Princess Diana ‘Teased’ Paparazzi in Final Days, Says Commentator: ‘Diana Was No Innocent When It Came to the Press
A royal commentator says that Princess Diana “teased” royal paparazzi in her final days. Despite being portrayed as the contrary, “Diana was no innocent when it came to the press.” Here’s what they had to say.
Princess Diana had a give-and-take relationship relationship with the paparazzi
Princess Diana and the paparazzi had a give-and-take relationship for most of her years as a royal family member. Later in her life, Diana used the press more and more to push forward her narrative.
Daniela Elser, a royal reporter for News.com.au, claims that biographer Sally Bedell Smith, the princess, started the trip by “[Eluding the] paparazzi by crawling along a balcony and hiding behind a towel” only to change tack then and actually to go and speak to them.
“You are going to get a big surprise, you’ll see. You are going to get a big surprise with the next thing I do,” she told the paparazzi.
“This direct engagement and a certain hand-feeding of the media “beast” that swirled around her was far from a one-off. This was not a solitary moment stolen by the intrusive press. Still, an image that ‘suited’ Diana to have taken, according to Jason Fraser, the photographer involved in getting the shot,” Elser noted.
Fraser would later tell the Daily Mail the Princess of Wales had invited him to shoot her during that August 1997 holiday with her new boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed.
Elser wrote, “Look further, and you can find a veritable chorus of highly credible voices all saying very much the same thing. Diana was no innocent when it came to the press.”
How complicit was Princess Diana in her relationship with the paparazzi?
Was Princess Diana complicit in her relationship with the paparazzi? This commentary directly contradicts statements by Princess Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, at her funeral. He called his sister “the most hunted person of the modern age.”
But Daniela Elser calls this contradiction “messy and fraught territory. It challenges the prevailing, entrenched image of Diana as a martyr, as a totemic sacrifice to the press.”
“You know this story, the world knows this story, it’s a narrative bedded down and etched in rock: Diana was the perennial victim of the villainous and predatory forces of Fleet Street,” she continued.
However, Elser also cites sources within her story that reveal Diana courted the press. She reportedly used them to change the narrative about her image toward the end of and after her marriage to then-Prince Charles.
Was Princess Diana a victim of the royal family’s ‘dirty games’ with the paparazzi?
Of the many tidbits of information Prince Harry raised in his Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan was the fact that the royal family plays “dirty games” with the paparazzi. “You know there’s leaking, but there’s also planting of stories … It’s a dirty game.”
Harry explained, “I have 30 years of experience of looking behind the curtain and seeing how the system works and how it runs. I mean, just constant briefings about other family members, about favors, inviting the press in. It’s a dirty game.”
He continued, “There’s leaking, but there’s also planting of stories. So, if the comms team wants to be able to remove a negative story about their principle, they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principle.”
“So the offices end up working against each other. It’s kind of a weird understanding or acceptance that happens. And you can always say, ‘I didn’t know about this.’ Or, ‘This would never happen. Are you suggesting that I condone this?’ It’s like no, but what I am asking is, have you done anything to stop it? And the answer is no,” Harry concluded.
The question is, will this new season of The Crown delve into the uncomfortable territory of whether Diana played this “dirty game” too? If new photos teased from the last season of the Netflix series are any indication, Diana may have invited the paparazzi in, but ultimately, at what cost?
Princess Diana died on Aug. 31, 1997. She was 36.
