went public. Dunno how accurate that is.
I cant imagine not being interested in anything expressly forbidden to you. Hello Shakespeare. Look into it Royal Family.
If Harry married a woman of color, the popularity of the family could either drop a few percentage points among racists or soar with minorities and the general public as long as the woman in question is likable. It’s a gamble that might be worth taking just for the sake of being tolerant. There have been members of royal families in Europe who have married black and Asian women, they just aren’t as high profile as the British Royals so I guess no one notices. That said, I think that Harry is probably attracted to any attractive woman regardless of her race, but he seems especially fond of blondes.
I can’t imagine if someone in line for the throne were gay. What would the Palace do and would they even be able to hide it in this day in age? Before the age of the internet, it would have been much easier to hide these things, but I think it would be nearly impossible now.
1. Google the last inquest into her death. Her own friends were very clear about the depth of her feelings about Dodi. Ie she was just having a fling primarily to make Hasnat jealous.
2. In the 2yrs that she was dating Hasnat Khan, she went as far as meeting his family in Pakistan. Funny no one ever mentions any objections to that marriage in so far as he is also Muslim, and she was very, very serious about him. She dated him for 2yrs. Does anyone really think the palace was unaware she was dating him??!
3. Using logic from all the 00s of cop procedurals that we have all watched, who was sure to benefit from her death? Or even Dodi’s death? And also, the British establishment had already shown that they can get rid of a popular royal without having to kill them, a King at that (see abdication). Why use a messy multi-agency method when true and tried methods were already available. Infact, the media had started to be wielded to same-ish effect….
4. Ie That summer she was already beginning to be discredited because of her antics. A minister called her a ‘loose cannon’. Many negative media reports on her that summer. From her work with the landmines (cause of that ministerial putdown) to her social life. (eewww what is she doing with the Fayeds!!!) If anything, the palace was beginning to win the media war against her. And the Fayeds, despite their money, were not highly regarded in British media/ society. Diana herself was said to make fun of their nouveau riches and gaudy lifestyle even as she partook of their gifts. Her canoodling with Dodi was turning her into a laughing stock.
@LAK — excellent summary. I also seem to recall it was Hasnat and his family who opposed the marriage on religious grounds not the RF.
Thank LAK. Some of the conspiracy craziness drives me nuts – particularly the “royal family didn’t want her marrying a Muslim” bit. She was much closer to marrying Hasnat Khan than she ever came to marrying Dodi.
I agree with a poster earlier. It’s too convenient this is all being stirred up now with the Naomi Watts Diana bio-pic coming out soon. Timing is too perfect for the movie – says PR to me. Similar to Oprah and handbaggate coming out right before The Butler comes to the theater.
Is the British Royal Family so desperate for publicity that they are bringing Diana into the limelight? Is PC a little nervous about what a change in monarch might bring?
The media over-kill is doing nothing to endear the BRF to the rest of the world. It is pathetic. PC should be working on making lives better for the average Brit instead of pouring millions into public relations.
Shame…
Most royal houses refrain from such tactics. Focus on your people, C.
‘After 16 years, do you think there’s really all that much we don’t already know?
I think that’s a very naïve statement – anything concerning powerful people/governments etc is likely to have some information held back from the public – think of all the eye watering revelations over the years as Government documents are finally released.
She was as far as the Government and Royals at the time were concerned – out of control and unmanageable. I still think about how she told her Lawyer she would die in a car accident…
And if scotland yard are investigating we won’t be told the truth. Maybe in 50 yrs or so, like with JFK, the truth will start to trickle out and no-one will care
I very much believe that people will always remain captivated by these mysterious celebrity deaths even a hundred or two hundred years from now. The same with the deaths of Amelia Earhart, JFK, Marilyn Monroe, and Jimmy Hoffa. People my age weren’t even born yet, but most of us would love for new information to shed more light onto what or who really caused these deaths. It will be the same for Princess Diana.
In 50 years, Diana’s son will be the reigning King of England. I suspect people will care.
Even though Charles may be slightly jealous, I also think he likes that Kate has a functional family for George to be around — since we all know he lacked that himself.
I was so annoyed by my mom when I had my 1st child. she was critical and wanted to feed my child water instead of breast milk! My kid would have been too skinny, and I wouldn’t have been as successful at breast feeding.
In hindsight, I could have used the support and adult company, but everybody irritated me. Oh well.
Mistakes were made but that doesnt equal conspiracy. I think the saddest part of that whole fateful night was the fact that Diana was so unhappy. Photos of her from dinner at the hotel all the way up to seconds before the crash show a face full of tragedy, sadness and helplessness. Seems so unfair.
And Henri Paul, the driver, had just ended a long term relationship. He was devastated not so much because of the woman but the fact that he had become extremely attached to the woman’s little daughter, whom he had been fathering. That is why he drank so heavily that night.
fayed was having a hard time getting Diana to smile that evening. She was feeling emotional and skittish, having expressed a desire to go back to the UK to quiet her nerves. It is not clear what was bothering her, exactly, but it seemed that Fayed’s decisions that night were annoying her. He ordered last minute ding accomodations that embarassed zdi because they were forced to eat in everyones view. She was seen on security cameras dabbing her eyes and not touching her food. fayed ordered everything be bundled up and sent up to their suite. According to eyewitnesses Diana relaxed a little and ate half of her food. She was then thrown back into a lurch when Fayed decided he didnt want to stay there for the night. He arranged for a private late night champagne table at a swanky restarant.diana diana just wanted to go to bed but apparently Fayed was determined to impress her. He was in a foul mood once they set off in the car and you can see Diana’s little sad face in the pap shots. So many coincidences can add up to tragedy. Just let her rest in peace.
The thing that sticks in my mind is that there supposedly was a hospital very close by, yet it was hours until she was brought there. Maybe someone can explain that.
People have killed for much less.
Check the above link provided by OP. It took them nearly an hour to get her out of the wreckage. They had to stop once because her heart stopped beating. Then she was driven very slowly to the hospital due to the physician’s concerns about fast starts and stops affecting her already precarious blood pressure.
@Tara — I’m glad u brought up the strange frenetic toing and froing of that last tragic night. Tina Browns book examines in detail the strangeness of the couples actions that night. If they did not want to be stalked or papped, they had only to stay in Fayeds private apartment for the evening and dine there. Instead they went first to a very high profile hotel dining room, then went back to the apartment, then left again to go back to the Ritz to dine/drink in fill public view. Their actions seemed deliberately designed to bring out the paps and put on a display when supposedly they only were seeking privacy. Something was not right. Why did not Diana just return home to London that fateful night as her sone were expected to visit her the very next day in London? It seems she was being manipulated and used by the Fayeds for their own agenda.
Ita with this and that is the worst part. dodi’s father cried conspiracy when the truth is his own obsessive manipulation destroyed Diana and his son. Diana was so unhappy with the turn her life had taken with Dodi and he had to have sensed that he was about to lose his golden treasure. He did care for her but nothing meant more to him than his father’s mandates. His dad intended to hold up Diana’s relationship with his son as both a foot into and a ‘screw you’ to the British aristocracy, which snubbed him and his new money.
Diana had finally begun to realize that a cage is a cage, even if it is encrusted with jewels. Unfortunatelythe realization was too little too late. For all the good she did and her real wish to lessen human misery Diana deserved so much more. dodi was weak, lazy and too easily controlled by his father but he never mistreated anyone and truly wanted to make Diana happy, not understanding that he never could. He and Diana were victims of poor decisions, tragic coincidences and the singleminded, neurotic ambition of a man who was determined to claw and snake his way to the top.
No shade at Kate for having her Mom around. It’s actually a very common thing in many parts of the world to have all hands on deck with a new baby. This idea that you have to do it all and are somehow less of a mom if you need help is silly. When I had my son I was so overwhelmed and lost that having my mom was a blessing. I couldn’t of done it without her. Plus it’s a great time for baby to bond with Grandma too. All families are different. In mine my mom is like a 2nd mom to my son. You can’t take care of a baby if you aren’t taken care of. Just my opinion 🙂
The good thing about re opening a case so many years later is if there was any conspiracy, the main players have retired and new people can freely investigate. It always seemed odd that if the paparazzi were the ones chasing them in the tunnel, then why were there no pictures from the chase? The tabloids would have used them, at least one picture even if the cops said not to. Someone would have stolen a roll of film, it’s not hard to hide. The paparazzos would have come forward with their own stories of what happened and I never saw that. And now that people are older, have less allegiance to their military jobs, marriages fall apart and the truth comes out. I hope this continues. If the queen had anything to do with it the princes have the right to know. I would want to know.
Actually there are photos from that night. Including pictures of a dying Diana because the paps continued taking pictures rather than help the accident victims.
The images are on the internet if you know where to look, but for the most part are considered very distasteful and so aren’t widely circulated.
Actually, there are pap shots of the chase and in those shots you can clearly see the tension on everyone’s face. This was only minutes before the crash. Apparently the first few paps dropped their cameras and rushed the passengers. The remaining paps stayed at a distance but tried desperately to get shots of the injured. A shoving match ensued and the first two paps threatened to fight the paps who were only interested in photographing the horror. If they did succeed in getting any shots I dont know if the police confiscated them. Who really knows but eventually they were cleared of wrongdoing. If Diana had traveled with her normal bodyguards she would be alive because he was a stickler for her wearing her seatbelt.extremely bad luck and a string of bad decisions.
I have read countless accounts of Di’s death and the argument for murder lacks strength. Queen Elizabeth and the RF found Diana enfuruating and horrible for PR but they did not hate her guts and did not orchestrate a murder that involved a dozen or more coincidences, scores of coconspirators in two countries and individuals ready to risk their own death just to kill Di and Fayed. When legends die young the pain and cosmic sense of random unfairness of it causes us to question everything and everyone in order for it to make a little more sense. We loved Diana, she died needlessly and tragically but it is what it is. Let her rest in peace.
Good comment and perfectly stated that her death was simply due to a series of poor decisions at the wrong time. Life can be so tragic and overwhelmingly sad. I think we can see this in our own lives how doing one or two things can lead to tragedy or sadness.
You are so right. And when the victims are still young and beautiful it seems to affect us more. I guess that is human nature but the wheel of fortune is fickle and often downright cruel. To be honest if countless conspiracy investigations would lessen the world’s pain on losing Diana I would say go for it. But it won’t. Just hold the ones you love and hug them that much tighter, i say.
Agree
Interesting as I just watched a vid last night that alleges the ambulance ride to the hospital should have only taken approx 11 min… yet took somewhere between 1 hr 15 min and 1 hr 40 min, depending on which report you read. That’s the one thing that strikes me as super strange. In any case, RIP Diana.
This quote from ABC news a few years ago demonstrates the difference between American and French approach to emergency procedures.
“Diana’s last hour — in cardiac arrest and bleeding to death — was spent in a mobile medical unit parked a few hundred yards from Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where an emergency team followed French protocol and administered treatment at the scene of the accident and en route to the hospital.
At the time, many people surmised that had a U.S. ambulance responded, Diana would have been rushed to the nearest emergency room, where a full set of professionals and diagnostic equipment might have revived her.
Colloquially known as “scoop and run,” the U.S. system is grounded in studies that show a trauma victim’s best chance for survival is reaching the operating room within 10 minutes.
Under the French system, “stay and play,” a fully equipped medical ambulance with a doctor stabilizes the patient and then directs him or her to a specialized hospital, even if it is miles away.”
Yes, that is the difference between the French and US protocol, as the previous poster mentioned. No conspiracy there.
We still have conspiracy theory about Marilyn, Diana -saddenly- is totally going that way.
You’re the one shouting love, not me.
Of course people die tragically in car crashes all the time, and there have been cases where people have been thrown from the car just before it turned into an inferno and survived – paralysed, but alive. Of course the converse is true.
However, in the case of a rear seat passenger, test after test has shown that with the forces applied in a crash and the sheer momentum involved means that in a crash the persons limbs and head can be severely damaged by freely bashing into the frame of the car and other passengers. They can also become a missile and fly straight out the window if not constrained.
Nothing is guaranteed, but my point was that if you were so paranoid about being murdered in a crash that you would do the one thing that could possibly thwart that plan? If the seatbelt was faulty then that’s another matter, but it must be said that the car she was in has always been known for its safety record and it horribly bad luck on her part.
Sorry those above me – the post I was responding to seems to have disappeared.
…a response I made to LAK also disappeared from this thread. (Just for the record.) But maybe the software is acting up. ?
Acting up… Or was it a conspiracy?!
Lol! Good one.
Can we let this woman rest in peace?
It´s incredible 16 years already since she was taken away and still no peace for her.
Where there is smoke there is fire.
Conspiracy theories about Diana’s death – here we go again.
Even if – and it is a huge IF – the RF had conspired to murder Diana, the timeline makes it impossible. Any murder plot requires weeks, if not months, of careful planning – and Diana’s moves on that last fateful evening were all last-minute. Consider this
1. She hadn’t even expected to be with Dodi Fayed that August. She had planned to visit Italy with a (female) friend, who cancelled on the eve of their departure when her father died. When Dodi invited Diana on a yacht trip with him, she accepted because she didn’t want to spend the rest of the summer holiday alone in London.
2. She had planned on flying straight back to England after their trip, but Dodi persuaded her to go to Paris with him.
3. In Paris, they ended up having dinner at the Ritz Hotel – where they could have spent the night, but instead, Dodi thought up the idea of returning to his place and fooling the paparazzi by having a decoy car in front and having the head of Ritz (Henri Paul) drive the couple. It was a hastily put together plan which Dodi shared only with his father and the bodyguard.
Carole Middleton looks rougher than a bear’s arse.
She looked so beautiful in that header picture. As sad as her death was, now whenever I hear or read of it I’m always reminded of the movie Amelie which is wonderful so it’s a bittersweet memory now.
Diana was an enigma. She died like she lived, in an odd mix of public and private.
Back when she was a princess, we didn’t really have celebrity news like we do today. I’m not a royal watcher, and I was only 11 when she got married, but for some reason, I hung on every photo and bit of information about her that was reported in the press. I think a lot of other Americans were the same.
I got older, finished school, started a career and stopped paying attention to that kind of thing. She dropped off my radar. When I heard that morning that she was dead, I started bawling. We went to dinner with some friends that night and it was all we could talk about for a while. We were stunned.
Whatever the circumstances of Diana’s death, may she rest in peace. She never had any in this life.
does anyone remember what the controversy over a white fiat was?
It appears from the details of this matter given in UK newspapers that a member of the SAS used ‘we killed Diana’ to terrorise his battered wife and her parents (i.e. if we did it to someone like her, imagine what we’ll do to you if you leave me).
I tend to think that the people who reported this did it in good faith and they were given the information by someone who they, at least, believed to be a member of the SAS (people notoriously claim to be members when they aren’t – like fake Navy SEALs in the US). That doesn’t in a million years make it true.
I don’t believe that Diana was assassinated but if she was, it was obviously very carefully done. The SAS are soldiers. They would be fine if the assignment was to kill someone (although I’m pretty sure this would be a textbook case of an illegal order) – they aren’t trained to make killing people look like an accident. If there was any sort of conspiracy, you need to look to the various intelligence agencies.
Scotland Yard should laugh at this report instead of investigating it.
Diana died in a car crash and the military had nothing to do with it.
Next thing you know, they will say the Queen of England was waiting in the tunnel with a rifle and picked her off.
George Vreeland Hill