The Princess Diaries’ Mia Thermopolis may not be an official Disney Princess, but she certainly shares one popular thing many of them sadly have: a dead parent. But I just learned that Mia’s dad is very much alive in The Princess Diaries books. When it came to Meg Cabot's novels being turned into a movie from Walt Disney Pictures, the producers had a big reason for why they felt Mia's dad needed to be dead, and what a revelation!
Why are the characters in Disney movies always without parents? When it came to Cabot’s The Princess Diaries books, she had no intention of following that trend and leaving Mia without a father. However, here's why the storyline changed for the 2001 movie, per Cabot:
