On Aug. 31, it will have been 25 years since Diana, the Princess of Wales, died in a Paris car crash and swept the world into mass mourning.
Yet, the woman dubbed “the people’s princess” by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair seems as popular as ever. In the last two years alone there have been several documentaries (including “The Princess” on HBO and “Diana,” a six-part series on CNN), the 2021 movie “Spencer,” which earned Kristen Stewart an Oscar nomination, a short-lived Broadway musical, the Diana season of the popular Netflix series “The Crown,” and the unveiling of a statue on the grounds of Kensington Palace in London that looks nothing like her. Before Stewart, actress Naomi Watts tried her hand at portraying the princess in the 2013 movie “Diana.”
She didn’t start out as anyone’s idea of a role model. She was 19-year-old Lady Diana, the daughter of an earl, when she got engaged to the bookish, hidebound Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne 12 years her senior and involved in a relationship with a married woman, Camilla Parker-Bowles. (Charles and Camilla are now married to each other.)
