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Princess Diana’s turbulent life can partially be explained by her birth chart, an astrologer has said. 

Penny Thornton is an astrologer who worked closely with Diana beginning in the 1980s. Over the course of multiple consultations and chart readings, Thornton developed an understanding of how the stars influenced the doomed royal’s life, she told Vogue Australia in a 2019 interview. 

Princess Diana’s astrologer pointed out ‘potential problems’ in her marriage to Prince Charles

The author of With Love from Diana first connected with the Princess of Wales when she received an “out of the blue” phone call in 1986.

“Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew had mentioned me, and she already had my book, Synastry: The Astrology of Relationships, in which there was an entire chapter devoted to the newly married Prince and Princess of Wales,” Thornton shared. “In this chapter, I had pointed out the potential problems in the relationship and the possibility the marriage would end in divorce.”

Initially, Thornton was hesitant to give Diana a reading, but after sensing that she was truly in need of guidance, she agreed. 

“A week later I was sitting next to her on a sofa in her small sitting room at Kensington Palace,” she recalled. “She spoke of her unhappiness with Charles and royal life in general. No one at that point, with the exception of close friends and family, had any idea of the extent of Diana’s problems.”

How the Princess of Wales’ birth chart affected her life

Some of those issues could be explained by Diana’s birth chart, according to Thornton.

“The two biggest problems in her chart were a Mars-Pluto conjunction, which supplied a reason for her self-destructive tendencies, and was active at the time of her death,” Thornton said. Another issue was “Saturn’s placement at the base of the life-direction axis, which echoed her deep sense of being unloved and unlovable.”

But it wasn’t all bad news for Diana. Her Cancer sign gave her a “love of mothering” and influenced “the importance she placed on her role as William and Harry’s mother.” Meanwhile, her Libra rising contributed to her love of dance, music, and fashion. And “her Moon in Aquarius resonated with her unsnobbish, humanitarian nature.”

Thornton advised Diana to draw on those latter qualities to help her cope with the pressure she felt as a member of the royal family. She urged her to look for ways to move from “passive victim” to and “active member” of the family who was the equal of then-Prince Charles. 

“I suggested she used her suffering to relate to those who also suffered,” she said. “I think you could say it worked.”

While Diana had long been involved in charitable causes, she took a groundbreaking step when she shook hands with a patient at the opening of the first clinic for AIDS/HIV patients in the U.K. At the time, many people shunned AIDS patients because they did not understand how the disease was transmitted. Diana’s gesture helped change people’s perceptions of the illness. She was also involved with organizations that cleared landmines and with groups that helped homeless youth, among other causes.

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