Nearly 30 years after her death, Princess Diana (1961-1997) continues to make headlines. The interest in the ex-wife of King Charles (77), who died in a tragic accident in 1997 and would have turned 65 on July 1, remains unbroken. Not only do her sons Prince William (44) and Prince Harry (41) remember her. Personal messages from Diana also repeatedly surface in public, as they have in recent weeks when letters from the former Princess of Wales were offered for auction.
One of these documents is a letter written a few weeks after Diana's wedding to the then-Prince Charles in 1981. The letter was addressed to one of her school friends, Katherine Hanbury, and according to media reports is scheduled to be auctioned in July.
Princess Diana Hated London
When Charles and Diana married, she was 20 years old - he was 32 - and she had only met the heir to the throne a few times before. After the wedding celebrations, the couple spent twelve days on the Royal Yacht Britannia in the Mediterranean and then flew to Balmoral, the royal family's Scottish residence. Diana reported to her friend: "We had a beautiful honeymoon with endless sunshine and fortunately calm seas. We are now in Scotland until the end of October, which is a great pleasure for us. I love being outdoors all day, and I hate London!"
Marriage Initially Felt "Wonderful" to Diana
It was "wonderful to be married - one can surely say that after two months...!", Diana continued in the letter, adding that her integration into the royal family was "a game with the grown-ups".
Diana married Prince Charles on July 29, 1981, at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, with an estimated 750 million people worldwide watching the ceremony. The couple had sons William and Harry. Diana's initial optimism, which is evident in the letter, did not withstand reality, however. The marriage was unhappy and broke down in 1992, with the royal couple divorcing in 1996.
Diana died a year later, on August 31, 1997, at the age of 36 in a car accident in Paris. Fleeing from paparazzi, the vehicle crashed into a pillar at excessive speed. Her companion Dodi Al-Fayed and driver Henri Paul also died. The sole survivor of the accident was bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones.
What Diana Wished for Her Sons
Diana's "honeymoon letter" is not the only document currently being sold. Another letter reveals that she once wished her sons would communicate with each other on a "deeper" level.
In November 1995, she wrote a two-page, previously unpublished letter to a fan named Michael Barratt, who had written to her after the sensational "BBC Panorama" interview. Diana responded to him about "how much the content and his profound words touched her, and that she particularly identified with his thoughts on self-discovery and moving forward in life", reported "Page Six".
The former Princess of Wales wrote that she hoped her interview - in which she confirmed that her marriage to Charles failed due to infidelity - would help other women in similar difficulties. Diana also reportedly wrote that she was looking forward to the future and to "teaching William and Harry the importance of deeper communication".
Diana famously declared in her legendary 1995 interview: "There were three of us in this marriage". An allusion to Charles's affair with Camilla (78), his current wife. Diana also addressed her depression, her bulimia, and her own affair.
Diana's wish for profound communication between her two sons has meanwhile not been fulfilled. The relationship between William and Harry is considered broken since Harry stepped back from his royal duties in 2020 together with his wife Meghan (44) and moved to the USA. Subsequently, he has sharply attacked the royal family in interviews, a Netflix documentary, and his autobiography.
How the Break Between Diana and "Fergie" Happened
A topic that has also been discussed again in recent weeks is the break between Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson (66). The ex-wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (66), King Charles's brother, and the Princess were once inseparable. Then there was a falling-out, about which royal expert Andrew Lownie reportedly writes in "Entitled".
Diana and "Fergie" had known each other since childhood and were distantly related. Andrew and Ferguson allegedly met through Diana. Lownie now writes according to "Fox News" in his book: "The two women, who were once close, had not spoken to each other for months after Sarah wrote about her sister-in-law in her memoirs against Diana's wishes and made a joke about catching a wart from one of Diana's shoes." Sarah Ferguson had published her autobiography in 1996, shortly after her divorce from Andrew. The two women reportedly never reconciled afterward. The wart anecdote leading to the end of the friendship had been speculated about before as well.
In the 2011 book "Finding Sarah", the former Duchess of York confirmed that she and Diana had not spoken to each other for a year before the Princess's death. "I never learned the reason, except that when Diana set her mind to something, it stayed there for quite a while", Sarah wrote according to "People".
"Diana Felt Exploited"
Paul Burrell, Diana's former butler, provided a different explanation for the falling-out in the book "The Royal Insider". According to Burrell, the friendship between the two women deteriorated because Ferguson included references to her and her sons in "My Story" in 1996 despite Diana's objections: "Diana felt exploited and refused to speak to Sarah."
Meanwhile, the rest of the royal family reportedly no longer speaks to Sarah Ferguson either. She has gone underground after revelations about her years-long friendship with convicted offender Jeffrey Epstein.
