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Calorogus Shark Media. Yeah, hello and welcome to Palace Intrigue.
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I am your host, Mark Francis. Princess Diana's death is
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getting another television examination, this time using virtual recreation technology
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to revisit the fatal nineteen ninety seven crash in Paris.
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Fox will air celebrity crime Scene Princess Diana on Thursday,
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with the special becoming available on Hulu the following day.
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The program will reconstruct the crash that killed Diana, Dirty
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Fayed and driver on repall while examining some of the
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theories that have persisted in nearly three decades since. Investigators
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Kerry Dane's Rich Star Pauli and Jackson Bujaj will look
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at questions surrounding unidentified vehicles reported near the pontd' alma tunnel,
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as well as much more controversial claims involving the monarchy
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and international arms dealers. The program promises to use virtual
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technology to recreate the events surrounding the crash from perspectives
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viewers have not previously been able to see, including an
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attempt to depict what Diana might have seen from inside
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the Mercedes. For anyone old enough to remember the summer
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of nineteen ninety seven. The announcement that Diana had died
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is one of those pieces of news where you may
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still remember exactly where you were when you heard it.
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Diana was thirty six years old, divorced from Prince Charles
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for almost exactly a year, and trying to establish what
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the next stage of her life was going to look like.
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She was no longer her Royal Highness, she was no
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longer a working member of the royal family, but she
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was still the mother of Prince William and Prince Harran,
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quite possibly the most photographed woman in the world that summer,
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much of the attention had focused on Diana's relationship with
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Dodi Fayed, the son of Harod's owner, Muhammed al Fayed.
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Diana had been photographed with Dody aboard the Fayed family
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yacht in the Mediterranean, and the images had become a
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major tabloid story. Wherever Diana went, photographers followed, and by
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the final weekend of August, that pursuit had moved with
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her to Paris. Diana and Dody arrived in the French
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capital on Saturday, August thirtieth, after flying in from Sardinia.
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They went to the Ritz Paris, which was owned by
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Dody's father, and initially planned to go elsewhere for dinner.
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The presence of photographers made moving round the city increasingly difficult,
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than they ultimately remained at the hotel. Later that night,
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Diana and Dody decided to leave the Writs and traveled
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to an apartment Dody maintained near the Arc de Triomphe.
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An effort was made to confuse the photographers waiting outside.
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A decoy vehicle left from the front of the hotel
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while Diana and Dody departed from another exit. Shortly after midnight,
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they left in a Mercedes Bends driven by Onrepall, the
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Ritz's acting head of security. That night, bodyguard Trevorice Jones
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sat in the front passenger seat, with Diana and Dody
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in the back. Photographers followed the Mercedes as it moved
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through Paris, and within minutes the car entered the Pont
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Dielma tunnel and crashed into a concrete pillar. The impact
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killed Henri Paul and Dirty Fayad Rhys. Jones survived despite
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suffering extremely serious injuries. Diana was alive when emergency workers
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reached her. That detail is sometimes lost in the way
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the story has been remembered. Diana did not die instantly
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in the tunnel. French emergency crews treated her at the
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scene and then transported her to the Petite Salpetriere hospital,
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where doctors continued trying to save her. Her injuries were
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ultimately too severe. Diana was pronounced Dan in the early
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hours of Sunday, August thirty first. She was thirty six
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years old. Back in Britain, the royal family was at
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Balmoral for the traditional summer holiday. Prince William was fifteen
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and Prince Harry was twelve. Their father now faced the
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unimaginable task of telling them that their mother had been killed.
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For the family at Balmoral, those first hours were understandably
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about William and Harry. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were
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grandparents trying to protect two children who had just suffered
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an enormous loss. Charles was deal with the death of
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his former wife and the mother of his sons. The
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news spread around the world within hours, Television schedules were abandoned,
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Broadcasters went into continuous coverage, and people began gathering outside
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Kensington Palace, Diana's London home. Flowers appeared at the gates
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followed by more flowers, photographs, cards, and handwritten messages. The
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scale of it became difficult to comprehend. Diana had spent
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sixteen years as part of the public consciousness. People had
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watched her arrive as the shy Lady Diana Spencer, watched
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the engagement to Prince Charles, watched the enormous wedding at
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Saint Paul's Cathedral, and watched William and Harry grow up.
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They had also watched the marriage deteriorate in public, followed
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by the separation, the interviews, the competing biographies, and finally
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the divorce. Even after leaving the royal family, Diana remained
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one of the most famous people on the planet. In
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some ways, she had become even more fascinating because nobody
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quite knew what she was going to do next, and
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suddenly there was no next more palace in just a moment.
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The public response to Diana's death became so intense it
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also created one of the most difficult weeks in the
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modern history of the monarchy. The royal family remained at
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Balmoral with William and Harry, while the center of public
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mourning was increasingly concentrated in London. From the perspective of
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a family protecting grieving children staying in Scotland made sense.
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From the perspective of television cameras showing enormous crowds outside
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Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace, it began to look like
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the Royal family was absent. The controversy over the flag
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at Buckingham Palace became symbolic of the larger problem. People
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wanted to know why a flag wasn't flying at half mast.
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Royal protocol provided a perfectly logical explanation. The Royal Standard
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traditionally flies when the sovereign is in residence and is
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not lowered to half mast because the monarchy continues from
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one sovereign to the next. The Queen wasn't at Buckingham
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Palace anyway, so the Royal Standard wasn't flying. Technically, the
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explanation made sense. Emotionally, it didn't matter. Britain was experiencing
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something much closer to mass public grief than a traditional
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royal mourning period, and the Palace initially responded according to
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the established protocol rather than the mood developing outside its gates.
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Tony Blair, who had become Prime Minister only a few
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months earlier understood that mood remarkably quick. Speaking on the
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morning of Diana's death, he described her as the people's princess.
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It became the phrase of the week because it explained
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the strange position Diana occupied at the time of her death.
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She was no longer a working royal and no longer
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married to the heir to the throne, yet the public
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still regarded her as part of the royal story. Whatever
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the constitutional or institutional reality might have been, emotionally, Diana
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still belonged to them. As the days passedaticism of the
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royal family intensified. Newspapers demanded a more visible response. Crowds
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continued arriving, the sea of flowers grew. What had begun
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as grief was becoming a debate about whether the monarchy
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understood the people it represented. Eventually, the royal family returned
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to London, and on September fifth, Queen Elizabeth delivered one
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of the most unusual broadcasts of her reign. Speaking live
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from Buckingham Palace, the Queen addressed the country and paid
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tribute to Diana. Significantly, she framed her remarks not only
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from the perspective of the sovereign, but from that of
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a grandmother whose grandchildren had lost their mother. The following
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day came the funeral, William and Harry walked behind Diana's coffin,
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alongside Prince Charles, Prince Philip, and Dana's brother, Charles Spencer.
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It remained one of the defining royal images of the
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twentieth century, a fifteen year old boy and his twelve
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year old brother walking through London behind their mother's coffin
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while an enormous television audience watched. Harry has since spoken
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about how extraordinary it was to expect children to make
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that walk in public, and it is difficult to look
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at those pictures now without seeing the event differently than
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many people did in nineteen ninety seven. At the time,
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the procession was viewed as an extraordinary display of royal composure.
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With the benefit of everything William and Harry have subsequently
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said about losing their mother, it also looks like two
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grieving children being asked to participate in one of the
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largest public spectacles imaginable. The circumstances of Diana's death would
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of course become the subject of years of investigation and speculation.
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Questions about the paparazzi, the speed of the Mercedes on
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repall seat belts and other vehicles reportedly in the area
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eventually became intertwined with much larger conspiracy theories suggesting Diana
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had been deliberately killed. Those allegations were investigated extensively. French
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authorities conducted the original investigation, and British authorities later launched
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Operation Pegette specifically to examine the conspiracy claims surrounding Diana's death.
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The British inquest concluded in two thousand and eight, with
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the jury finding that Diana and Dirty had been unlawfully
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killed through the grossly negligent driving of Henri Paul and
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the pursuing paparazzi. The official investigations did not substantiate the
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elaborate assassination theories that continued to circulate, and that is
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worth remembering. As a new television program once again takes
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viewers inside the Pont deale materunneal, the largest story of
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August thirty first may actually be more interesting than any
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conspiracy theory. Diana's death changed the relationship between the monarchy
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and the public because it demonstrated that old royal instinct
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to remain quiet observed protocol and allow emotions to remain
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private was becoming increasingly difficult in a twenty four hour
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media culture. It also permanently changed William and Harry. William
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is now Prince of Wales, holding the title his father
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held when Diana was alive, and he has repeatedly spoken
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about keeping his mother's memory alive for his own children.
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Harry has made Diana's death, and particularly his belief that
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an aggressive tabloid culture contributed to the circumstances surrounding it,
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central to the way he explains many of the decisions
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he has made as an adult. The monarchy that woke
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up on August thirty first, nineteen ninety seven was not
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quite the same monarchy that emerged from Diana's funeral a
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week later. The public had demonstrated that it expected something
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different from its royal family, not simply duty and dignity,
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but visibility, responsiveness, and at moments of national emotion, some
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evidence that the people inside the palace were feeling what
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everyone outside the gates was feeling. And then you habit
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by Mike Francis My thanks to John McDermott, This is
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palace intrigue.