We are in the midst of Peak Princess Diana. This August will mark the 20th anniversary of her death, and Prince William and Prince Harry have seemingly made their peace with the fact that everyone wants to mark this occasion. ABC will be airing a two-part series called The Story of Diana in August. People Magazine has this issue, their cover story this week, plus a special edition. HBO just aired a documentary this week, and there are British documentaries already airing and in the pipeline. Twenty years after her death and Diana still sells. I’m going to say something harsh: one of the reasons why Diana still fascinates and sells is because no one in the royal family has really taken “her place” as a charismatic and enchanting global figure. Not William, not Kate and not Harry. Anyway, this week’s People cover story is basically just an interview with the Earl Spencer, Diana’s little brother Charles Spencer.
When Diana Spencer captured the world stage at just 19 years old, she was promptly nicknamed “Shy Di” by the press. That nickname couldn’t have been more wrong.
“First of all, none of us ever called her ‘Di’ at home,” says her brother Charles, 9th Earl Spencer. “In fact, there are so many myths from our childhood that are just so ridiculous. That’s one of them. I just think she was never shy, but she was canny about people and she was reserved to start with. And she would take a judgment of somebody before reacting to them. So, that’s not shy . . . that’s actually quite clever.”
She was also an “incredibly brave” girl, as Spencer tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. On one childhood occasion, her brother recalls, the young siblings were staying with their mother in Scotland and set out to catch lobsters.
“We pulled up [a pot] and there was a really massive conger eel,” says Spencer. “It was black and it had teeth was very long and it was flapping around the boat. And Diana just got a pen knife out and just dealt with it. It was hand-to-hand and she just got stuck in. This thing was really a creature from the deep. And she just dealt with it.”
Spencer is joined by Diana’s friend Sir Richard Branson, her wedding dress designer Elizabeth Emanuel, charity partner Vivienne Parry and many others in remembering the late princess in PEOPLE’s cover story and on a two-night television event from PEOPLE and ABC, The Story of Diana, airing on ABC on Aug. 9 and 10 at 9 p.m. E.T.
Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997, was beloved around the world and stands as one of the key figures of the 20th century. She had “a genius for people and she could connect with anyone,” Spencer notes — and that was never more apparent than through the way she broke down barriers on AIDS and HIV, tackled the terror of landmines and highlighted the plight of the homeless.
“She could make any person, whether they were the grandest or the most humble, totally at ease,” he says. “It’s an incredible gift.”
Diana was called “Shy Di” because she barely spoke in public for the first few years she was a public figure. The moniker also happened because she had the smart habit of putting her chin down and looking “up” at people, which many read as a shy or coy gesture. In retrospect, it wasn’t shy. She just knew how to be photographed. She studied her photos in the press and she knew her angles. And yes, she was brave. Think about what she had to deal with when she was just 19/20 years old – the crap she was dealt would have broken many women, but Diana survived. For a time.
This is a photo that William and Harry released for one of the documentaries – Diana was pregnant with Harry at the time.
Photos courtesy of WENN and Pacific Coast News.
I’ve seen a video of her during the engagement on the verge of a Kanye (aka walking into a street sign) because her chin is down in that same gesture. Are we really saying that this 19 year old kid was just working her angles despite this being her first exposure to paparazzi? This isn’t Kylie Jenner who grew up with a camera in her face.
Yeah, I think it was just a natural mannerism she had. I could only see her learning about her best features later on, but not when she was 19. Even William seemed to used to have that mannerism — well, when he had hair anyway.
She might have been good in front of the camera because her father photographed her a lot when she was a kid. The Spencer family seems to have a lot of family photographs and film video of the kids, which seems kind of unusual for the time period in which she was born.
I think you can be both. When she was at boarding school she was considered friendly but shy. She was given guardianship of the school pets because she preferred their company to some of the other girls. Also as a young adult she enjoyed staying home and cleaning, ironing or cooking her famous spaghetti to going out dancing or to pubs. Nothing wrong with being shy sometimes.
Yes I’m both gregarious and shy. When I tell people that they are kind of incredulous. OTOH people who’ve known me for a long time are shocked at how outgoing I am vs when I was younger.
She seemed to be more introverted, rather than shy.
I think this is introversion. I am also an introvert, but there’s a difference between introversion and shyness. I too have had the “shy” label thrust upon me, but really, I like to take some time to suss a person out before I really engage them. However, on the rare occasions that I do connect with someone from the get-go, I do not seem shy at all. I don’t think it’s weird at all that Diana didn’t always want to hang out with the other girls. Introverts find it draining to constantly go out or hang out with other people. Sometimes I’m in the mood for it, but never as a regular thing.
You could be describing me instead of yourself! I like people but not in crowds and not all the time. I find them draining mentally and emotionally.
Same here!
@WTW – I’m exactly like that, which makes it harder to meet people but once I’m 100% comfortable or sure, I’m the opposite of shy, I talk a lot, etc. It really does confuse people, eh?
It was pretty well known if you wanted to marry well, you couldn’t get a “reputation”.
Yes. She’s been quoted as saying she didn’t date much because she wanted to “keep herself tidy”, her way of saying virginal. She was also a voracious reader of Barbara Cartland romance novels in which the heroine was always a virgin who married a passionate, but sometimes cruel, older man who respected (and fell in love with) her virginity.
GiBee says:
July 26, 2017 at 9:53 am
It was pretty well known if you wanted to marry well, you couldn’t get a “reputation”.
Somebody should have told Pippa.
@Aurelia: you put a smile on my face (or a Pippa smirk) with that remark.
Good points ladies 🙂
I don’t think she seemed introverted at all. Introverts get their energy from being home or alone-she was out and about so much for work and her personal life. I don’t see introversion at all.
I think Charles was the introverted one, which is why Diana thought he was boring when he wanted to read his books..
I think she was shy as a public figure at first. Maybe not as a private person, but as a public one (which isn’t a contradiction to me. I think anyone would be capable of being shy in such a strange situation as the one she was in). Then she became more confident with her public duties as she got older. I mean, it’s not like she had much of a choice anyway. It became her job so she had to appear sophisticated and confident at some point on the world stage.
Introverted people don’t have to be bookish. They just need to reenergise alone. They also crave close intimate relationships over big circles. If she was extroverted she wouldn’t have cared about his ignoring her at the honeymoon. She would have been too busy getting to know everyone on deck. Same applies for her time at the palace. An extrovert would have spent her time chatting his family and their staff up, instead of longing for a deeper intimacy with him.
Nyawira: by her own words Diana said she tried to talk to his family and to chat to staff and was pushed back because they were no areas of common interest with his family and the staff thought it was inappropriate of her to cross the staff – employer line.
At first she pretended to be interested in everything the family was interested in, and after the wedding stopped pretending which led to loneliness because of that lack of common interest.
The staff didn’t like it when she went into the kitchen or staff rooms to chat to them.
Fish out of water syndrome.
“Introverted people don’t have to be bookish. They just need to reenergize alone”
I didn’t claim that introverted people have to be bookish. I’m simply saying that in Charles’s case, from all accounts, he does seem to like to reenergize alone. Pretty much everyone describes him that way. AND when he’s alone he likes to read books. Paint. And, er, possibly talk to plants. He seems to prefer nature to humans. Though I’d probably prefer not to talk to humans if all of my private conversations were aired to the world too.
Diana seemed to thrive off being with people. She never seemed particularly introverted from the way people described her. However, I do think it’s possible she was genuinely shy with the press, because she was a) only 19 and b) not an attention-seeking actress. I do think she grew to like the attention as she grew older however.
For f sake – leave the poor woman alone. She has been dead for more than 2 decades and cannot defend or verify any details.
It’s just a public w*nkfest isn’t it? Let her rest in peace.
By this logic, we would never discuss any historical figure or dead public figure. Thomas Jefferson, JFK, MLK, Napoleon and religious figures would be off limits because they’ve long been dead.
Icons live on in the public imagination, for better or worse, though. To me, the media coverage is a sign of resonance, not disrespect.
It’s sort of like Seinfeld reruns. People loved the characters so they watch the show for decades afterwards. The problem with the Lady Diana Show is there are no reruns for that fascinating soap opera so the media needs to keep rehashing her life to satisfy her fans.
Diana’s childhood friends, as well as the late photographer Lord Lichfield, straight up said the ‘Shy Di’ moniker was hilarious to them, as it was total BS.
Diana was the very opposite of shy, but she rode the nickname to her advantage during the Charles courtship. Same way she said she loved horses and enjoyed classical music.
Yeah, I don’t understand lying about your taste in music.
I think she said that to make it seem like she had the same interests as Charles. Once she married him, he was surprised to learn she didn’t like any of the things he did.
It’s so middle-school. “Oh you like ACDC? They’re my favorite band!” and then looking them up and memorizing lyrics.
I think that Di would really have had a chance for the happy marriage she wanted if she had allowed herself to date a lot more and not marrying until she was at least 25.
Thought she liked classical music?
She wasn’t shy or introverted.
I think in the beginning she was just powering through due to immaturity. How many times do you tell a teen or young child to lift their head up because they are looking down in company or when being photographed.
Later, long after she was over that phase, she worked it to her advantage to push the ‘shy di’ or ‘coy’ image.
She certainly wasn’t shy when she gave the Panorama interview.
+1
I agree. She was only 19 for goodness sake. Although she certainly knew enough to realize that talking to reporters was certainly not going to help her land Charles.
Talking to reporters is why he didn’t marry her older sister. At 19 she could well have been a little bit shy and a little bit wary of the press. Or really of any new, public interaction. I think it would be more surprising if she weren’t.
She probably had many facets to her personality, as basically every person on this planet does.
Her brother always seems so annoying, even when he’s complimenting her.
I do think it’s possible she could have been genuinely shy with the press when she was 19. I mean, if you’ve never experienced that level of world-wide attention before and you’re not looking for an acting career, I doubt you’d be jumping up and down to greet photographers and tell them your life story.
Later on, she clearly did tell her life story, but at 19, I don’t think she was really acting in front of the press. Though I do believe she was reserved, because I think you’d have to be kind of stupid not to be, especially if you want to marry into the royal family.
I agree. She did appear very shy at the beginning.
Oh my god, this all needs to go away. And if anybody wheels out John Bloody Travolta again to talk about the ONE TIME he danced with her, I’m going to throw a brick at my TV. Enough already.
It really does. Not sure which is worse, the constant regurgitation of the same-old-same old by the same same-old-same-olds, or the gag-makingly mawkish and overly sentimental manner in which it’s done.
None of the information is really new. A lot what said about her during her life. A lot was said in the years after her death. So everything said in the 20th year of her death seems kind of dull.
Maybe William’s and Harry’s memories of her are sort of interesting, but even then….When Harry said Diana dressed them up in crazy outfits and I looked at the pictures, I was like “That’s it? That’s not crazy…”
Right? They were pretty typical matchy-matchy cute kid clothes for the time.
I did like that W said that he only remembers his mother crying about the press. If that’s true, that means that she kept her unhappiness with their father away from her sons.
I find diana the most interesting royal out of the queen and harry and everybody else. Phillip is second hypothetically Speaking just think if diana and Phillip was married that would be one interesting relationship. i do believe diana was shy and before diana married charles she seem like a normal person. I loved diana but i hate the way everybody still making money out of her whether it’s good or bad just seem wrong to me.
I think she was kind of unworldly, at first, which was interpreted as shy. But she seems to have had a streak of iron determination (see eel story) coupled with natural smarts (not the kind learned in books).
She sized up the situation with Charles, the royal fam, Camilla, the establishment—and then used all the weapons at her disposal to wage war.
Agree that no one in royal fam has taken her place—their only hope is George and Charlotte.
She was a woman of extremes. What is there more to say after 20 years.
My god all these old photos of her lately. I had forgotten how she looked in her later years. When i think of Diana i think of that young gorgeous girl in that monster of a wedding dress. Most people still see her as that young shy girl not as the woman she was in the end.
When i look at older Diana… Sadly i have to say she lost her looks in her 20s. The same happened to William. He has her face.
I have this feeling he also inherited some of her inner demons.
I’m the opposite. I didn’t think she was that pretty when she was younger and I think she became more beautiful the older she got.
I thought she was more sophisticated when she was older, but prettier when she was younger. I think sun damage affected her complexion, which was one of her beauty strengths.
For some reason I can’t explain, I also thought she looked better in the matronly royal clothes. When she started to get sexy and show cleavage, it seemed weird to me. I realize she was evolving, but her face was so aristocratic looking the sexier image she had later on with the shorter hemlines didn’t seem to match her face. I have no idea if this makes any sense. Probably not.
@Perplexed, you know, after reading your comment, I looked at some old images and I do see what you mean. Interesting point.
She did live in a less showy era. It wouldn’t have made sense for her to be acting like a Kardashian in 1981.
I think she wasn’t shy so much as wary around people she didn’t know well. She was happy and outgoing in her own set and I do believe that she clearly wasn’t different from anyone else in that area. As a young upper class woman she was out dancing, going on trips, and basically having a great time like so many others. The difference is, that she was drilled in boundaries, class differences, and she was not a bad person for not trying to save the planet at age nineteen. To be honest, I do think it is unfair that a lot of royals and aristos are expected to be easily accessible to the rest of the world. Just because she was upper class does not mean she was supposed to be some perfectly worldly person who was comfortable around all classes and people. She was raised to be respectful of boundaries and raised to respect and adhere to rank first and foremost.
Beautifully said…
What a lot of fools don’t realize is that even if Diana had wanted to do one thing or another, she was bound by the rules of her role as consort to first and foremost be there for her husband and she couldn’t just do as she pleased without taking others into consideration. She was a person of her times and background and honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that since at her age, the time of her marriage, that is all she had ever known. She wasn’t raised to be anything other than a pretty marital ornament destined to breed heirs and run a household. She was raised in a mentality where women meant less and were not encouraged to have brains or minds of their own. She wasn’t going to just magically transcend that and pop onto the world scene this utterly brilliant intellectual. She was raised and expected to obye and NEVER divert from that path.
Thanks. I dislike this middle class mindset where someone like Diana was supposed to be someone she fundamentally was not and never would be. She was not someone who was under any obligation to anyone other than her own life and she didn’t owe anyone much at a young age. She worked at a school for kids, she did cleaning for her sister, and she enjoyed a healthy non-toxic social life. She wasn’t out boozing or sleeping around and it’s clear that she had every right to live her life as she saw fit. I think a huge reason I dislike the ‘fairy tale’ projection is mainly since too much is expected from royals that the public isn’t willing to do themselves. Diana wasn’t raised to mouth off to her parents, much less her Sovereign and in that set the first she was taught is her place in that world. A lot of people judged Diana for liking fashion, liking jewels, being well mannered and well spoken, but that is what anyone would have done in her position. A lot of people were FULL of all sorts of ideas about what she should be doing with her role as a princess, but the critics themselves are clearly not willing to build some kind of stature and do it themselves. They shoved it all onto her shoulders. Her teenage shoulders.
My comment is all about other people. If she was good friends with Richard Branson why didn’t his son get invited to the wedding? Was it really because William had the hots for Isabelle Calthorpe?
Also, have you seen the Earl’s daughters? They are gorgeous.
William doesn’t appear to have kept up with her friends and their families.
Very few of Diana’s friends were invited to the wedding.
As for the Bransons, something definitely gappened with Sam because the rest of the Bransons were invited except for him. OR he was invited too, but declined it.
His children have the good fortune to all look like their mothers.
Shy and reserved people can grow and become confident with age. I can see her appeal if she had been a more reserved young woman who preferred to stay home over going clubbing. I have always been that type of person, and that does reflect well on older people within certain circles. Charles probably believed she was the “marrying type” since back then there was more importance placed on being virtuous and innocent as a young bride. It is natural to change, mature, grow, and become more outspoken between the ages of 19 and 36. She got married, became a princess, a mother, an international superstar, dealt with a cheating husband, had affairs herself, and went through a horrible and public divorce. She was a girl when she married and was a fully grown woman who was coming into her own at the end of her young life. She seemed to have gotten used to the camera and how to work it to her advantage, but that reserved aspect of her personality always remained. She cherished her privacy, and I think that has been detrimental for William and Harry. Her sons have taken the belief that they are entitled to privacy the same way as a commoner to the next level of wanting to be left alone, and I feel they have used her death as an excuse not to work as hard. This in despite of the change in times and expectations from the public who want working royals who will do regular work to maintain their titles and wealth. Princess Diana was of a different time and we will never know if she would have ever adapted well to social media and the internet.
why did charles married diana i know it was and arranged marriage, but surely charles could arranged for some one else, did charles ever like diana at one time?
I think Charles did genuinely like Diana, and got the shock of his life when she dropped all pretence of sharing the same interests with him on their honeymoon.
I do think he was sexually attracted to her.
They were married before I was born, so I do not know all the details and gossip from their wedding and honeymoon.
Are you saying Diana refused to sleep with him on their honeymoon? Of course Charles was at least somewhat attracted to her and thought she’d be a good person with whom to have children. On the other hand, very early on in the marriage he also believed it would be acceptable to carry on an extramarital relationship with Camilla.
Men can be sexually attracted to their wives, still expect sexual relations with their wives, and still cheat with other women. This happens all the time. What surprises them is when the wife no longer wants to put up with it.
“Are you saying Diana refused to sleep with him on their honeymoon”
No, I was not saying that at all. It didn’t occur to me that that was what would be interpreted from what I wrote.
As to the question of sexual attraction, I was simply answering directly to the question of whether he EVER liked her at one time.
I think Charles imagined he was marrying a quiet well-bred girl who would just fill the spot nicely, because he couldn’t put off marrying any longer.
He didn’t expect how her charisma would explode and overshadow him. People would actually tell him they’d rather meet her. I’m sure the pampered prince resented that – probably still does.
Imo, part of the reason the press called her “Shy Di” is because it rhymed.
Was diana a daddy girl? Nobody talk about her relationship with her father what type of personality was he. And didn’t all diana sibling hate their stepmother?
She adored her father. He was the typical father of that era.
Per her own words, they hated all the women their father dated and especially hated their stepmother to the point that Diana bragged about pushing her down the stairs.
When she matured or started to mature, she came to appreciate her stepmother and even became friends with her.
Diana always said that her father hoped for a boy to pass along the Earl title, and was disappointed when she turned out to be a girl. He did prevent the biological mother from gaining even partial custody of the kids, so my impression is he wasn’t that nice, even if she loved him a lot. Maybe some of her temperament came from the parents — the father seemed hell-bent on revenge and the mother seemed unable to cope in her own marriage and also had an affair.
All of the kids hated the stepmother, although I think Diana may have been the most vocal.
Earl Spencer did a interview with people mag was him and diana or their sister even close, He’s talk about diana like they were best friends. And we’re was her parent’s?
I don’t think the brother and she got along near the end of her life.
Her parents are dead.
Her sisters are still alive, but I don’t think we’ve ever heard from them.
Lots of revisionist history in his interview. Everyone remembers that he refused to help her when she asked so his positioning himself as her protector is BS.
This. I can’t bear hearing from him. Her family didn’t care about her well being. If they had, she’d never have gone through with the wedding if I recall correctly….she said so I think.
I can’t do the chin down thing at all, my dark circles would show up. Probably make a double chin also when the rest of me is skinny and fabulous (I kid about the fabulous).
I thought part of the reason she did the chin down thing was because she was so tall. People say she was 5’10” but she looked 10 feet tall to me in all her photos. There was one shot of her with the Australian swim team, and she seemed to be the same height as all of these tall male Olympic-level swimmers!
The closest match to her I can think of in terms of standing out height-wise in photos is Nicole Kidman, and Diana seemed to suddenly sprout taller than her too in one photo where she’s standing opposite Kidman and Cruise.
Ok the chin down thing is a manipulative ploy to feign innocence or appear shy when in situations they don’t care to participate in. I have a sibling who plays it up and he’s nearly 50. Looking back it’s something I didn’t register about Diana until this post and all the comments.
Diana appeared to stop doing it as she aged thankfully. It’s childish and rude.
The programme on ITV the other night was touching. I thought the boys wouldve had counselling years ago but it appears that harry in particular is only just beginning to come to terms with his loss. It eould be nice if the boys would step up and support more good causes just like their mother did – i had forgotten how much she dd during her short life.
William and harry seem very emotional damage charles was never a loving father they just don’t want say what every one thinks.