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Princess Diana

Princess Diana was Princess of Wales while married to Prince Charles. One of the most adored members of the British royal family, she died in a 1997 car crash.

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Who Was Princess Diana?

Quick facts, early life and family, relationship with prince charles, divorce from prince charles, post-divorce life, funeral, gravesite, and legacy, portrayals in pop culture.

Diana, Princess of Wales, was the first wife of Prince Charles , the future king of the United Kingdom, and was the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry . Born Diana Frances Spencer, she became Lady Diana Spencer after her father inherited the title of Earl Spencer in 1975. She married Charles on July 29, 1981, and after a largely unhappy union under constant scrutiny from the media, they divorced in 1996. Diana died on August 31, 1997, from injuries she sustained in a car crash in Paris. She is remembered as the “People’s Princess” because of her widespread popularity and global humanitarian efforts.

FULL NAME: Diana Frances Spencer BORN: July 1, 1961 DIED: August 31, 1997 BIRTHPLACE: Sandringham, England, United Kingdom SPOUSE: King Charles III (1981-1996) CHILDREN: Prince William and Prince Harry ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer

Diana was born on July 1, 1961, near Sandringham, England. Diana was the daughter of Edward John Spencer, the Viscount Althorp, and Frances Ruth Burke Roche, who was later known as the Honorable Frances Shand Kydd. Diana had two older sisters, Jane Fellowes and Sarah McCorquodale, and a younger brother, Charles Spencer, 9 th Earl Spencer. Another brother, John, died in infancy a year before Diana was born. Her grandmothers Cynthia Spencer and Ruth Roche were both ladies-in-waiting to Queen Mother Elizabeth .

When Diana was young, her parents divorced. There had been great strain on their marriage due to the pressure to produce a male heir prior to Charles’ birth, with Diana’s mother being sent to clinics to determine why she had not yet delivered a boy. Charles later said he believed this strain was “the root of their divorce,” according to Andrew Morton’s book Diana: Her True Story . Diana’s father won custody of the children following the divorce. He later married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, with whom Diana had a poor relationship. Diana described her childhood as “very unhappy” and “very unstable,” according to Morton.

Following her initial education at home, Diana attended Riddlesworth Hall School and then West Heath School. Although she was known for her shyness while growing up, she showed an interest in music and dancing. She became Lady Diana Spencer after her father inherited the title of Earl Spencer in 1975. Diana had a great fondness for children. After attending finishing school at Institut Alpin Videmanette in Switzerland, she moved to London. She began working with children, eventually becoming an assistant at Young England Kindergarten.

Diana met Prince Charles in 1977, when he was dating her older sister Sarah. Although 13 years her senior, Charles first took interest in her as a potential bride when they reconnected at a mutual friend’s home during the summer of 1980. Charles was usually the subject of media attention, and his courtship of Diana was no exception. The press and the public were fascinated by this seemingly odd couple—the reserved, garden-loving prince and the shy young woman with an interest in fashion and popular culture. Diana met Charles’ family during a visit to Balmoral Castle in Scotland and was well received by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip , according to the Tina Brown book The Diana Chronicles .

Charles and Diana had been dating for just a few months when he proposed in Windsor Castle on February 3, 1981. She was so surprised that she initially thought it was a joke, according to Morton. On February 6, 1981, Prince Charles proposed to Diana with an 18-karat white gold ring topped with a 12-carat oval Ceylon sapphire surrounded by 14 solitaire diamonds. It was made by the crown jeweler Garrard and reportedly inspired by a brooch Prince Albert had created in 1840 as a wedding present for Queen Victoria . The ring reportedly cost Charles £28,000 at the time (about $35,000).

Charles and Diana made headlines during a television interview following their engagement when Charles was asked if they were in love. Diane responded, “Of course,” while Charles added, “Whatever ‘in love’ means,” adding that the phrase “in love” is open to “your own interpretation.”

Princess Diane and Prince Charles’ Royal Wedding

Diana Spencer became Diana, Princess of Wales, when she married Charles on July 29, 1981. Their wedding took place at St. Paul’s Cathedral in the presence of 2,650 guests. The couple arrived separately and departed together by a carriage ride through the streets of London.

Diana wore a taffeta wedding dress made with silk and antique lace and 10,000 pearls , created by husband-and-wife design team David and Elizabeth Emanuel. She donned an 18 th century Spencer family tiara with a 25-foot veil. Her ensemble barely fit in the carriage, and it took Diana 3 and a half minutes to walk down the aisle.

The royal wedding ceremony was broadcast on television around the world; nearly one billion people from 74 countries tuned in to see what many considered to be the wedding of the century. Diana broke tradition during the wedding by omitting the word “obey” from her vows when she promised to “love him, comfort him, honor him, and keep him, in sickness and in health.” The omission generated some attention and criticism from the media at the time.

After the couple’s fairy tale wedding, Diana felt overwhelmed by her royal duties and the intense media coverage of nearly every aspect of her life. She began to develop and pursue her own interests, serving as a strong supporter of many charities and worked to help the homeless, people living with HIV and AIDS and children in need.

Diana and Charles had two sons together: Prince William Arthur Philip Louis , born on June 21, 1982, and Prince Henry Charles Albert David—known widely as Prince Harry —born on September 15, 1984. In January 1982, 12 weeks into her pregnancy with William, Diana deliberately threw herself down the stairs at the Sandringham House royal residence in Norfolk, because she was feeling so despondent and inadequate in her marriage to Charles, according to Morton. The baby, however, was unharmed.

Diana experienced postpartum depression after her pregnancy with William and found the intense media attention surrounding her pregnancy difficult to bear. In 1983, when William was 9 months old, Diana could not bear to part with him during a planned six-week tour of Australia and New Zealand, so she broke royal tradition and brought the baby along with her, according to the book William by Tim Graham and Peter Archer . Although the decision drew some criticism, the appearance of Diana and the baby on the tour was largely applauded by the public, according to the book.

Diana said her relationship was Charles was “the closest we’ve ever, ever been” during her pregnancy with Harry, according to Morton’s book. Charles had hoped their second child would be a girl, and when Diana learned it would be a boy, she kept it from Charles so as to run their newly-found closeness. When Harry was born, Charles’ first words were, “Oh God, it’s a boy,” and Diana was so hurt that said it was the moment she knew their marriage had “gone down the drain,” according to Morton.

Diana and Charles became estranged over the years, and Diana struggled with depression and bulimia. During their union, there were reports of infidelities from both parties. Most notably, Diana was said to have been in a relationship with Mayor James Hewitt from 1986 to 1991, while Charles resumed his relationship with his ex-girlfriend and future wife Queen Camilla . By the early 1990s, Diana and Charles were so visibly unhappy together that the media dubbed them “The Glums.”

Diana’s separation from Charles was announced in December 1992 by British Prime Minister John Major , who read a statement from the royal family to the House of Commons. During an infamous 1995 interview with the BBC program Panorama , Diana questioned whether Charles could handle becoming king one day and said of his relationship with Camilla: “Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” The interview proved to be the final straw, and shortly afterward, Queen Elizabeth urged Diana and Charles to officially end their marriage.

Their divorce was finalized in August 1996. Diana was allowed to keep her apartment at Kensington Palace, as well as other apartments she could use with permission in advance, according to The New York Times . She was provided access to jets used by the royal family. Charles ceased to pay her bills after the divorce, significantly altering her lifestyle and financial control. Although she retained her title as Princess of Wales, Diana was stripped of the title Her Royal Highness, without which she was forced to curtsy to all her former family members, including her ex-husband and children. Queen Elizabeth II was reportedly willing to let her keep the title, but Charles adamantly insisted she lose it. Additionally, Diana gave up any claim to the British throne.

Following her divorce, Diana devoted herself to her sons and charitable efforts, including raising awareness about the dangers of leftover landmines in war-torn Angola. She maintained a high level of popularity with the public. She also continued her royal duties and was offered continued security by Royalty Protection officers, though she refused such protection except when she travelled with her sons.

Diana had several romantic relationships after her divorce. She dated the British-Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan—who has been described as the “love of her life” —from 1995 to 1997, and started dating the Egyptian film producer and playboy Dodi Fayed in 1997. It was reported that some members of the royal family and former Prime Minister Tony Blair did not approve of the relationship between Diana and Fayed.

While visiting Paris, Diana and Fayed were involved in a car crash early in the morning of August 31, 1997, reportedly after trying to escape from members of the paparazzi. Fayed and the driver were pronounced dead at the scene. Diana initially survived the crash but died from her injuries at a Paris hospital a few hours later. She was 36 years old.

News of her sudden, senseless death shocked the world and sparked a global outpouring of public grief. Queen Elizabeth II, who was criticized for not immediately responding publicly to Diana’s death, made a televised address from Buckingham Palace on September 5, in which she said: “No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew her, will remember her. I, for one, believe there are lessons to be drawn from her life and from the extraordinary and moving reaction to her death. I share in your determination to cherish her memory.”

Following an investigation into Diana’s fatal car accident, a report released in 1999 determined that the driver was at fault for driving at a high speed while under the influence of alcohol and antidepressant drugs. Charges were dropped against several photographers who were initially blamed for causing the crash. Despite the report, rumors persisted for years about alternative reasons for the accident.

On the morning of September 6, 1997, Diana’s funeral procession commenced from Kensington Palace with her coffin resting on a gun carriage drawn by six black horses. Thousands of mourners packed the street to watch, with 15-year-old William and 12-year-old Harry joining the final stretch of the four-mile procession for their mother.

An estimated 2.5 billion people tuned in on television to watch the ceremony at Westminster Abbey, which featured a powerful eulogy from Diana’s brother, Earl Charles Spencer, and a performance from Elton John , who rewrote the lyrics to his song “Candle in the Wind” in her honor. Diana’s body was laid to rest at a gravesite on a small island at her family’s estate, Althorp.

To continue her charitable efforts, the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund was founded after her death to provide resources for palliative care, penal reform, asylum, and other issues. The fund is no longer actively fundraising, but any new donations are split between the charitable endeavors of Prince William of Wales and Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex. In 2007, just before the 10 th anniversary of her death, William and Harry honored their beloved mother with a special concert that took place on what would have been her 46 th birthday. The proceeds of the event went to charities supported by Diana and her sons.

Both William and Harry have honored Diana through their daughters’ names. Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana was born on May 2, 2015, to William and his wife, Princess Kate . Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle , welcomed their daughter Princess Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor on June 6, 2021.

Diana has been portrayed by a large number of actors in film, television, and other works of media. Among them were Serena Scott Thomas in Diana: Her True Story (1993), Genevieve O’Reilly in Diana: Last Days of a Princess (2007), Naomi Watts in Diana (2013), and Kristin Stewart in Spencer (2021) . Stewart received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for portraying Diana in the film.

In the Netflix series The Crown , Diana has been portrayed in different seasons by Emma Corrin and Elizabeth Debicki. Corrin was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for the role and won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series (Drama). Debicki also received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for her performance.

• They say it is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable, but how about a compromise like moderately rich and just moody?
• Helping people in need is a good and essential part of my life, a kind of destiny.
• Everyone needs to be valued. Everyone has the potential to give something back.
• I’d like people to think of me as someone who cares about them.
• [A] voice said to me inside: ‘You won’t be Queen, but you’ll have a tough role.’
• The higher the media put you, place you, is the bigger the drop.
• Here was a fairy story that everybody wanted to work.
• When people are dying, they’re much more open and more vulnerable and much more real than other people.
• I’d like to be a queen of people’s hearts, in people’s hearts, but I don’t see myself being queen of this country. I don’t think many people will want me to be queen.
• Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.
• If you find someone you love in life, you must hang on to it and look after it.
• You know, people think that at the end of the day a man is the only answer. Actually, a fulfilling job is better for me.
• I am a free spirit—unfortunately for some.
• I think the biggest disease this world suffers from, in this day and age, is the disease of people feeling unloved, and I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give—I’m very happy to do that, and I want to do that.

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Colin McEvoy joined the Biography.com staff in 2023, and before that had spent 16 years as a journalist, writer, and communications professional. He is the author of two true crime books: Love Me or Else and Fatal Jealousy . He is also an avid film buff, reader, and lover of great stories.

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Princess Diana Biography

After her divorce, officially, she was called Diana, Princess of Wales.

Diana was often called Princess Diana by the media and the public, but she did not possess such a title and was not personally a princess, a point Diana herself made to people who referred to her as such. Contrary to belief, being Princess of Wales does not make one a princess in one’s own right. It merely indicates that one was married to a Prince of Wales.

From the time of her engagement to the Prince of Wales in 1981 until her death in a car accident in 1997, the Princess was arguably the most famous woman in the world, the pre-eminent female celebrity of her generation: a fashion icon, an image of feminine beauty, admired and emulated for her high-profile involvement in AIDS issues, and the international campaign against landmines. During her lifetime, she was often referred to as the most photographed person in the world.

Early years of Princess Diana

See: Childhood photos

Diana Frances Spencer was born as the youngest daughter of Edward Spencer, Viscount Althorp, and his first wife, Frances Spencer, at Park House on the Sandringham estate. On the death of her paternal grandfather, Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, in 1975, Diana’s father became the 8th Earl Spencer, and she acquired the courtesy title of The Lady Diana Spencer and moved from her childhood home at Park House to her family’s sixteenth-century ancestral home of Althorp. A year later, Lord Spencer married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of the romance novelist Barbara Cartland, after being named as the “other party” in the Earl and Countess of Dartmouth’s divorce.

Diana was educated at Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk and at West Heath Girls’ School (later reorganized as the New School at West Heath, a special school for boys and girls) in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she was regarded as an academically below-average student, having failed all of her O-level examinations. In 1977, aged 16, she left West Heath and briefly attended Institut Alpin Videmanette, a finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland (Diana’s future husband was also dating her sister, Lady Sarah at that time). Diana was a talented amateur singer, excelled in sports and reportedly longed to be a ballerina.

Diana’s family, the Spencers, had been close to the British Royal Family for decades. Her maternal grandmother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy, was a longtime friend of, and a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

The Prince’s love life had always been the subject of press speculation, and he was linked to numerous women. Nearing his mid-thirties, he was under increasing pressure to marry. In order to gain the approval of his family and their advisors, including his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten of Burma, any potential bride had to have an aristocratic background, could not have been previously married, should be Protestant and, preferably, a virgin. Diana fulfilled all of these qualifications.

Reportedly, the Prince’s former girlfriend (and, eventually, his second wife) Camilla Parker Bowles helped him select the 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer as a potential bride, who was working as an assistant at the Young England kindergarten in Pimlico. It was at this kindergarten school that the famous iconic snap of a 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer was taken by John Minihan with the morning sun to her back, her legs in silhouette through her skirt.

Buckingham Palace announced the engagement on 24 February 1981. Mrs Parker Bowles had been dismissed by Lord Mountbatten of Burma as a potential spouse for the heir to throne some years before, reportedly due to her age (16 months the Prince’s senior), her sexual experience, and her lack of suitably aristocratic lineage.

Wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana

The wedding took place at St Paul’s Cathedral in London on Wednesday 29 July 1981 before 3,500 invited guests (including Mrs Parker Bowles and her husband, a godson of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) and an estimated 1 billion television viewers around the world.

Diana was the first Englishwoman to marry the heir to the throne since 1659 when Lady Anne Hyde married the Duke of York and Albany, the future King James II (although, unlike Charles, James was heir presumptive and not the heir apparent). Upon her marriage, Diana became Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales and was ranked as the third most senior royal woman in the United Kingdom after the Queen and the Queen Mother.

The Prince and Princess of Wales had two children, Prince William of Wales on 21 June 1982 and Prince Henry of Wales (commonly called Prince Harry) on 15 September 1984.

Princess Diana – Break up of Marriage with Prince Charles

In the mid-1980s her marriage fell apart, an event at first suppressed, but then sensationalised, by the world media. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales allegedly spoke to the press through friends, accusing each other of the blame for the marriage’s demise. Charles resumed his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, whilst Diana became involved with James Hewitt and possibly later with James Gilbey, with whom she was involved in the so-called Squidgygate affair. She later confirmed (in a television interview with Martin Bashir) the affair with her riding instructor, James Hewitt. Another alleged lover was a bodyguard assigned to the Princess’s security detail, although the Princess adamantly denied a sexual relationship with him. After her separation from Prince Charles, Diana was allegedly involved with married art dealer Oliver Hoare and rugby player Will Carling. She did publicly date heart surgeon Hasnat Khan before becoming involved with Dodi Fayed.

The Prince and Princess of Wales were separated on 9 December 1992; their divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996. The Princess lost the style Her Royal Highness and instead was styled as Diana, Princess of Wales. However, since the divorce, Buckingham Palace has maintained that Diana was officially a member of the Royal Family since she was the mother of the second and third in line to the throne.

Princess Diana Charity work

Starting in the mid-to-late 1980s, the Princess of Wales became well known for her support of charity projects , and is credited with considerable influence for her campaigns against the use of landmines and helping the victims of AIDS.

In April 1987, the Princess of Wales was the first high-profile celebrity to be photographed knowingly touching a person infected with the HIV virus. Her contribution to changing the public opinion of AIDS sufferers was summarised in December 2001 by Bill Clinton at the ‘Diana, Princess of Wales Lecture on AIDS’, when he said:

“ In 1987, when so many still believed that AIDS could be contracted through casual contact, Princess Diana sat on the sickbed of a man with AIDS and held his hand. She showed the world that people with AIDS deserve no isolation, but compassion and kindness. It helped change world opinion, and gave hope to people with AIDS with an outcome of saved lives of people at risk. “

Princess Diana also made clandestine visits to show kindness to terminally ill AIDS patients. According to nurses, she would turn up unannounced, for example, at the Mildmay Hospice in London, with specific instructions that these visits were to be concealed from the media.

Princess Diana and Landmines Campaign

Perhaps her most widely publicised charity appearance was her visit to Angola in January 1997, when, serving as an International Red Cross VIP volunteer [1], she visited landmine survivors in hospitals, toured de-mining projects run by the HALO Trust, and attended mine awareness education classes about the dangers of mines immediately surrounding homes and villages.

The pictures of Diana touring a minefield, in a ballistic helmet and flak jacket, were seen worldwide. (In fact, mine-clearance experts had already cleared the pre-planned walk that Diana took wearing the protective equipment.) In August that year, she visited Bosnia with the Landmine Survivors Network. Her interest in landmines was focused on the injuries they create, often to children, long after the conflict has finished.

She is widely acclaimed for her influence on the signing by the governments of the UK and other nations of the Ottawa Treaty in December 1997, after her death, which created an international ban on the use of anti-personnel landmines. Introducing the Second Reading of the Landmines Bill 1998 to the British House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, paid tribute to Diana’s work on landmines:

“ All Honourable Members will be aware from their postbags of the immense contribution made by Diana, Princess of Wales to bringing home to many of our constituents the human costs of landmines. The best way in which to record our appreciation of her work, and the work of NGOs that have campaigned against landmines, is to pass the Bill, and to pave the way towards a global ban on landmines. “

As of January 2005, Diana’s legacy on landmines remained unfulfilled. The United Nations appealed to the nations which produced and stockpiled the largest numbers of landmines (China, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States) to sign the Ottawa Treaty forbidding their production and use, for which Diana had campaigned. Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said that landmines remained “a deadly attraction for children, whose innate curiosity and need for play often lure them directly into harm’s way”.

Death of Princess Diana

On 31 August 1997, Diana was involved in a car accident in the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel in Paris, along with her friend and lover Dodi Al-Fayed, and their driver Henri Paul. Fayed’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones is the only person who survived the wreckage. The death of the Princess has been widely blamed on reporters who were reportedly hounding the Princess and were following the vehicle at a high speed. Ever since the word paparazzi has been associated with the death of the Princess.

Citation: Tejvan Pettinger , Oxford, UK. www. Biography Online  Published 01/06/2006. Updated 22 Feb 2018.

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Princess Diana (born Diana Frances Spencer; July 1, 1961–August 31, 1997) was the consort of Charles, Prince of Wales. She was the mother of Prince William, currently in line for the throne after his father, Diane's former husband, and of Prince Harry. Diana was also known for her charity work and her fashion image.

Fast Facts: Diana, Princess of Wales

• Known For: Diana became a member of the British royal family when she married Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1981.
• Also Known As: Diana Frances Spencer, Lady Di, Princess Diana
• Born: July 1, 1961 in Sandringham, England
• Parents: John Spencer and Frances Spencer
• Died: August 31, 1997 in Paris, France
• Spouse: Charles, Prince of Wales (m. 1981–1996)
• Children: Prince William (William Arthur Philip Louis), Prince Harry (Henry Charles Albert David)

Diana Frances Spencer was born on July 1, 1961, in Sandringham, England. Although she was a member of the British aristocracy, she was technically a commoner, not a royal. Diana's father was John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, a personal aide to King George VI and to Queen Elizabeth II . Her mother was the Honourable Frances Shand-Kydd.

Diana's parents divorced in 1969. Her mother ran away with a wealthy heir, and her father gained custody of the children. He later married Raine Legge, whose mother was Barbara Cartland, a romance novelist.

Diana grew up practically next door to Queen Elizabeth II and her family, at Park House, a mansion next to the Sandringham estate of the royal family. Prince Charles was 12 years older, but Prince Andrew was closer to her age and was a childhood playmate.

After Diana's parents divorced, her father gained custody of her and her siblings. Diana was educated at home until she was 9 and was then sent to Riddlesworth Hall and West Heath School. Diana did not get along well with her stepmother, nor did she do well in school. Instead, she found an interest in ballet and, according to some reports, Prince Charles, whose picture she had on the wall of her room at school. When Diana was 16, she met Prince Charles again. He had dated her older sister Sarah. She made some impression on him, but she was still too young for him to date. After she dropped out of West Heath School at 16, she attended a finishing school in Switzerland, Chateau d'Oex. She left after a few months.

After Diana left school, she moved to London and worked as a housekeeper, nanny, and kindergarten teacher's aide. She lived in a house purchased by her father and had three roommates. In 1980, Diana and Charles met again when she went to visit her sister, whose husband worked for the queen . They began to date, and six months later Charles proposed. The two were married on July 29, 1981, in a much-watched wedding that's been called the "wedding of the century." Diana was the first British citizen to marry the heir to the British throne in almost 300 years.

Diana immediately began making public appearances despite her reservations about being in the public eye. One of her first official visits was to the funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco. Diana soon became pregnant, giving birth to Prince William (William Arthur Philip Louis) on June 21, 1982, and then to Prince Harry (Henry Charles Albert David) on September 15, 1984.

Early in their marriage, Diana and Charles were publicly affectionate. By 1986, however, their time apart and coolness when together were obvious. The 1992 publication of Andrew Morton's biography of Diana revealed the story of Charles' long affair with Camilla Parker Bowles and alleged that Diana had made several suicide attempts. In February 1996, Diana announced that she had agreed to a divorce.

The divorce was finalized on August 28, 1996. Settlement terms reportedly included about $23 million for Diana plus $600,000 per year. She and Charles would both be active in their sons' lives. Diana continued to live at Kensington Palace and was permitted to retain the title Princess of Wales. At her divorce, she also gave up most of the charities she'd been working with, limiting herself to only a few causes: homelessness, AIDS, leprosy, and cancer.

In 1996, Diana became involved in a campaign to ban landmines. She visited several nations in her involvement with the anti-landmine campaign, an activity more political than the norm for the British royal family.

In early 1997, Diana was linked romantically with the 42-year-old playboy "Dodi" Fayed (Emad Mohammed al-Fayed). His father, Mohammed al-Fayed, owned Harrod's department store and the Ritz Hotel in Paris, among other properties.

On August 30, 1997, Diana and Fayed left the Ritz Hotel in Paris, accompanied in a car by a driver and Dodi's bodyguard. They were pursued by paparazzi. Just after midnight, the car spun out of control in a Paris tunnel and crashed. Fayed and the driver were killed instantly; Diana died later in a hospital despite efforts to save her. The bodyguard survived despite critical injuries.

The world quickly reacted. First came horror and shock. Blame was next, much of which was directed at the paparazzi who were following the princess's car and from whom the driver was apparently trying to escape. Later tests showed the driver had been well over the legal alcohol limit, but immediate blame was placed on the photographers and their seemingly incessant quest to capture images of Diana that could be sold to the press.

Then came an outpouring of sorrow and grief. The Spencers, Diana's family, established a charitable fund in her name, and within a week $150 million in donations had been raised. Princess Diana's funeral on September 6 drew worldwide attention. Millions turned out to line the path of the funeral procession.

In many ways, Diana and her life story paralleled much in popular culture. She was married near the beginning of the 1980s, and her fairy-tale wedding, complete with a glass coach and a dress that could not quite fit inside, was in sync with the ostentatious wealth and spending of the 1980s.

Her struggles with bulimia and depression shared so publicly in the press were also typical of the 1980s' focus on self-help and self-esteem. That she seemed to have finally begun to transcend many of her problems made her loss seem all the more tragic.

The 1980s realization of the AIDS crisis was one in which Diana played a significant part. Her willingness to touch and hug AIDS sufferers—at a time when many in the public wanted to quarantine those with the disease based on irrational and uneducated fears of easy communicability—helped change how AIDS patients were treated.

Today, Diana is still remembered as the "People's Princess," a woman of contradictions who was born into wealth yet seemed to have a "common touch"; a woman who struggled with her self-image yet was a fashion icon; a woman who sought attention but often stayed at hospitals and other charity sites long after the press had left. Her life has been the subject of numerous books and films, including "Diana: Her True Story," "Diana: Last Days of a Princess," and "Diana, 7 Days."

• Bumiller, Elisabeth, et al. “Death of Diana: Times Journalists Recall Night of the Crash.” The New York Times, 31 Aug. 2017.
• Clayton, Tim, and Phil Craig. "Diana: Story of a Princess." Atria Books, 2003.
• Lyall, Sarah. “Diana's Legacy: A Reshaped Monarchy, a More Emotional U.K.” The New York Times , 31 Aug. 2017.
• Morton, Andrew. "Diana: Her True Story - in Her Own Words." Michael O'Mara Books Limited, 2019.
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Diana, princess of Wales: Facts & Related Content

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• Princess Diana had claimed that she believed herself to be a target for assassination before the fatal car accident of 1997 took place.
• Despite after-the-fact rumours, Diana was not pregnant at the time of her death.
• In 1987 Diana was photographed at Middlesex Hospital shaking hands with an HIV-positive man, representing a big step forward in changing attitudes toward AIDS.

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Timeline: Princess Diana's life and the events that made her who she was

Princess Diana is a larger-than-life figure in so many ways, and her biography contains moments large and small, public and private, royal and routine.

This timeline follows Diana from childhood to storybook royal wedding to parenthood and then, unfortunately, to a death that came far too soon.

1961:  Diana Frances Spencer, born July 1, was the fourth of five children born to John Spencer, the 8th Earl Spencer and his first wife, Frances Ruth Roche.

1967: The Spencers separate when Diana is six years old. The divorce would not be final until 1969, following a child custody battle won by her father. In later years, her younger brother, Charles, blames the split on the loss of their first son, John, who died within hours of his birth in 1960, and the difficulty of producing a male heir.

1969: Diana's mother marries Peter Shand Kydd, an Australian wallpaper heir, and is accused by Shand Kydd's ex-wife of being the "other woman" in their divorce. The couple moves to the remote Scottish Isle of Seil.

1970: Diana, age 9, enrolls at Riddlesworth Hall, an all-girls boarding school in Norfolk.

1973: Diana joins older sisters Jane and Sarah at West Heath Girls' School in Kent, where she shows talent in music and sports but not academics. Later, she fails her O-level exams twice, and leaves without the equivalent of a high school diploma.

1975: Diana, 13, is given the title of Lady after her grandfather dies and her father inherits the title Earl of Spencer and the Althorp estate.

1976: John Spencer remarries, this time to socialite and local politician Raine McCorquodale, Lady Dartmouth, with whom he remains until his death in 1992. Though Diana and her brother called their new stepmother "Acid Raine," Diana later reconciled with her prior to her 1997 death.

1977: Diana first meets future husband Prince Charles, who at the time was dating her older sister Sarah.

1980: During a summer weekend in the country, Prince Charles notices Diana. Later that year, he takes her sailing on the royal yacht and invites her to Balmoral, his family's Scottish retreat to meet his family.

January 1981: After tabloids report a premarital liaison between Charles and Diana, Prince Philip writes a letter to his son urging him to either propose or end the relationship. Charles interprets it as an order to propose.

Feb. 24, 1981: Charles and Diana go public with their engagement (and Diana debuts her famous sapphire-and-diamond ring). On the night she moves out of her London apartment, her protective officer warns her, "I just want you to know that this is your last night of freedom ever, in the rest of your life, so make the most of it."

March 9, 1981: Diana bucks royal practice by wearing a plunging black gown by Elizabeth Emanuel for her first major post-engagement outing, which is criticized for being inappropriate. Afterward, she is bothered by media reports that she still has "an ounce or two of puppy fat," further inflaming her resurgent eating disorder.

July 29, 1981: Less than a month after her 20th birthday, Diana weds Charles, 32, at St. Paul's Cathedral, which better accommodated their 2,500 guests than Westminster Abbey, the usual venue for royal weddings. Two more deviations from tradition: The omission of the word "obey" from Diana's vows (intentional) and the delay of their first kiss until returning to Buckingham Palace (unintentional).

Nov. 5, 1981, The palace announces Diana is pregnant with her first child.

January 1982: Diana falls down a staircase at Sandringham at the end of her first trimester, which she later admitted was a deliberate cry for attention from Charles.

June 21, 1982:  The couple's first child, Prince William Arthur Philip Louis, is born at London's St. Mary's Hospital, where his own children would be born three decades later.

March 1983: Together with Charles, Diana and 9-month-old son William embark on their first royal tour together to Australia and New Zealand.

Sept. 15, 1984: The couple's second son, Prince Henry Charles Albert David, aka Harry, is born. Charles, who wanted a girl, complains, "It's a boy and he's even got red hair." Diana later tells biographer Andrew Morton , "Something inside me closed off," killing whatever love she had left for him and cementing her belief "Charles had gone back to his lady," Camilla Parker Bowles.

Nov. 9, 1985: First lady Nancy Reagan orchestrates Diana's memorable dance with John Travolta at the White House.

April 1987:  At the peak of homophobia and fear of AIDS, Diana shakes hands with a man suffering from the disease without gloves at London's Middlesex Hospital. Her gesture is later described by journalist Judy Wade as "the most important thing a royal's done in 200 years" because it helped to dispel the misconception that the then-fatal illness could be transmitted by casual contact.

1989: During a 40th birthday party for Camilla Parker Bowles' sister, Diana dismisses her husband and confronts her rival about her ongoing affair with Charles . "I would just like you to know that I know exactly what is going on," Diana tells Camilla, warning her not to treat the princess "like an idiot." In tapes that would later comprise Andrew Morton's biography Diana: Her True Story, In Her Own Words , the princess counts it as one of her bravest moments. 

June 1991: Diana keeps a two-day vigil at the bedside of Prince William after he suffers a severe head injury at boarding school , requiring surgery. Meanwhile, Charles is castigated for keeping his plans that evening.  "What sort of father of an eight-year-old boy, nearly brained by a golf club, leaves the hospital before knowing the outcome for a night at the opera?” the Daily Express asks.

March 29, 1992: Diana's father, John Spencer, dies of a heart attack in London. Diana opposes Charles' offers to accompany her back from their Austrian ski vacation, believing him to be using her grief for a public-relations coup. However, the palace overrules her.

Aug. 20, 1991:  Diana cuts short her annual royal family summer holiday at Balmoral to return to London to be at the bedside of longtime friend Adrian Ward-Jackson, who dies of AIDS-related illness two days later. She had quietly been spending time with him over the last year and had even brought Prince William to meet him. 

May 1992:  Journalist Andrew Morton publishes Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words. Begun a year earlier, it consisted of no face-to-face interviews because she couldn't risk being seen as openly participating. Morton sent written questions via her friend Dr. James Colthurst, who recorded the interviews and ferried the tapes back to him.

August 1992: Britain's Sun newspaper reveals the "Squidgygate" tapes, alleged to be from a years-old phone conversation with alleged lover James Gilby, who referred to Diana by Squidgy, a pet name, he uttered dozens of times throughout the recording.

December 1992: Prime Minister John Major informs Parliament of the official separation of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The move comes a month after a disastrous official visit to South Korea , which forced the palace to realize it was time to end the charade.

January 1993: The "Camillagate" tapes surfaced, audio recordings of phone conversations between Charles and his lover, in which he expresses his wish to be her tampon .

December 1993: Diana announces her plan to retire from public life , at least for an indefinite period, and dramatically pares down her list of charity patronages.

Fall 1995: Diana meets Dr. Hasnat Khan, the Pakistani-born cardiac surgeon overseeing her acupuncturist's postoperative care and begins a secret, two-year relationship. He breaks up with her in the early summer of 1997 but unlike another lover James Hewitt, who later betrayed her with a tell-all book, Khan never reveals the intimate details of their time together . However, their relationship is turned into a widely-panned 2013 film starring Naomi Watts and Naveen Andrews.

Nov. 20, 1995: BBC's newsmagazine Panorama airs Martin Bashir's bombshell interview with Diana at Kensington Palace, which had been planned and carried out in secrecy. During the conversation, she discusses her past struggles with depression, bulimia and self-harm and admits to her own infidelities. But her most famous quote was in regards to the love triangle with her soon-to-be ex-husband and his longtime love, Camilla Parker Bowles: "Well, there were three of us in the marriage so it was a bit crowded."

August 1996: The terms of the royal  divorce are finalized . Diana is awarded a lump-sum settlement of $22.5 million in cash, as well as about $600,000 a year earmarked to maintain her private office in addition to receiving permission to continue living in their Kensington Palace apartment. She agrees to give up any future claim of being queen. However, she is stripped of the title Her Royal Highness and is henceforth referred to as Diana, Princess of Wales, seen as a petty move on the part of the palace.

Jan. 15, 1997: Diana walks through a minefield in war-torn Angola  to support the Red Cross' call for a ban on landmines and to showcase the de-mining work being done by one of the charities she patronized . Two decades later, her guide, Paul Heslop, recounted the nervous episode to the BBC :  "This poor woman was about to go into a live minefield, a dangerous area, in front of however many hundreds of millions or billions of people on the news, and I thought back to the first time I went into a minefield, and I was petrified."

Aug. 30, 1997:  A few months after her split with Khan, Diana and her new beau, Dodi Fayed, depart Paris' Ritz-Carlton Hotel after dinner to spend the night at his apartment. Their intoxicated driver, Henri Paul, later found to be three times over the legal limit, races through the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in an attempt to outrun the paparazzi. Shortly after midnight, he crashes their Mercedes into a cement pylon, killing himself and Fayed instantly. Diana and bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones are taken to the hospital.

Aug. 31, 1997: Diana succumbs to her injuries (mostly cardiac in nature) and is pronounced dead at 4 a.m. at Paris' PItié-St. Salpêtrière Hospital at age 36. 

Sept. 1, 1997: Charles accompanies his ex-wife's remains back from Paris, along with her older sisters, Sarah and Jane.

Sept. 6, 1997:  Millions around the world watch Diana's funeral procession and service at Westminster Abbey. Later that day, her remains are transported home to her family's estate at Althorp, where she is buried.

September 12, 2024

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Short Bio » Royal Family » Princess Diana

Princess Diana

Diana, Princess of Wales  was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, who is the eldest child and heir apparent of Queen Elizabeth II. She was the fourth child and third daughter of John Spencer, Viscount Althorp and the Honourable Frances Roche. In 1975, after her father inherited the title of Earl Spencer, she became Lady Diana Spencer. Her wedding to the Prince of Wales on 29 July 1981, held at St Paul’s Cathedral, reached a global television audience of over 750 million people. While married, Diana bore the titles Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay, Countess of Chester, and Baroness of Renfrew.

As Princess of Wales, Diana undertook royal duties on behalf of the Queen and represented her at functions overseas. She was involved with dozens of charities including London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital for children, of which she was president from 1989. She was celebrated for her charity work and for her support of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The marriage produced two sons, the princes William and Harry, who were then respectively second and third in the line of succession to the British throne.

Diana remained the object of worldwide media scrutiny during and after her marriage, which ended in divorce on 28 August 1996. Media attention and public mourning were extensive after her death in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997 and subsequent televised funeral.

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Diana, princess of Wales

Introduction.

Charity Work

The princess was well known for her charity work. She helped children, the sick, the homeless, and disabled people. She also called for a worldwide ban on landmines (bombs buried on purpose in the ground), which kill and injure innocent people.

Diana, princess of Wales, died in a car crash in Paris, France, on August 31, 1997. She was buried at Althorp, the Spencer family home.

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Princess Diana Biography

Birthday: July 1 , 1961 ( Cancer )

Born In: Norfolk, England, United Kingdom

It is not every other day that a ‘People’s Princess’ is born. She may have left for the heavenly abode quite early than anticipated, but she continues to reign in the minds and hearts of millions across the globe. Diana, Princess of Wales, was one of the most eminent royal bloods of the 20th century. Coming from an aristocratic patrician family, nobility and kingly spirit came naturally to her. Ever since her birth, Diana held several titles, the most important was the Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales which she acquired after her marriage to Prince Charles, Prince of Wales. Throughout her life, Diana had been actively involved in philanthropic and humanitarian work. She supported organizations that worked for the betterment of people with serious illness and those that assisted homeless people, drug addicts and elderly. Her charming mannerism and contagiously amicable demeanour earned her quite a few nicknames like, ‘People's Princess‘, ‘Princess Di’, ‘Queen/ Lady of Hearts’ and ‘Lady Di’. Despite her last held title being Diana, Princess of Wales, she was popularly known as ‘Princess Diana’ during her days alive and posthumously. Legacy states the power and the prominence of Diana, Princess of Wales at the world forum. She was the ‘world’s most photographed woman’ during her time and was noted the world over for her compassionate disposition, empathetic temperament, charismatic appeal and unrestrained benevolence. Not to forget, she was a fashionista in the truest sense of the word and known for her impeccable sense of style!

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Also Known As: Diana Frances Spencer

Died At Age: 36

Spouse/Ex-: Charles Prince of Wales (m. 1981), div. 1996)

father: John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer

mother: The Honourable Frances Shand Kydd

siblings: 9th Earl Spencer, Baroness Fellowes, Charles Spencer, Jane Fellowes, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, The Hon. John Spencer

children: Harry, Princes William

Born Country: England

Philanthropists Social Activists

Height: 1.78 m

Died on: August 31 , 1997

place of death: Paris, France

Notable Alumni: Riddlesworth Hall School, Institut Alpin Videmanette

Cause of Death: Car Accident

City: Norfolk, England

education: Institut Alpin Videmanette, Riddlesworth Hall School

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Born on July 1, 1961, to an aristocratic British family with royal ancestry, Princess Diana, as we know her today, was the fourth of five children of Edward John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, and Frances Ruth Burke Roche Viscountess Althorp. Christened Diana Frances, she was the third daughter for the Spencer couple, who were anticipating a son when Diana was born.

Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales resumed the responsibilities that came with the title soon after her marriage to Prince Charles . She accompanied him on a three day visit to Wales in October 1981, which was her first tour, following which she accompanied the Prince of Wales to Netherlands.

In 1983, post the birth of Prince William , she accompanied Prince of Wales on a tour to Australia and New Zealand where the two met with the local Australian natives. This was officially the first tour of infant Prince William and the Royal couple recently turned parents.

Though Prince Charles, Prince of Wales was courting Sarah, Diana’s elder sister, the relationship did not materialize any further than that. It was during the summer of 1980, that he showed some serious interest in Lady Diana.

Just an acquaintance before, Lady Diana soon filled up the shoes of her sister by being the potential bride for Prince Charles. The two spent quality time together. Interestingly, Diana was well received by the Queen , the Duke of Edinburgh, and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother as well.

After several months of courtship period, Prince Charles popped out the ultimate question on February 6, 1981 which met with a positive response from Lady Diana. A formal announcement of the engagement was made on February 24, 1981, which was followed by a grand and majestic wedding ceremony on July 29, 1981.

Two years later, the royal couple experienced the happiness of being a parent again as their second son, Henry Charles Albert David , was born on September 15, 1984.

After much media hype and sensationalism, the fairy-tale marriage of the two broke apart, with each blaming the other on grounds of adultery as the primary reason for the break-up. While Prince of Wales was linked to his former flame Camilla Parker-Bowles, Princess of Wales shared more than a cordial relationship with James Hewitt and James Gilbey.

Sensational journalism rose to a peak as both exchanged derogatory remarks for each other during interviews and conferences. Also, there were numerous books released during this time which gave the author’s own version of the story so far of the Prince and the Princess. Private letters, tapes and phone conversations were broadcasted and published by news channels and publishers alike.

Lady Diana received a lump sum settlement of around 17 million along with a clause standard in royal divorces preventing her from discussing the details. Though her title of Her Royal Highness was extracted from her, she nevertheless retained the title style, Diana, Princess of Wales. Since she was the mother of the next-to-be in line to the throne, she enjoyed the same royal privileges that she received during her marriage. Also, she was a member of the Royal family.

Though Fayed’s father accused MI6 and the Duke of Edinburgh to be involved in the ‘accidental’ car crash which he believed was ‘well-planned’, the court overruled his claim and gave a verdict which stated that negligent driving by driver Henri Paul and chasing the paparazzi were two reasons which led to the unfortunate accident and untimely death of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed.

The sudden death was mourned by the Royal family and the public alike. Queen Elizabeth II paid tribute to once Her Royal Highness the Princess of Diana on September 5, 1997. Following day, her funeral took place at Westminster Abbey. Her sons, William and Harry, walked in the funeral procession and were accompanied by their father, Prince of Wales, Duke of Edinburgh and Charles Spencer, Diana’s brother. She was buried at her family’s estate in Althorp.

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Princess Diana

• Occupation: Princess
• Born: July 1, 1961 in Norfolk, England
• Died: August 31, 1997 in Paris, France
• Best known for: Becoming Princess of Wales when she married Prince Charles
• Nickname: Lady Di

• Diana's parents were married at Westminster Abbey. The queen attended their wedding.
• While a child she visited the nearby home of the royal family and played with the younger princes, Andrew and Edward.
• Prince Charles was thirteen years older than Lady Diana.
• She did not like people to call her "Di" even though she was often called "Lady Di", "Shy Di", or "Princess Di."
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

Princess Diana

• Born July 1 , 1961 · Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk, England, UK
• Died August 31 , 1997 · Paris, France (road accident)
• Birth name Diana Frances Spencer
• The People's Princess
• Princess Di
• The Queen of Hearts
• The Princess of Hearts
• England's Rose
• Height 5′ 10″ (1.78 m)
• Princess Diana was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, and the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry. Diana's activism and glamour made her an international icon and earned her an enduring popularity. Diana was born into the British nobility and grew up close to the royal family on their Sandringham estate. She did not distinguish herself academically, but was talented in music, dance, and sports. Diana came to prominence in 1981 upon her engagement to Prince Charles, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II, after a brief courtship. Their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in 1981 and made her Princess of Wales, a role in which she was enthusiastically received by the public. The couple had two sons, the princes William and Harry, who were then second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. The couple separated in 1992, soon after the breakdown of their relationship became public knowledge. The details of their marital difficulties became increasingly publicized, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1996. As Princess of Wales, Diana undertook royal duties on behalf of the Queen and represented her at functions across the Commonwealth realms. She was celebrated in the media for her unconventional approach to charity work. Her patronages initially centered on children and youth but she later became known for her involvement with AIDS patients and campaign for the removal of landmines. She also raised awareness and advocated ways to help people affected with cancer and mental illness. Considered to be very photogenic, she was a leader of fashion in the 1980s and 1990s. Media attention and public mourning were extensive after her death in a car crash in a Paris tunnel in 1997 and televised funeral. Her legacy has had a deep impact on the royal family and British society. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Tango Papa
• Spouse King Charles III (July 29, 1981 - August 28, 1996) (divorced, 2 children)
• Children Prince Harry Prince William of Wales
• Parents Earl John Spencer Frances Shand Kydd
• Relatives Princess Charlotte of Wales (Grandchild) Prince Louis of Wales (Grandchild) Charles Spencer (Sibling) Sarah McCorquodale (Sibling) Jane Fellowes (Sibling) Prince George of Wales (Grandchild) Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor (Grandchild) Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor (Grandchild)
• Blonde hair, often short
• Statuesque, model-like figure
• Once referred to Queen Camilla as a rottweiler.
• Told an intimate friend that, while walking down the aisle in Saint Paul's Cathedral, she thought about turning back like "Elaine" did in The Graduate (1967) .
• She was a close friend of Michael Jackson and Elton John . "Candle in the Wind", John's song about Marilyn Monroe , was changed to fit her, and performed by him at her funeral. Coincidentally, both women died at age 36.
• When Diana went to the LA Fitness Centre in Isleworth, the owner Bryce Taylor planted a camera and caught her exercising in a leotard. The photos were sold for over £100,000 to The Mirror. They printed them saying they were exposing the lapse in royal security, but Diana didn't buy the explanation and took them to court. They reached an out-of-court settlement. This incident impelled Diana to withdraw from public life.
• Invited Supermodel Cindy Crawford to Buckingham Palace for dinner, when Prince William of Wales had a secret crush on the model.
• [interview in "Panorama" magazine, 1995] There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.
• Any sane person would have left long ago. But I cannot. I have my sons.
• I'd like to be a queen in people's hearts but I don't see myself being queen of this country.
• My role is about 80% slog and 20% fantastic.
• If I'm going to comfort the suffering, I have to understand what they've been through.

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How Princess Diana's Childhood Set Her Up For a Life as a Royal

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• The fourth season of The Crown follows Diana Spencer and Charles's whirlwind courtship , and its long-lasting ramifications.
• Diana was born to an aristocratic family in England.
• Here's what we know about Diana's upbringing—from her parents' divorce to her family's connections to the royal family.

Diana is often remembered for everything that happened after her meeting with Prince Charles: The whirlwind courtship (13 whole dates!), the show-stopping wedding, the dramatic divorce, and her death . But when Diana first appears in season 4 of The Crown , she's still in her schoolgirl days. What was her life like before she became one of England's, if not the world's, most beloved figures?

Born to two wealthy parents on July 1, 1961, Lady Diana Spencer grew up adjacent to the aristocracy. Though she first met Prince Charles at the age of 16, she knew many people in his family: Queen Elizabeth II was her brother's godmother, and she played with Charles's brothers as a child. According to an anecdote from Tina Brown's, The Diana Chronicles , Charles, then 17, once interrupted five-year-old Diana's "tea party" with Andrew.

The Spencers have been a prominent family since the 15th and 16th century, according to a book about the family’s history . They made their initial fortune with sheep farming, and never lost said fortune. In 1975, Diana earned the title of “Lady” when her grandfather died, and her father became the 8th Earl Spencer.

The Spencer men have their earlship, but it's the Spencer women who have made headlines over the years. While Diana is the most famous of the Spencers, she's descended from other fascinating females: Sarah Marlborough was Queen Anne’s controversial confidante (and was played by Rachel Weisz in The Favourite ) and Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire became a celebrity in Georgian-era England for her unusual marriage arrangement ( she was portrayed by Keira Knightley in The Duchess ) .

Clearly, Diana's childhood was one of privilege and esteem—but was it joyful? One of her nannies weighed in with her opinion. “Diana had a happy secure childhood. From the moment I met her and worked with the family, I saw she was helpful, laughing, exuberant, loved by both her parents, and the apple of her father’s eye,” her former nanny, Mary Clarke, wrote.

However, Diana's brother, the current Earl Spencer, disagrees with that rosy picture. Here's what we know about the childhood of Princess Diana—and what The Crown skips over.

Diana had four siblings—including a sister who dated Prince Charles.

Diana's father, John Spencer, was the 8th Earl Spencer (though was a Viscount when he married). Her mother, Frances Ruth Roche, was the daughter of Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy and Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, and was even wealthier than the Spencers. Queen Elizabeth attended their wedding in 1954. Like Diana, Frances was a young bride—she was only 18 when she married John, who was 30.

The Spencers had five children, including Diana. Their third child (and long-awaited son), John, died as an infant, devastating Diana's mother. Diana grew up with her two sisters, Lady Sarah and Lady Jane, and her brother Charles. Before Diana became involved with Prince Charles, he dated her eldest sister, Sarah in 1977.

Her parents divorced when she was 7, and it changed Diana forever.

In 1969, the family unit ruptured when Diana’s mother reportedly abruptly left her father for Peter Shand Kydd, an Australian wallpaper tycoon (no known connection to Camilla Shand). What ensued was a courtroom and custody battle, and resulted in what her brother called an “unhappy childhood.”

“Diana and I had two older sisters who were away at school, so she and I were very much in it together and I did talk to her about it,” Spencer explained in a revealing 2020 interview in The Sunday Times . “Our father was a quiet and constant source of love, but our mother wasn’t cut out for maternity. Not her fault, she couldn’t do it. She was in love with someone else—infatuated, really.”

Following an intense custody battle (in which Frances's mother, Ruth, testified against her ), the Spencer children lived with their father permanently. According to her brother, Diana felt abandoned by their mother. “While she was packing her stuff to leave, she promised Diana she’d come back to see her. Diana used to wait on the doorstep for her, but she never came,” Charles, Diana’s brother, told The Sunday Times .

However, The Diana Chronicles paints a more complicated picture: According to the book, Frances was shut out of the children's lives, with the doors of Park House literally closed on her. She never expected to lose her children, and would cry at the end of every Saturday visit: "'Oh, I don't want you to leave tomorrow!'" Diana recalled, per the book.

Charles, who was 2 when their parents divorced, said Diana was like a mother figure to him. She “was the big sister who mothered me as a baby… and endured those long train journeys between our parents’ homes with me at weekends,” he told The Sunday Times.

Diana’s mother and her husband eventually settled on a small Scottish island off the coast of Oban, where she opened a gift shop . Diana reportedly didn't get along well with her father's second wife, socialite Raine Legge . Charles's four children were not informed of their wedding, nor were they invited to the party, according to The Diana Chronicles .

As a girl, Diana played with her future brother-in-laws.

Diana was born in Park House, a nine-bedroom mansion located on the Queen’s grounds at Sandringham. The house was built in 1863 by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) to accommodate “overflow” at his royal home, Sandringham House. When Queen Elizabeth II and her family were staying at Sandringham, they socialized with the Spencers.

In 1987, Park House was converted into a three-star hotel designed for travelers with disabilities. According to a review, guests are shown the bedroom where Diana was born.

She had other connections to the royal family—lots of them.

Even before Diana married into the royal family, she knew them intimately. Diana’s family had multiple connections to the Crown. Her brother, Charles, is Queen Elizabeth II’s godson. Her father, the eighth Earl Spencer, was Queen Mary’s godson. And her grandmother, Lady Fermoy, was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother—she's depicted in The Crown .

The Crown introduces Diana at her second childhood home, Althorp Park.

When Diana was 14, her life changed abruptly. Her grandfather died, making her father the 8th Earl Spencer—and heir to the family's home. But Althorp was no ordinary home. The mansion had belonged to the Spencer family for over 500 years , since Sir John Spencer purchased it in 1508.

"The children rarely visited the big house as a family when the old Earl was alive. Growing up they knew nothing about their heritage," Brown writes in The Diana Chronicles.

The estate sits on 13,000 acres in the English countryside, and contains 28 listed buildings and structures. The 100,000-square-foot, 90-room mansion is just the start. Althorp Park is occasionally open to the public . Today, her brother Charles lives there. It’s also the site of Diana’s grave.

Diana wasn’t considered a student, and dropped out of boarding school at 16.

In 1970, when she was 9, Diana was sent to an all-girls boarding school called Riddlesworth . After three years she went on to attend the West Heath Boarding School for Girls (which has plaques in her honor to this day). According to accounts, school wasn’t Diana's strong suit. Diana failed her O-level exams twice before dropping out of boarding school entirely at the age of 16.

Afterwards, she attended Institut Alpin Videmanette , a Swiss finishing school known for its wealthy students ( Sarah, her sister, also attended ). It was 17-year-old Diana's first time out of the country, or on an airplane. It was around this time that she first met Prince Charles, who was then dating her sister, Sarah.

Diana wanted to become a dancer, above all.

Diana had a number of passions outside of school. She was a swimmer, a skier, a tennis player, a pianist. Above all, though, she wanted to become a ballerina. However, at 5’10,” she struggled to pursue the career.

According to the book The Real Diana, at the age of 17, she reached out to the Vacani Dance School to train as a dancing teacher, even if she was unable to be a ballerina. Madame Vacani told the author of The Real Diana that she only trained for a month. "She went skiing and never came back. I think that she felt that the training—three years and until 6:30 in the evening—would be too all-embracing. She never gave a reason for not returning," the book says.

Simply put, becoming a dance teacher wasn't her passion—dancing was. Whenever she was feeling stressed, Diana would dance.

Before meeting Charles, she worked as a nanny and a cleaning lady.

When Charles meets Diana in The Crown , she's living with friends in London and cleaning her sister's house for money. In real life, Diana indeed had odd jobs like cleaning houses, serving appetizers at cocktail parties, and working as a kindergarten teacher—which, according to Brown, was a normal part of life as a "Sloane Ranger," the term for Diana's clique of upper-crust young people. "Slumming it was part of the inverted cachet of the Sloane Ranger world, since it also announced that you didn't depend on your job for either money or status," Brown wrote.

Brown describes Diana between 18 and 19 as a "trust fund Cinderella, drifting through temporary work—low-stress, undemanding jobs that drew on her agreeable demeanor."

One of her most notable jobs was as babysitter for the child of an American businesswoman. “I just fell in love with her. She was wonderful with my child,” Mary Robertson, the woman who hired her to watch her son, told Inside Edition in 2017 .

Robertson didn't know that her babysitter was part of the landed gentry until she accidentally left a card behind that said "Lady Diana Spencer." She later wrote about her friendship with Diana, which persisted past her time as a babysitter, in The Diana I Knew: Loving Memories of the Friendship Between an American Mother and Her Son’s Nanny Who Became the Princess of Wales .

According to Robertson, she and Diana joked about her marrying Prince Charles. In her book, she wrote that she was "was worried that Diana's infatuation with Charles was 'based on her romantic image of him, not on the man himself." The Crown shows whether or not Robertson, in her suspicions, was correct.

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Elena Nicolaou is the former culture editor at Oprah Daily. 

Ten interesting facts about Diana, the Princess whose power to fascinate never died

Sixteen years since the tragic death of Princess Diana on August 31, 1997, those she left behind strive to continue her legacy of love, zest for life and compassion. Prince William continues to generate his mother's particular brand of magic in support of her charities, aided by his wife Kate Middleton and brother Harry. The Duke and Duchess have also just delighted the nation by welcoming the child who would have been her grandson. 

Her great love Hasnat Khan has also found himself in the headlines because of the release of a new film telling their love story.In tribute to the Princess whose power to fascinate has never died, HELLO!  takes a look at 10 interesting facts about her life.• She failed her O levels twice and often joked about her poor academic record.• Following the divorce of her parents Earl Spencer and his wife Frances, Diana's father was awarded custody of Diana and her three siblings.

Princess Diana pictured with her brother Earl Spencer

• Diana's maternal grandmother Lady Fermoy was lady-in-waiting to Charles' grandmother, The Queen Mother.• For her engagement, Lady Diana selected a large £30,000 (£94,800 in today's terms) by Garrard. The sparkler consisted of 14 solitaire diamonds elegantly surrounding a 12-carat oval blue Ceylon sapphire set in 18-carat white gold. It now sits on Kate Middleton's finger, of course.

Princess Diana and Prince Charles announcing their engagement

• Her wedding to Prince Charles on July 29, 1981 was broadcast in 74 countries and watched by 750 million people worldwide. Her funeral 16 years later had 2.5 billion viewers.• The Princess counted Gianni Versace, George Michael, Bryan Adams and Elton John among her close friends.

Diana and Charles's wedding was watched by 750million people worldwide

• Diana once invited the supermodel Cindy Crawford to Buckingham Palace for dinner when a young Prince William had a secret crush on the model.• She supported over 100 charities, including the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which won the Nobel Peace Prize a few months after her death.

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