I had to stop watching The Crown Season 6 just as Princess Diana and Dodi were making their way to Paris on what would have been Diana’s final 24 hours. I eventually returned to it, but it was painful to see her last days dramatized in a way I wasn’t expecting. So many bad decisions by everyone involved, from the monarchy to Diana to the al-Fayeds to the paparazzi. Because of The Crown and everything else, Tatler asks: who owns Diana’s legacy? The problem is, Tatler can’t help but carry water for the institution which was culpable in her unhappiness and her death, so it’s not like this is actually some high-minded exercise. Some highlights:

Diana conspiracies: Conspiracy theories roared: Was she pregnant when she died? Was she engaged? What was being covered up? Mohamed Al-Fayed stirred the pot, and Piers Morgan said Diana sold many more newspapers dead than she did alive. All theories were debunked by friends, such as Rosa Monckton, who appeared stone-faced and exasperated in a 2003 interview with Martyn Gregory. ‘[It’s] complete falsification,’ she said. ‘She was such an extraordinary woman that people find it very difficult to believe that she could have died such an ordinary death.’ Now, as the Prince of Wales calls for the cancellation of his mother’s notorious interview with Martin Bashir, and the King’s friends dub The Crown ‘trolling on a Hollywood budget’, the fight for Diana’s legacy has reached fever pitch.

Diana’s friends hate The Crown. Diana’s friends won’t watch it. ‘We all feel the same way,’ says Mary Greenwell, her former make-up artist and confidant. ‘I’m not interested in that kind of portrayal of someone who was globally recognised and loved. It’s a cheap way of revealing someone.’

What’s the point of all of this Diana dramatization? What is the point? Money? Prolonged collective therapy? Addictive re-traumatisation? What’s left is a tragedy fetishised in cycles; a private and public image at total odds. ‘Everyone above a certain age won’t hear a word against her,’ says my royal source. But ‘with great mythical figures, from Grace Kelly to Marilyn Monroe, the details get forgotten and the potency of legend overtakes the actual texture of life, because the outer image is what the public see and what they will not be dislodged from seeing’.

Diana was a canny operator in her own right: In reality, Diana had agency – a lot of it. ‘Diana had a focused grip on what she wanted to achieve,’ says my source. ‘She was as ruthless as she was charming.’ In her savvier later years, Diana would tip off newspapers herself. She held lunches with journalists at Kensington Palace, and the editor Richard Kay is supposedly one of the last people she called before she died. Tina Brown wrote in The Palace Papers that Diana invaded her own privacy: ‘the most unforgettable “stolen” snap from Diana’s last fateful holiday was the famous “kiss” picture of her in a clinch with bare-chested Dodi Fayed… It was she who tipped off Italian lensman Mario Brenna – to send a taunting message to the real love of her life, Hasnat Khan.’

Wait, what?? And yet the dramatised version of her as a tragic figure defies hyperbole: a blueprint for the Hollywood-minded Duchess of Sussex who, with the Duke, ended up in their own ‘near catastrophic’ paparazzi car chase through the normally gridlocked roads of Manhattan this summer. But it’s not how Diana saw herself: ‘She was happy,’ says Adorno. ‘She was one of the most amazing human beings; she was always easygoing.’ ‘I don’t think she was tragic at all,’ says Greenwell. ‘We can’t say there wasn’t tragedy in her life. But she was a great mother, loved by everybody who knew her.’

Gen Z’s fascination with Diana: This last season of The Crown might be the last stand: Gen Z – the first generation with no living memory of the princess – has adopted Diana’s legend in an altogether different way. She is a niche, kitsch figure. Their image of her is neither landmines nor Panorama: it’s the sports leggings and jumper of her post-Charles era. The Instagram account @ladydirevengelooks (114k followers) is their hub: Julia Fox wearing a Diana corset; Diana shooting a submachine gun; the Revenge candle for sale. She is almost a fictional character and the epitome of what the kids call ‘hun culture’.

Oh, I guess Kate is Diana’s legacy??? Diana’s really was another era. Nicholas Coleridge agrees: ‘Diana brought a big splash of accessibility to the Royal Family. That was her legacy. But I would say that the present Princess of Wales has pretty much replicated all that, improved upon it, and made it more modern and authentic. The Diana years feel a long time ago now – there have been six prime ministers since her death – and the new Queen and the Princess of Wales have, between them, more than filled the void.’ Is it asking too much to now let that legacy rest in peace?

[From Tatler]

WTF is this article, really? “A blueprint for the Hollywood-minded Duchess of Sussex who, with the Duke, ended up in their own ‘near catastrophic’ paparazzi car chase…” Tatler is suggesting that Meghan is so desperate to be tragic and dead like Diana that she faked the paparazzi incident which saw Meghan, her mother and Harry seek refuge in a police station to stop the onslaught of paparazzi? And while I agree that Diana had a lot of happiness, joy and agency, it absolutely feels like a lot of people have a vested interest in rewriting her story so that Diana’s significant pain is erased. Being used as a broodmare by a cruel philanderer took its toll on her. The lack of support she received from the institution destroyed her. And no, Kate hasn’t actually replicated anything about Diana.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of Tatler.