Princess Diana Part 3: The Final Year, The Fatal Chase, The Last Goodbye

[00:00:01] This is a woman at a major turning point in her life and we're seeing a glimpse of what her life is going to be like after her royalty. Yeah, because it was a total shock for everyone. Diana has very, very poor conflict management skills. Is she doing this because they could be like betraying her? Ten pages of the most sensational pictures ever! It's not about the images, it's about the narrative. That's what they're selling.

[00:00:26] Because I guess everyone remembers Diana with Dodie, I imagine Khan to be quite hurt by this. Those last few weeks with Dodie end up overshadowing her entire reality of what her final year was. He ends up clipping the back of their white Fiat Uno which sends him slamming into the 13th pillar inside that tunnel. Adam, none of them are wearing their seat belts. Geez.

[00:01:16] Welcome to The Compendium, an assembly of fascinating things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering. We explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history and the jaw-dropping deeds of extraordinary people. I am Kyle Risi, your ringmaster for this week's episode. And I'm Adam Cox, your unclaimed top hat liaison officer for this week. What? So people are coming to our circus with top hats now. What is this, a Victorian circus or something?

[00:01:45] Well, to be fair, I've got none actually in stock. It's essentially a fancy word for lost property. But what about if someone like loses like their diaphragm or something? Like please- Not my problem. Who's dealing with that then? Sue? Yeah, Sue. That's her job. I'm just top hats. But there's no top hats and there's never been a top hat lost. There's no top hats. For 100 years. Pretty much. Guys, if you are new to the show and you want to support us, then the absolute best way to support

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[00:03:33] review. Your support really helps others that like you love a good tale of the unexpected. So Adam, today on the compendium, we are diving into an assembly of unfinished endings, private reckonings, and one very public goodbye. Well, I have a feeling we're doing the third episode of our trilogy of Diana. We are. Sadly, we are coming to a close. And where we left off last episode, Diana and Charles'

[00:04:01] divorce had just been finalized. She was stripped of her royal title. But really, to me, it basically was the same, right? She is now considered Diana, Princess of Wales, instead of Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales. Yeah, they just rearranged the words. Pretty much. That's exactly the thing. Like to Diana, she was like, I want my title. And they were like, we can't give you a title, but you could be Diana, Princess of Wales. And she's like,

[00:04:26] it's pretty much the same thing. And so with that, her ties to Charles are now essentially over. But in a really strange way, this ending also sort of becomes the beginning of the rest of her life, out from under the royal family's thumb, all on her own terms. But as we know, this new beginning was actually the beginning of the end for Diana. Because in just one year, Adam, and six weeks from the day that her divorce is finalized, Diana will be killed in a car crash

[00:04:53] in Paris in August of 1997. And this is where today's episode is going to lead us. For the first time in Diana's life, she has stopped being this tabloid pinup and has become basically a haunting tragedy. Her death is quite literally one of those generational moments where people say, hey, where were you when 9-11 happened? What were you doing again? I was hoping to watch cartoons, but they had been cancelled. Yeah, you were like, damn you, Diana! Where's SMTV? Yeah.

[00:05:22] And it's down to basically the impact that she had as a personality, as a mother, as a friend, but also most importantly, as a humanitarian. Like all of those things combined just made her such an incredible person with this really lasting legacy. And by 1997, Diana is easily one of the most photographed women on the planet. Her face is literally worth millions. And so when she's eventually killed, there is this collective sense of guilt amongst every person, for lack of a better word, every stakeholder in Diana's life, that there is this

[00:05:52] feeling that we all had a sort of stake in her death. I think because they, especially the press, hounded her and they were right up until the very end. So I can imagine there would be guilt. And what's really interesting is that you actually see this play out in real time, because in the days and the weeks following her death, almost daily, the newspaper headlines would cast blame on like a whole new person, a whole new entity before they're cycling through it again. So it would like be like, oh, the royal family did this. Oh, it was the press who did this.

[00:06:20] Or it was Henry Paul who did it. But you definitely get to see the public desperately wanting to find someone to blame for her death. And I get it because she was such a beloved human being. Yeah, because it was a total shock for everyone. No one expected this coming, especially because she had got part of her life back after the divorce. And for like just a year after that, for her life to be cut short, she never really got to kind of live, I guess, in a way. That's right. Yeah. And that's the difficult bit, right? Because there's no really one single

[00:06:49] person who we can blame. There exists this really strange interconnected chain of things that just makes it impossible to actually identify that one person. So a good example of this would be, of course, they were in this high speed car chase. There was one guy driving, but the reality is he wouldn't have been driving if Dodie hadn't asked him to drive. Dodie wouldn't have asked him to drive if there hadn't been a hundred paparazzi outside of their hotel. And then

[00:07:13] also the paparazzi wouldn't be there if Diana wasn't who she was. But at the same time, none of this would have happened if there wasn't a demand for coverage on Diana. But before we dive into the last chapter, do you want to remind us of what we discussed in the last episode? David So the marriage between Charles and Diana, I think it got to a point where it had really broken down. He's obviously been having this long-term affair with Camilla, which Diana knew about. It got to a point where there was

[00:07:40] such a wedge that she ended up sort of starting having affairs as well. And then you had this sort of sex tape that was released as private conversation between Charles and Camilla, which was recorded and then a very similar thing between Diana and someone else as well. David That's right. And I think that's a really respectful way to frame it because it is dubbed as the sex tape in the eyes of the media. But really, to be respectful, it was essentially a private conversation that essentially called

[00:08:06] into question whether or not he should even be king. But the important thing about their sex tape, the tampon gate tape, is that it highlighted just how intimate Charles can actually be as a human being. And he found that with someone like Camilla, it just so happened to not be Diana. David And of course, as we know, the last episode was the official end of the marriage. The paperwork is signed, the title is now gone, and now Diana is at this crossroads where she's about to transform once again. What's interesting is that for all the isolation she felt throughout

[00:08:36] her entire time as a royal, she actually becomes even more isolated during this final phase. David And it's because she starts to brutally cut people out of her life. And it's possibly because they represent something really painful about her past. Like when Charles and Camilla's tampon gate tape comes out, Diana actually realizes that all of their mutual friends were facilitating their affair behind her back for like their entire marriage. And so by the time Diana dies,

[00:09:03] most of Diana's closest friends are people that she's only known like a couple years. And they're typically people like her acupuncturist or a stylist. These aren't old friends. She's let go of all those relationships. A good example of this is she completely cuts off Sarah Ferguson. And remember, they're cousins. And the reason she does this is because Fergie publishes a memoir where she talks about how Diana offered to lend her a pair of shoes one day. And Sarah's like, I don't want to wear Diana's shoes because she has foot warts and I don't want to catch them.

[00:09:33] And so when Diana reads this, she never speaks to her again. David That seems like a terrible reason to do it. I mean, fair enough. Which, I mean, why would you publish that? David Yeah, maybe at the time she just figured it was not that innocuous at all. But yeah, she does. She publishes it. Another friend she cuts off comes after she tries to gently tell Diana that Prince William had mentioned that he felt embarrassed when Diana would drop him off at Eton. And so again, instead of talking it through with this friend, Diana just cuts her off.

[00:10:03] David Is she doing this because she believes her conversations are being tapped and everything like that? That she just doesn't want to chance that these potential friendships are just, yeah, they could be like betraying her. David The thing is though, this pattern keeps showing up throughout this last phase of her life. It's probably what she needs to do in order to facilitate that next transition in her life. David But also it is because, Adam, Diana has very, very poor conflict management skills.

[00:10:30] It's a big part of why her marriage to Charles failed. She is someone who just retreats, which just inevitably makes things even worse. But we also know that she can eventually mend these bridges. Remember, she eventually reconnected with her stepmother after literally pushing her down the stairs, right? So it's not unreasonable to assume that right now she just needs some space to rebuild,

[00:10:54] once the dust has settled, she'll reconnect. But as we know, that version of her story never gets written because of course she dies. David Yeah, I guess we'll never know if what she perhaps would have done or, you know, would she have like rebuilt some of these friendships? And you kind of wonder what kind of relationship she might have had with Charles, perhaps when some of these things had settled. I know in The Crown they have this conversation which sort of suggests there's almost like this mutual understanding towards the end that, you know what, they could

[00:11:23] have become really good co-parents. But we never really got to see that. David Exactly. But yeah, she probably would have reconnected with these people. But even with this increased isolation, which this time is more deliberate, she is still building this kind of newfound confidence. Remember, there was that kind of epiphany that she had when Charles gets caught up in that avalanche. A friend of theirs is killed and she steps in and takes charge. From there, she decides that she also wants to up her humanitarian charity work because she feels

[00:11:52] that I don't need to just go and shake hands and hug people and show them my care. I can actually get things moving behind the scenes as well. Basically, she takes that to a whole new level. But on top of that as well, she gets really motivated to deal with her bulimia and she confronts Camilla about the affair. And as a result, we start to see Diana finally letting go of all that shame that she's been holding onto, which we see very clearly from the Martin Bashir interview. But what I want to focus

[00:12:17] on is what this growing confidence leads to in terms of her humanitarian work, because it actually leads to, Adam, just the most incredible legacy, but also a tragic glimpse into like what might have been. And actually, a lot of what she achieves post-divorce is all down to one person. And it's Tony Blair. Of all people. Of all people. Yeah, basically in 1997, he is the new prime minister. And it's because Tony Blair

[00:12:47] seems to be one of the very few people in her orbit who truly recognizes her potential on the global stage. More than anyone, he understands that politics is just nothing but theatre. All the diplomacy, all the pomp, all the press conferences. It's just one big giant performance. And so if you center that all around someone that the public already loves, it can really go a long way to cutting through all that bullshit and just letting people get behind a really important issue. And so he facilitates

[00:13:16] Diana becoming a humanitarian ambassador for the UK. It's interesting because of Tony Blair. I think he used to get a lot of people take the mick out of him or impersonate him because the way that he would give a speech, he was a bit of a showman. And that hadn't been seen before. Maybe this was the turning point in politics where by now we have people like Trump or that sort of thing where it is a bit more of a show.

[00:13:39] Yeah, for sure. And like he understands that very intrinsically as well. And so he brings Diana into the fold basically. And this leads Diana into the first of what is supposed to be a lifetime of work as an ambassador. Do you know what her final big charitable initiative was? It's got to be the landmines, right? Exactly. Yes, I'm talking about the Halo Trust. They exist to eradicate the use of landmines around

[00:14:07] the world. So Diana, she starts visiting places like Bosnia and Angola to advocate for their elimination, which famously leads to January 1997, where we get one of the most iconic images of Diana ever taken. Where basically she is photographed wearing the Halo Trust vest with that famous face shield. She is seen walking calmly and confidently through that cleared minefield. I'm guessing the people that cleared that minefield have to like do checks again and again because

[00:14:34] there's no way that they would have let her walk in an area where it could have been contaminated, right? Exactly, Adam. It's 100% PR, right? That's the purpose of her involvement. And they are really powerful images from that PR perspective. Like they've gotten the Princess of Wales to walk through this cleared minefield and her involvement, Adam, is incredible. It leads to the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty, which is this global commitment to banning their use and their production across the world. And because of

[00:15:04] that, the Halo Trust wins the Nobel Peace Prize. And even though Diana is just an ambassador, they publicly acknowledge her in her acceptance speech. And it's tragic because when they win the Nobel Peace Prize, it happens in December. And of course, as we know, she dies in the end of August. So she doesn't even get to see the impact that she could have had. Even though she plays a small part. Like Diana, she wasn't physically clearing the mines herself, but she genuinely helps move that needle.

[00:15:32] Yeah, because I'm pretty sure this is the only time I can think in history where landmines were just so much in the press and the media. It's just one of those things that I just felt like it was sort of constant around that time, even I remember as a 10 year old sort of thing. And so the awareness that she brought to it, I think just only heightened and was able to kind of get traction. But isn't there, and I don't know if we'll come on to this, there's some kind of conspiracy about actually her work

[00:15:58] with removing these landmines, some people thought was actually some takedown or people targeted her because of actually the profit that could be made from landmines. Am I right in saying that? Oh, no. Do you know what, Adam? I've never heard that conspiracy theory before. But the thing is, it doesn't surprise me that something like that would exist and feed into the story of Diana because she's one of the most famous people in the world. And of course, she's going to spur these conspiracy theories. Yeah, I'm sure that people suspected, oh, was it related to the fact that by removing these landmines,

[00:16:27] she could be affecting the revenue or business of those that make them. I don't think that obviously there's any sort of proof in that, but there was this kind of conspiracy about it. Very interesting. I'll definitely want to check that one out. But Adam, what is really interesting, though, is that the press still manages to spin this work that she does with the Halo Trust and accuse her of being really manipulative towards the media? Like, she cannot shake that reputation,

[00:16:52] especially after the whole kind of Crankle scandal and the whole T-Rex issue that she had, where she was trying to kind of salvage her reputation. That is why the Martin Bashir interview took place. It was because she was trying to get ahead of that reputation that she'd built. And the reason why they come after her during her work with the Halo Trust is because during her walk through the minefield, apparently something goes wrong with the photographer's camera.

[00:17:17] And so he asks her to do it again. And so she is accused of being fake and performative. But also the Royal Family are really incensed by this as well, because from their perspective, she's no longer a Royal. So why should she be commanding this much attention? And honestly, we already know this is probably because Diana herself doesn't have a massive stick up her own arse. But also, Adam, of course it's staged. This is a PR campaign that showcases the work that the

[00:17:44] Halo Trust has done. So of course it's performative. Nobody is actually going to risk sending the Princess of Wales through a live minefield unless they are 100% certain that it is safe. But also, remember, this is a photo shoot. If you don't get your shot, of course you're going to keep going until you do. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense of anything that she's involved with. It's going to be staged to a point where you've got a massive camera crew there. And secondly,

[00:18:12] I'd like to add, it's actually Diana, Princess of Wales. You actually named her wrong. Diana, Princess of Wales. Yes, exactly. Thank you for correcting me. I know one of our Patreons would have corrected me. But what's sad is that her work with the Halo Trust and everything that they achieved was supposed to be the beginning of her lasting legacy. This showed the potential in what else she could have achieved had she lived. Yeah, I totally agree. This is probably just one

[00:18:39] of the things that she would help push forward. We know what she did with people's attitudes towards AIDS. And so I can imagine her always being involved in all this charity and humanitarian work. So Adam, all the headlines, all the photo ops, and the global attention behind the scenes, there was something far more private unfolding in Diana's life. And it was actually one final great

[00:19:04] love in her life. And this was with a man that she was deeply in love with, who offered her something that she'd never truly had before. And that was normalcy and a sense of stability. Do you know who I'm talking about? Well, I'm assuming it's Dodie, but then you're making me think, is there someone else? Why? Because I said there was normalcy and a sense of stability. Not that he's not stable, but he's not an ordinary guy. He comes from wealth and so he's going to have a sort of level of status as well. So it makes me think, yeah, it must be someone else.

[00:19:33] Yes, you're right. So it's not Dodie. I personally just assumed that Dodie and Diana's history was a lot deeper than it actually was. It is true that they met very briefly a few years before, but they don't technically meet until pretty much six weeks before she dies. But Adam, who I am actually talking about, is a man Diana was in a private relationship with for two years. They actually

[00:19:56] met the year before her divorce and continued their relationship right up to essentially the day that she meets Dodie. So there's zero gap between this relationship and meeting Dodie, essentially. Are you surprised by that? Do you know what? This rings a bell now a little bit. I mean, yes, I always thought that it was a deeper relationship with Dodie because I think there are those photos of them on holidays. You just kind of assume it's been a long-standing relationship. Did she used to sneak around

[00:20:25] in like a wig around London? Pretty much, yes. I'm actually talking about a guy called Hassat Khan and he is actually a heart and lung surgeon from Pakistan living in London. They actually meet when Diana is visiting her friend's husband in hospital in 1995. Her friend introduces her as, oh, this is like the princess of Wales. And at the time he barely even looks up. He's just like, yep, uh-huh. And he just goes straight back to his charts and he's like, yeah, so the patient's troponin levels, they're registering at like 0.16 or

[00:20:53] whatever. So he's just not impressed at all. But is he at work at this point then? It feels like he's focused on doing his job. And so it's like, yeah, okay, I'll get to you in a second. Yes, he's basically at work, basically. And the thing is though, from the very beginning, it is clear that she's intrigued by him because she starts visiting her friend's husband every day. So it's like, on the surface, it's Diana doing what she does, right? But also, this is the husband of her friend. This is not her friend. So she doesn't need to really be

[00:21:23] sniffing around and yet, yes, she is. So it's clear that she has a crush on this guy from the very, very start. And so over time they start talking, they start building up this connection. And before you know it, Adam, they're dating. And what strikes me is just how normal their relationship is, especially by Diana's standards, right? Like, her site works like 80 hours a week. So Diana will go to his flat while he's working. She'll do the laundry. She'll do the washing up. And then when

[00:21:49] they hang out together in public, it's just at the local pub, which sounds really mundane to us. But for Diana, this is a complete novelty because she's never ordered a drink in a pub in her entire life. She also has no idea what the hell she's doing. So as a result, her site has to teach her what to say. I'm sorry. What? As in, well, I know the last couple of years she's been taught to greet people into a room or, you know, you acknowledge the queen first and then Prince Philip or whatever it is the rules are. So you're telling me she doesn't know how to go

[00:22:19] into a pub and go, can I have a pint of Guinness? Apparently so, according to this testimony. Yeah. But again, this is also where she is also going to these pubs with these wigs as well. Yeah. So she'd use these obviously disguises to kind of blend in. And I'm guessing it must have worked relatively well because I don't remember hearing much about this until after she died. Listen, if some bitch in a pub wearing and you don't know it's a wig is like, oh yeah, I don't know how to order a drink. You'll be like, what the fuck? But if you see us Princess Diana

[00:22:47] and she's like, I don't know how to order a drink. You're like, oh, that's fine. Don't worry. Forget it. That's weird, isn't it? Yeah. But she also do these other really cute things like come and watch him perform surgery. And Hassat, he's from Pakistan. So she also starts wearing all the traditional Pakistani clothing. She learns as much as she can about Pakistan and their culture. And this becomes a really grounding relationship for her. But the dynamic between them is also really unusual because

[00:23:12] Hassat has absolutely no interest in her public person owner at all. When the press finally discover that they are in a relationship, they publish something in the Sunday Mirror and he is absolutely furious. But then also weirdly, he gets even more angry at Diana when she in an interview denies that their relationship even exists. They end up like not talking for like several weeks. You can't demand that your relationship be private, but then expect one of the most famous

[00:23:41] women in the world to not admit that your relationship exists. Yeah, that feels like an oxymoron or whatever the word is. Or no, he's a hypocrite. Like, how can you say like, don't talk about me? Oh, you didn't talk about me. Exactly. Like it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, it's so bizarre. But eventually, of course, they come back together. They work extra hard to conceal the relationship. Diana will routinely, of course, as I said, wear wigs to disguise what they're doing out in public. And so they end up sneaking around a lot. But also have to add that

[00:24:11] Hassat Khan looks exactly like my father. Like they literally could be brothers. It's really uncanny. But he's also from Pakistan. So I don't really understand how that works. Wow. Are you suggesting that you might be a third Pakistani? Maybe. I mean, I do have some Indian in me, so I don't know. Maybe there's some kind of connection there. Yeah. Isn't that only like 0.2% according to 23andMe? Hey, it still counts, eh? But the thing is though, even to this day, Hassat Khan has never, ever said a single word to the press

[00:24:38] about Diana. Not during the relationship, not even after she's died. Never. He genuinely wants nothing to do with the spotlight. And I wonder if that was a big factor for trust for Diana, because so many of the people that she's been involved with over the years have ended up leaking stories about her to the press. So I imagine she must have just had this massive sense of trust with him. That would make sense because she wants a private life, doesn't she? At the end of the day,

[00:25:05] and he's able to offer that. It sounds like there's still some complexities and it's never truly going to be private, not with her kind of status. But it feels like she can just, I don't know, blend in with him perhaps. And like I said, they meet like a year before the divorce. So amidst her massively ugly and public separation, he is the only person that she can physically escape to from all the bullshit. But here's the thing. Their relationship, Adam, is doomed from the start because Diana has this very

[00:25:33] specific vision for what their lives are going to be like together. To her, they were both going to travel the world. She was going to do her humanitarian work and he was going to go off and raise awareness for health issues. But when she shares this with him, he's like, no, I actually want to do surgery, Diana. They're just very much misaligned in terms of what they see for their futures. But also his parents, Adam, they do not want him to be with Diana.

[00:26:00] And it's simply because she is not a Muslim. Like his father gives an interview after their relationship kind of first leaks in the press, where he says they are currently looking for a wife for him who he says should belong to a respectable upper middle class family, preferably someone from their own relation or tribe. If they can't find someone from within the tribe, they might consider finding him a wife outside of it. Yeah, I think we're looking at like, one, a very different culture, but two,

[00:26:28] a very different sort of lifestyle that Diana leads. So it's not as if she was just, if she was a regular woman, then that's kind of one thing. And then you add in Diana's own sort of celeb status and notoriety. The two don't really kind of match well, or at least in traditional sense. Exactly. And so you have basically this couple who clearly mean a lot to each other, but pragmatically their lines just do not align. And I think both of them must have known this.

[00:26:53] And so I think they were just simply running the clock out. But at this point, Diana is adamant that she can win them over. And so three months, Adam, before she dies, Diana goes to Pakistan. She does not tell herself where she's going. And she ends up spending a bunch of time with his family. And of course, she is trying to hide the real reason why she's there, but it's kind of transparent at the same time as well. And eventually they turn around to her and say, listen,

[00:27:20] listen, it's not that we do not like you. We do. You're just not what we envision for our son. And so when Hassat finds out that she went behind his back, he is absolutely furious. And so their relationship is now in this weird flux where they're essentially tiptoeing around each other. There is major tensions. Like they don't hate each other, but it does drag on. Like we've had fights before where we just do not talk for an entire week and it's just really awkward. That's

[00:27:47] exactly what's going on here. And it's because remember, Diana has no conflict management skills at all. This is just a recurring theme that we keep seeing. So they are just sort of dwelling in this weird space and nothing is getting resolved. This all happens around about May and June of 1997. In July, she tells him, listen, I'm going to take the summer to give us both a little bit of space. I'm going to take the boys away. And when we get back, we can talk.

[00:28:12] But while Diana is away, she barely calls him. She blames her basically on bad phone reception in the Mediterranean. And so when she finally gets back, he tries to reach out to her. But again, she ends up ghosting him and they end up having this massive fight about how she has been a coward, not willing to face up to their problems, which is true. In the end, Diana just breaks up with him. And it's because she has met Dodie. The thing is though, for him to kind of get frustrated by that, I can understand. But then if his parents are

[00:28:41] saying like, you can't be with Diana, we want you to be with someone else, I don't see how they'd ever get together anyway. So this felt like the natural progression for that relationship. But is he just really annoyed at the way that she handled it? That is a really excellent point. I guess maybe her going to Pakistan was her trying, right? If I can win them over, great, then we can be together. But they say no. And so she maybe resolves to the fact that actually the relationship isn't going anywhere. And maybe that combination of lack of conflict

[00:29:10] skills or wanting to face up to the fact that actually they don't have a future. She's just essentially allowed the relationship to move on because of course she's met Dodie. Yeah, I think also if she said, oh, let's just give it the summer and then kind of reconnect. If that's what her original tension was, but she hasn't necessarily followed through with that, she should have just said like, you know what, let's just call it a day. It's not going to work. Listen, she did not go to the Mediterranean on that yacht with the intention

[00:29:37] of hooking up with Dodie. She doesn't meet Dodie until she's on that trip. So I think when she says, let's take the summer to think about it, she is actually saying that in good faith. Oh, okay. And what surprises me the most is how everything I thought I knew about Diana, especially in her final year, it completely ignores this timeline with Hassat Khan. At least that's how it seems, right? And I get it. They fought really hard to keep their relationship private, but it is such a shame

[00:30:05] that those last few weeks with Dodie end up overshadowing her entire reality of what her final year was. That Diana was essentially in a relationship that was grounded, that was stable, and was loving for probably one of the first times in her entire life. And yet it's been reduced to this mere footnote in the chronicles of what Diana's life is. It just feels like such a wasted opportunity

[00:30:29] to honour Diana's life. Yeah, it's an interesting point because I guess everyone remembers Diana with Dodie at the very end. But if we're saying that this is a very much a whirlwind romance that happened over a course of a few weeks, I imagine Khan to be quite, I don't know if he's looking at all these news stories and go like, but we were together for two years and yet everyone's hyping this up. I imagine he's been quite hurt by this. Yeah, 100%. And of course, that entire narrative

[00:30:56] with Dodie is basically a lie. It's born out of producing sensational tabloids about Diana. And that's what we're going to sort of debunk now because we are at the part of a story where Diana's death really begins. I'm going to tell you how she ends up in Saint-Tropez, which obviously leads her to meeting Dodie and then of course leads to the crash. Okay, sounds good. So it's currently the 3rd of June, 1997. Diana has just arrived at a performance of Swan Lake

[00:31:25] at the Royal Ballet. While she's there, she bumps into an old friend of her father's. It's a man you might know as Muhammad Al-Fayed. He is Dodie's father. And of course, you might also recognise Muhammad because of course he is the owner of Harrods in London. Yeah, he's a big deal. Pretty big deal, yes. So she's known Muhammad essentially for years and it's because of this connection to her father that Muhammad would occasionally arrange for Diana to shop at Harrods after hours just so like she wouldn't be mobbed by the paparazzi. So through this, they develop

[00:31:54] this sort of like long-standing friendship. Like they know each other to say hello and engage in small talk and stuff like that, but they're not friends by any means. And so between them, they share this kind of running joke where whenever they would bump into each other, Muhammad would routinely invite her and the boys to come on holiday with him and his family. She always just seems to say no. It's routine enough that whenever Diana would bump into him, Diana would always tease him and say like, so Muhammad, where are you going to be inviting me to this year?

[00:32:20] So it's kind of sort of cute. So do you know much about Muhammad Al-Fayed in any way other than being like Dodie's father and owning Harrods? No, I don't think I do actually. He doesn't actually come from a wealthy family. He grows up in Egypt. His dad is like a school inspector. His mum, I assume, is just a homemaker. But somewhere along the way, Muhammad becomes filthy fucking rich. And no one really knows exactly how he acquired all of this wealth.

[00:32:46] It's assumed it's because he ends up playing this middleman involved in importing and exporting goods in and out of Egypt. It's all during kind of the economic boom that's coming out of Dubai at the time. But either way, by 1990, Muhammad is incredibly wealthy. He has a massive international property portfolio, one of which, Adam, includes the Ritz Hotel in Paris, which of course is going

[00:33:11] to be central to obviously Diana and Dodie's death. So Muhammad goes from essentially nothing to everything. But the final thing that he wants is to be accepted by the upper echelons of the British upper class. But what he finds is that door from the very beginning is firmly closed to him. There is this instance where he applies for British citizenship in 1995. His application is completely rejected. They don't really give him a reason why, but he becomes convinced that it's

[00:33:38] because the British establishments are just Islamophobic in every way. He appeals and eventually they provide him with this vague insinuation that it's because they believe that he is essentially dodgy. Is that down to how he acquired his wealth then? They're not quite sure, they don't trust where he's got it from. Exactly. So when they say we think you're dodgy, it's true. He is not very transparent about his business dealings, but also he is caught bribing members of parliament

[00:34:05] with free stays at the Ritz. And basically he does this because he wants to ask very specific questions in the House of Commons. So when he's confronted about it, his response is basically, you name me a billionaire who isn't dodgy and then we can talk. Essentially, he is not wrong. But in this instance, using arguments about, but what about so-and-so, what about so-and-so, it's not a defence that's going to wash with the British establishments, unfortunately. Yeah. And I can't imagine him dobbing in any sort of politicians and stuff like that.

[00:34:35] That's not going to help him get this law passed or get him with this citizenship. So it kind of feels like that's going to backfire. 100%. Yeah. So basically he ends up in this situation where he is just simmering in this resentment towards the British establishment. And this in itself ends up fueling, Adam, most of the conspiracy theories around Diana and Dodie's death after the crash. As we know, after the crash, there is an eventual 900-page inquest into their death. And that inquest is

[00:35:01] mostly setting out to answer questions that Mohammed himself has pushed for. So what kind of questions are they then? You vaguely remember hearing things about like there'd been a bright flashing white light inside the tunnel. That question came from him. Why did it take so long for Diana to get to the hospital? Two hours to travel like a five-minute ambulance journey. Why? That came from him. All these questions around, well, this was a survivable crash. Why were everyone in the car

[00:35:29] killed or brutally injured? All these questions come from him. But they all seem like very valid questions, to be fair. Well, we'll go into some of the questions in a bit. But essentially, the inquest is there because of the pressure that is pretty much coming from the questions that he is asking. And so, Adam, when Diana bumps into Mohammed at Swan Lake, again, she casually asks, where are you off to the summer? And he tells her that he's taking his family to Saint-Tropez. And once again, he invites her along. This time, Diana genuinely does not know where she's going

[00:35:59] to take the boys for the summer. Most of the country houses that she would usually go to are now tainted with the memory of Charles and Camilla's affair. And so she says, actually, I think I'll join you. And so on July the 10th, 1997, Diana heads to Saint-Tropez with William and Harry and Adam. They genuinely end up having a really lovely time. There's no itinerary. Their days are just spent swimming, relaxing. They're cruising around the med. It is very, very different to what they're

[00:36:25] usually used to. Of course, the paparazzi, they spot them almost immediately. And when they do, they pretty much tail them for the entire holiday. But remember, like Diana is not new to this game. Over the years, she has learned that it's in her best interest if she maintains a sort of working relationship with paparazzi, especially following that period of time when she was actively rebelling against the press, right? Remember, they started calling her horrible names just to listen to

[00:36:50] the reaction. At some point during this trip, she just casually walks up to a bunch of paparazzi that have gathered in a group. She gives them their warmest smile. She says, listen, I'm on holiday with the boys. You have literally 30 minutes. You can take whatever pictures you want. And then you need to agree to leave me alone for the rest of the day. And Adam, essentially, they all agree. But also, this is a really shitty thing to have to do when you know how parasitic the paparazzi are. But like,

[00:37:17] at least this way, she's going to be able to get the privacy that she wants during this trip, right? Yeah. And I guess she can also influence kind of watch shots. Not that she's probably thinking that, but at least she's got some control over what's happening. So yes, they can take photos while they're swimming. And then they know that they can have some more privacy. In these moments, they actually end up chatting. So they'll ask her like, how are you doing? What are your plans? What's next on the horizon? And on this occasion, Adam, Diana says something that actually becomes the key thing

[00:37:46] that fuels all the speculation around the fact that she is actually pregnant with Dodie's baby. She basically says, you will have a big surprise with the next thing that I do. Yeah, I remember that being one of the sort of conspiracy elements in terms of what happened to her. But if it wasn't pregnancy, which I think it was proved it wasn't, then what was she alluding to? What she is likely referring to here is that she's planning on opening up a chain of hospices.

[00:38:14] So we're not quite sure. But this sentence drives the speculation that she was engaged to Dodie, she was pregnant with his child, and following her death, that the royal family were involved in some way. But here's the wild thing. She hasn't even met Dodie at this moment in time when she's having a chat with these photographers, right? He's not even on the radar yet. But over the coming weeks, they spin each of these different sightings of Diana into these tabloid fabrications. But the

[00:38:43] key things will be that she'll eventually be photographed cuddling Dodie. Then she'll be photographed wearing that famous leopard print swimsuit, sitting at kind of the edge of the diving board. She sort of slouched over a little bit. She is basically sporting a very respectable, very normal, small mini belly pouch, basically. And so the speculation becomes that she must be pregnant. But the final piece of the narrative is when a private note is uncovered during the investigation in which Diana's written.

[00:39:12] I'm sitting here at my desk today in October, longing for someone to hug me and encourage me to keep strong and hold my head high. This particular phase of my life is the most dangerous. Someone is planning an accident in my car, brake failure or serious head injury, in order to make the path clear for him to marry. That is pretty telling, isn't it, when you hear that? And I get why that fuelled all this speculation.

[00:39:39] I wonder if that moment in time she's thinking the royal family has got something to do with this, or it's the firm again that she's speculating is going to have a hand in her downfall. But here's the thing, Adam. This note was written back in October. Again, she hadn't met Dodie yet. This note is actually addressed to Hassat Khan, left to her butler, Paul Burrell, and was kept by her lawyer's inner safe. It's written at a time, remember,

[00:40:04] where everything in a divorce is coming to an end and she's extremely paranoid. What we don't know at the time of the release of this note is that the press have deliberately omitted the final line of that note, where it ends, to make the path clear for him to marry Tiggy. Tiggy, that's interesting. Yeah, Tiggy is Prince Charles' former nanny. So the press have essentially doctored this very real note to fit this really sensational narrative.

[00:40:33] Diana was basically sleeping with a Muslim man, she was pregnant with his baby, and the royal family were planning to kill her because they didn't want a Muslim baby in the royal family. It's only given more credibility because, remember, Mohammed al-Fayed has very publicly expressed that he believes that the British establishments are Islamophobic. Yeah, and I guess just using part of that note just fuels this narrative.

[00:40:59] Okay, so Adam, Diana is on this trip in Saint-Tropez with Mohammed, his wife, her boys, on July the 16th, 1997, midway through the trip. Dodie arrives. Dodie is pretty much a non-entity as well. The best way to describe him is that he is a 40-something-year-old, spoiled son of a billionaire, full stop. There's nothing else to add to that. Basically, Vanity Fair describe him as a man-child with a lavish monthly allowance.

[00:41:26] They say that he was charming, he was generous, but also chronically unreliable. Didn't he have a load of failed business ideas or something like that? Yes, 100%. He definitely did. He would also routinely rack up tons of debts and just not pay them off at all, especially his hotel room bills. It also wouldn't be unusual for him to just completely trash the place as well and just leave it abandoned. He also sort of has this reputation of being really violent towards his ex-girlfriends as well.

[00:41:54] He once dates this woman called Tracy Lynn, who she says that he wants to threaten her with a 9mm Beretta, which is obviously some kind of gun. Wow. Geez, is that true? As far as I'm aware, according to the Vanity Fair article, yeah, it is. But also in terms of achievements, there aren't really that many. Like his life seems to be just this ongoing tug of war where Mohammed is trying to push him into becoming a more responsible person, but he just keeps letting him down.

[00:42:20] The only notable thing that I found is that he is listed as a producer on the Peter Pan movie, Hook. Remember starring Robin Williams? Do you remember that film? Yeah, I didn't realise he was involved in that movie. Yeah, but it's not because he's creatively involved. It's because he owned the rights to the story as part of some kind of investment. Apparently, the investment came with a producer credit. And at one point, the production team, they turn around and ask him like, do you have any input on the script? And he's like, make sure it's funny and make sure it's smart.

[00:42:51] He's a real hands-off producer, it feels like. Yes, for sure. So when he arrives in Saint-Tropez, he's currently being sued by American Express. He's also currently suing his ex-girlfriend to get back in an apartment that he previously had gifted her. And he's also currently engaged to a model called Kelly Fisher. So Adam, it's fair to say that his life at this moment in time is a bit of a mess. Yeah, it sounds chaotic. For me, he's the last person on this planet that I would expect Diana to be attracted to

[00:43:21] in any way. And yet, when he arrives, they click almost immediately. And it's probably because they have like similar backgrounds, like immense privilege, but total emotional emptiness. Do you know what I mean? But as we know, it's probably also because Diana is attracted to slightly tragic men. Like to her, Dodie is a bit of a fixer-upper, right? It's the same pattern that drew her to Prince Charles, but possibly it's also because he's really sweet with William and Harry, who are incredibly important to Diana.

[00:43:49] At one point during their trip, he rents out an entire nightclub just so the boys can dance in peace without kind of the press swarming him. Andrew Morton later says, During this trip, Diana sees Muhammad and his wife and their kids and extended family all together. And she gets a glimpse of what a warm, close-knit, upper-class family can actually look like. Like, Adam, they're just eating dinner. The kids are still dripping wet from the sea. They're constantly laughing. It's chaos. But most importantly, it's affectionate.

[00:44:19] And Diana's like, oh, like family doesn't have to be miserable. Yeah, you can still have servants and have fun. Exactly. So whatever happens between her and Dodie in Saint-Tropez, the only thing that we can be certain of is that things start moving very, very fast. Like I'm talking within a matter of days. Because when Diana gets back to London, she arrives home to a room filled with pink roses and it's all from Dodie. And from there, they start discreetly spending

[00:44:45] time together. There are rumours that she nips off to see him at the Ritz in Paris. Dodie's apparently sends a helicopter to pick her up. And also they spend time at his Park Lane apartment in London. He is constantly sharing her with gifts like every day. And this goes on until essentially the end of July, early August, where they then jet off to yet another yacht holiday. It seems like it's all happened very fast. So how long were they actually dating for? Was it just two or three months? Not even that, Adam. Like four weeks.

[00:45:14] Four weeks? Yeah, remember he arrives on the 16th of July. It moves very quickly from there. And then she dies on the 31st of August. So we're talking what, six weeks maximum? On this yacht holiday, Andrew Morton says, according to a stewardess who served them on the yacht, their nights were filled with champagne and caviar. They listened to Frank Sinatra, George Michael, and the English Patient soundtrack. So that really dates this moment. And it was just filled with passionate embraces

[00:45:41] under an inky star-filled sky. So yeah, it's really intense and really quick considering the amount of time that we're talking about here. They are 100% in the thrones of this real deep infatuation. And it's constant because throughout this trip, the paparazzi keep spotting them in these really intimate situations. The first of these drops on the 10th of August, 1997, when the Sunday Mirror runs with a front page headline that reads,

[00:46:06] World exclusive, the one they all wanted, the kiss. And then next to the headline is this really grainy, almost unrecognizable photograph of Diana and Dodie from behind. Like you can barely even tell that it's them, Adam. The sub headline reads, now Dodie flies off to buy an engagement ring for Diana locked in his lover's arms. And then inside it says, 10 pages of the most sensational pictures ever.

[00:46:33] I swear to God, these are the least sensational pictures that you've ever seen. Like they're mostly taken from like a telephoto lens, like half a mile away. They're just mostly just sitting on the deck. The only sensational part of these pictures is Dodie's chest hair. That is about it. Yeah, these sound pretty mundane. It sounds like they could be putting away the shopping. Yeah, that's it. And here's the one thing, because this becomes the sort of catalyst that

[00:47:00] leads to their eventual death. This tabloid spread sort of changes the economics of photographing Diana. Because before this, like a good photograph of Diana might go like for a few hundred quid, occasionally a few thousand. Wow. But these pictures, they end up selling for $2 million. It actually kicks off a bidding war. And because of the demand for them, the pictures are sold by like day rights. Like one publication will bid for the rights to publish them on day one, and they pay like $2 million for them.

[00:47:28] Another then pays like $600,000 to publish them on day two. And then it becomes a syndication machine. One publication loses out on the bidding altogether. Because one of their journalists actually saw the images during the bidding, they go off and they recreate these really shitty Lara Croft style CGI recreations of what he remembers, and they sell papers off the back of it. I don't understand that that would actually sell papers. That's not actually Princess Diana,

[00:47:55] but that's good enough. The thing is though, it's not about the images, Adam. It's about the narrative. This is a woman at a major turning point in her life, and we're seeing a glimpse of what her life is going to be like after her royalty, basically. So in terms of sensationalism, that's it. That's what they're selling. Do you think that over time, because the British media likes to build someone up and then tear them down, this could have happened potentially for Diana? Because obviously,

[00:48:22] they're still following her. They're paying ridiculous amount of money. They're even putting fake images out there just to sell papers. I just worry that eventually they would have turned on her at some point because she wouldn't be the royalty darling anymore. You're right. But remember, throughout her entire royal life, she has gone through these kind of waves with the press where they love her, they hate her, they love her, they hate her. And ultimately, it comes down to one thing. Can we make money off her? Once that stops being profitable, they'll probably try to find another angle. And that might even take them to a point where they

[00:48:52] love her again, or they hate her again. It just depends, right? It's a money-making machine. And my point is that this changes the economics of what photographs or stories of Diana can go for. The number of paparazzi following her literally quadruples overnight. Photographers are now flying in from all over the world because now it makes financial sense to do so. The price of a single photo can now literally change your life as a paparazzo. And so everything from this point becomes

[00:49:19] a logistical nightmare for them. Every day is about dodging the press, staying out of sight, swerving from the cameras. It must be so tiring just to just go about your daily life when you've got the press just hounding you like this. 100%. And eventually on the 29th of August, just two days before Diana dies, Dodi calls his father, Mohamed Al-Fayed, and apparently he tells him that he is going to propose to Diana. Now, whether or not that is true is hard to say. To me, I'm sceptical

[00:49:49] because remember, Mohamed has this grudge against the royal family, right? So I take that with a grain of salt. Now, there is evidence that on the day that they arrive in Paris, Dodi does go to a jeweler to have a ring fitted. But at the same time, Diana is told all of her friends when they're all teasing her about Dodi because they've seen all the press coverage. They're asking her if there's kind of wedding bells on the horizon. And she apparently just scoffs and she says, like, the last thing I

[00:50:12] want is to get married again. So I honestly do not believe that there was going to be kind of an engagement on the horizon. Yeah, it doesn't sound like she's going to rush into this, right? No. Like it's been a year. Absolutely. Yeah. And honestly, it makes sense, right? She has just come out of a nightmare marriage. Why would she want to jump back into that? And so he could just be getting her a ring as a gift. It might be a diamond ring, but it might not be a wedding or engagement ring. Exactly. That's exactly my point. It could also be because, remember, he's also engaged to another

[00:50:41] woman called Kelly Fisher. There could be an explanation why he's at that jeweler. I do not think it's because they're intending to get engaged. So I don't know. I guess it sounds like it's all Mohammed that's putting this information out there. Exactly. And now, Adam, we actually come to the day that she dies because on the 30th of August, 1997 at 3.20 PM, Diana and Dodie arrive in Paris from Sardinia. The original plan was to fly back to London, but because Harry's birthday

[00:51:08] was coming up, Diana wanted to go shopping in Paris because basically she wants to buy him a PlayStation. When they leave the airport, Dodie has a few errands to run, which includes this apparent visit to this jeweler to kind of sort out this ring. While he's doing that, Diana is dropped off at the Ritz to get her hair done at the salon. After that, the plan is to head to Dodie's apartment. But all day, from the moment they arrive, they are completely swarmed by paparazzi. At one point, they have over 100 photographers waiting for them outside of the Ritz, which ends up like just drawing in even a bigger crowd of people hoping to kind of get a look at whoever

[00:51:37] the paparazzi are waiting for. Eventually, they leave the Ritz at around about 7 PM. They get to Dodie's apartment. And even there, Adam, there's just dozens of paparazzi waiting for them. They manage to fight their way in. They stay there a couple of hours. They try to kind of work out the logistics of what their next move is going to be. They want to go for dinner at some kind of fancy Michelin-style restaurants in the city. But when they go to leave, it is clear that their visit to this restaurant is just going to be completely impossible. They know that if they

[00:52:06] make it to the restaurant, the crowd of photographers outside is just going to basically tip everyone off inside. And so the entire restaurant will be gawking at them. She should have packed her wig like she used to do with the other guy and basically go to, I don't know, some fast food restaurant, go get a bagel or something. Yeah, exactly. So instead, what they do is they make a beeline for the Ritz again. They do try to have a quiet meal there. But again, it's the same situation, right? The paparazzi, they storm the lobby. Everyone in the restaurant is just very much aware that

[00:52:35] there's someone very, very famous inside the hotel. And so in the end, they're forced to just move up to a suite. They have dinner there. And once they're finished eating, there is just this deep sense that the entire day has just been a complete and utter shit show. They're both exhausted. Diana is at her wit's end. All she wants to do at this moment in time is just go back to Dodie's apartment and just go to bed. But at this point, leaving just feels impossible. The paparazzi are still all grouped outside. And so Dodie comes up with a plan. He is going to use

[00:53:04] the hotel's official chauffeur cars to create a sort of decoy to kind of make it look like they've left out the front. And the hope is that the paparazzi will then tail them. And then Dodie and Diana will quietly slip out the back in a completely different vehicle. Yeah. So this is where we see that CCTV footage where they're leaving the back? Correct. Yeah. So I believe that is when they're kind of just waiting for everyone to get the plan in order. So basically, Dodie nominates Henry Paul to be the chauffeur. Henry is not a chauffeur.

[00:53:32] He's actually the head of security at the Ritz. Now there's two problems with this, Adam. Firstly, the car that Dodie wants him to drive is going to be an armored Mercedes S280 limousine. And it basically requires a very specific license to drive. Henry Paul does not have that type of license. Secondly, Henry clocks off work hours ago. And ever since he's been drinking somewhere in Paris ever since. His toxicology report will later show that he has the equivalent of nine shots

[00:54:02] of whiskey in his system and zero food. That's, um, why would he even like appoint him to do that? I know he's trusted and everything, but surely he would have gone, oh, do you know what? You're not fit to do this. Can you find someone else to take your place? Here's the problem, right? When he receives a message, the message basically says, Henry, Diana and Dodie are back. The paparazzi are going crazy outside. It's getting dicey. We need you here. He literally thinks that Dodie needs him to help control the crowds outside. So when he gets to

[00:54:32] the Ritz, it's around about 10 PM. To him, the crowds kind of seem okay outside. They seem like they're contained. So he doesn't see this as an issue. What he does is go straight to the bar and he has two more drinks with some colleagues. Eventually, Dodie's plan reaches him. And we don't know whether or not he tries to object to obviously driving. All we know is that somehow, some reason, Dodie talks him into doing this. Thing is though, whilst he's not working, it feels like he's on call. So he shouldn't be drinking regardless, I would have thought.

[00:55:02] I don't think he was on call, you know. I guess when your boss kind of says, can you do me a favour? You probably will, especially if you have like a good relationship. But meanwhile, Adam, Diana, she isn't saying anything, right? For her, it's just been a long day. She's tired. All she wants to do is go home. As far as she's concerned, Dodie has everything under control. So just before midnight, the decoy cars, they pull out from the front entrance of the Ritz. Dozens of paparazzi, they immediately swarm them. The plan is working.

[00:55:28] Meanwhile, Dodie, Diana, Henry Paul and Dodie's bodyguard, a guy called Trevor Reese Jones, they slip out through the back exit. As they slip out the back, they see a few paparazzi already stationed at the back of the hotel. So naturally, they start to give chase. One of those paparazzi then tips off the other paparazzi who then abandon the decoy cars. And then suddenly, they've got dozens of photographers making a beeline for where they're heading. Now at first,

[00:55:56] Henry Paul isn't really driving particularly fast. Like they've got quite a substantial head start on the paparazzi that are trading them. But as they approach a red light, the paparazzi start to kind of catch up to them. And eventually, they're just completely surrounded at the lights on all sides. There are cameras flashing, people are shouting, people are smacking their hands against their windows. And so Adam, when the light turns green, Henry floors it. Yeah, I understand. They're trying to get away. And if you've got the press that are like literally

[00:56:24] banging on your window, there's also like a security risk, right? Because what will they do just to get this $2 million photo or whatever? Exactly. That's right. Now the speed limit down that stretch of road is around about 30 miles an hour. But Henry Paul ends up going 65 miles an hour towards the entrance of Pont de Lauma Tunnel. So Adam, to understand what happens as they enter the tunnel, we sort of need to understand something called the trampoline effect. You've most definitely felt this before. It's that kind of

[00:56:53] weird weightless drop in your stomach that you feel when you suddenly go over like a dip in the road. Yeah, you just lose your stomach all of a sudden. Yeah, it's the same thing that you might feel on a roller coaster as well. Now at normal speeds, right? You won't normally feel this. It only really kicks in when you're going really fast. And it becomes dangerous when after going over the dip at speed, the road also immediately bends. It's dangerous because when you go over that dip, the car temporarily loses traction with the road

[00:57:21] and your tires are basically less effective at responding to steering. So you end up trying to overcompensate by essentially oversteering. Your oversteering sends the car turning way more than you actually anticipated. And that is exactly what happens when Henry enters the tunnel. He enters the tunnel at 65 miles an hour. Straight away, there's a dip and then there's an immediate left hand curve in the road. They're traveling in the left hand lane and in the right hand lane, Adam,

[00:57:49] there is a white Fiat Uno. And so he goes over the dip. Then he turns to follow the bend. He ends up oversteering. And when the traction is regained, he ends up clipping the back of the white Fiat Uno, which sends him slamming into the 13th pillar inside that tunnel. Adam, none of them are wearing their seatbelts. Jeez. I mean, driving at that speed into that tunnel is just not the right decision. And then

[00:58:17] you've got a guy who's had at least 10 drinks. He's not going to have probably the awareness or the speed to be able to react quickly enough. And maybe if the Fiat Uno wasn't there, it might have been okay. He might've been able to regain control because he wouldn't have clipped it. But yeah, it seems like a really unfortunate situation of events that have happened to kind of to get to this point. Yeah, it's devastating, Adam. Henry, Paul and Dodie, they are killed on impact. Diana

[00:58:46] and Trevor Reese Jones, they are still alive, but barely. Sadly, as we know, Diana will die and Trevor will be the only survivor. He ends up being in a coma for two weeks. And when he wakes up, he remembers nothing after getting into that car that night. There is eventually a full inquest into what happened. And Adam, it's 900 pages. There are hundreds of people involved from medical experts, crash specialists, engineers, security analysts.

[00:59:12] It's purely because the public become convinced that this crash was somehow survivable, that this might've been a planned assassination attempt. I remember very much believing that that was a very much viable theory as to what happened to her. I think there was just all this speculation because of how she exited the royal family. People just love to play into the fact that they wanted her gone because of all the problems that she may or

[00:59:38] may not have caused. Again, is it just like clickbait just to sell newspapers? Could be. I wonder if I would have been a little more sceptical had Diana died when I was maybe a young adult and understood a bit better and been able to kind of critically think. But at the time, you just kind of take in and you accept what you've been told, right? And in the papers, this is what we were being told. Yeah. In the end, basically, across all 900 pages, the conclusion is that this was just a tragic crash.

[01:00:05] It says that if they had been wearing seatbelts, it is possible that Diana and Dodie may have survived. But at those speeds, it's literally a hard maybe. The fact that Trevor Reese Jones survived at all, they say, is basically just a miracle. The facts of the crash are that the car was travelling at excessive speeds. The driver was not licensed to operate that type of vehicle. His blood alcohol level was more than three times the legal limit. And also, no one in their car was

[01:00:32] wearing a seatbelt. So when people talk about this idea that Diana was deliberately assassinated, or the crash was caused by a blinding flash of light, or the brakes were tampered with, the inquest found none of that to be true. But of course, as soon as the inquest comes out, people go, ah, what are they hiding? So you're always going to have people who just refuse to believe what the facts are telling them. Well, let's just imagine for a second that it is a cover-up. This inquest is never going to reveal

[01:00:59] that, surely. So I can understand what people that are sceptical won't believe this. And I get it as well. Like, Diana was globally loved. Her death sends the world into basically a total state of shock and mourning. People are desperate to find answers. But the idea that this was a deliberate hit by MI5, to me, is just so implausible. For example, the route that they were taking back to Doge's apartment wasn't the usual route that you would expect them to take if they were travelling directly to Doge's apartment. Because there are hundreds of different ways

[01:01:27] that you can get from A to B in Paris. So for a conspiracy to work, whoever was carrying out this hit, you would have to know in advance, with complete certainty, which specific route that they would take, right? And if you were planning a hit, you wouldn't have anticipated them going through that tunnel. Also, the idea that they were killed to prevent Doge from proposing. The only source that we have that this was his intention is from Doge's phone call with his father Muhammad on the

[01:01:53] 29th of August, the day before the crash. That is just not enough time for the royal family to A, receive that intelligence and then somehow pull off a hit, especially in central Paris, where there are literally hundreds of possible witnesses all within a 24-hour period. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, and especially if all we've got is Muhammad's kind of like words on this or his side of the story. We don't know enough information or about what was going on that day. So all we can go off is

[01:02:21] this speculation or people's interpretation of a conversation. Muhammad maybe got the wrong idea of what Doge was even saying on a conversation. So for him, he's thinking he's saying the truth, but actually maybe he misheard or misunderstood. Or that he's just making it up because he has an agenda, right? But also, Adam, since then, a few ex-intelligence officers, including ex-MI6 and ex-CIA, have gone on the record to say that if somebody wanted to kill Diana, then the perfect opportunity

[01:02:49] would have been to do so while they were on one of the many yacht holidays that they were on. And all they would need to do is attach an explosive under the hull and let the boat sink to the bottom of the sea, along with all of the evidence. Wow, someone has thought about this. People have. That's how invested people are in the story. So Adam, following the crash, Dodie and Henry, of course, they are dead at the scene. Trevor Reese Jones is unconscious and critically injured. And Diana, she is slumped in the backseat.

[01:03:18] But by all accounts, she doesn't look like she is gravely hurt. She has a small trickle of blood on her forehead. But otherwise, there are literally no obvious signs of trauma. It only takes 30 minutes following the crash for the first calls to the British tabloids offering to sell photos of Diana at the crash scene. And they are demanding $300,000 for those pictures. Isn't that just so disgusting? That is sick. That's really sick. Like, you should just have some respect at that point.

[01:03:45] It's also pulled into question why none of the paparazzi actually did anything to help with the scene. Seven minutes later, though, the ambulance does arrive. The police are also called. And because the paparazzi would just not clear the area, police start arresting them. And because of their behavior, over the next year, France start holding a series of manslaughter trials against the paparazzi who were there that night. But in the end, Adam, every single one of them is cleared. The judge literally says what they did was immoral, but it's not clear that they broke any laws. And that's the thing.

[01:04:15] It's this weird chain of events that makes pinpointing who is to blame very, very difficult. For example, Henry Paul, he was drunk. He didn't have the correct license and he was speeding. If he'd survived, he would likely have been charged, right? But then Henry Paul wouldn't have been driving unless Dodie had insisted on it. Dodie wouldn't have insisted on him driving if the paparazzi weren't already camped outside the hotel. And the paparazzi wouldn't have been camped outside

[01:04:42] the hotel if photos of Diana weren't literally selling for millions and millions of pounds at that time. But remember, Adam, those photos wouldn't have been selling for millions of pounds if the public didn't want them. And so it's not one single person's fault, which I appreciate can be really unsatisfying because in a tragedy like this, you just want someone to blame, right? Yeah, I get that. I get why people are looking for someone to blame. And I do agree that there is this shared responsibility. But then I think about all these other sort of celebrities out there that do

[01:05:11] get hounded by the press, this, that and the other. I think in those situations, it's about making smart decisions. And I think Dodie did not make a smart decision that night, clearly, by asking Henry to drive that vehicle. Henry should have declined and said, no, get someone else to do it. They should have camped out at the Ritz. They said, no, let's not go out there. And obviously, the paparazzi, they shouldn't have done it. I get it. But the thing is, it still makes pointing blame and holding someone accountable for

[01:05:39] this really difficult. Who are you going to arrest, right? You're going to arrest all the paparazzi. That's all that's left in this case, unfortunately, is the paparazzi. But then you've also got the media. Who do you go after, though? Do you go after the editors? Like, yeah, you can go after the individual paparazzis, but the editors are also just as comparable. Yeah, but you should, there should be some ethics in that you can go take photos, but not at putting someone's life at risk. You know what I mean? You shouldn't be like chasing them in a car.

[01:06:06] The reality is that after this case, a lot of reforms happen within the media and within the law to kind of prevent the media and the paparazzi from hounding people, essentially. So that's probably the best thing that we can do in this instance. But in this moment in time, casting blame is really difficult. When the paramedics get there, they do their best to try and stabilise Diana and Trevor at the scene. The hospital, by the way, is only like a 20-minute drive away. It's the early

[01:06:33] hours in the morning, so the roads are fairly clear. But because she is so critical, they have to drive really slowly, making sure they don't hit any bumps in the road. They have to stop a couple of times along the way just to restabilise her because that's how critical she is. And so in the end, Adam, it takes almost an hour and a half to get her to hospital. And this gap in time between the crash site and the hospital opens up a whole new wave of speculation. But in the end, the answer simply

[01:06:58] comes down to the fact that there are clear differences in how emergency services handle these critical accidents in France versus the UK. Like in France, the protocol is what they call stay and play. The idea is that you first stabilise the patient before you move them. Whereas in the UK, the protocol is scoop and run. Don't worry about stabilising the patient, just get them to the hospital as fast as possible. And the belief there is that literally every second counts. There is so much

[01:07:26] debate over which protocol is better, but it does help explain why it takes so long to get Diana to the hospital that night and not that it was part of some kind of wider conspiracy theory. Yeah, that does make sense because I always wondered what that was. And I didn't realise the different practices between the UK medical and the French medical. That's so strange. And I get the positives with both methodologies, I guess. Yeah, I mean, it's up for debate. We still don't really know which one is better and which one is worse.

[01:07:54] But the reality is, that is what happened that night. Of course, Adam, when she arrives at the hospital, they do everything they can. But sadly, at 4am on the 31st of August 1997, Princess Diana is officially pronounced dead. When Mohammed Al-Fayed is told the news, his first response is, this is no accident. And from that moment on, he becomes the loudest, most persistent voice in pushing this theory that Diana and his son were literally murdered. And look, I get it. I

[01:08:23] genuinely feel for him. His son is dead. Diana is dead. And it was all in such an unnecessary, needless way. So of course, I get where he's come from. He also has longstanding tensions with the royal family and the British establishments. But this becomes all-consuming for him. He hires private investigators. He gets involved in literally every single documentary that has been made about this topic. Like I mentioned already, the 900-page inquest is largely structured around trying to

[01:08:51] address specific claims made by Mohammed Al-Fayed. Questions like, was there a blinding flash in the tunnel? Was MI6 monitoring her movements? Why did it take two hours to get her to hospital? Why was the CCTV taped from the Ministry of Justice never released? And the list goes on and on and on and on. And that's what this British inquest sets out to answer. I think the blinding flash in the tunnel was a story that was published a lot because I felt like for a long time, that was the cause of

[01:09:21] the accident, that it came from the paparazzi. One of the most absurd conspiracy theories that surfaces like years later involves the car that Henry Paul clipped in the tunnel. For ages, investigators tried to locate the car and the driver, but they've never managed to trace them even to this day, right? Which is weird. You're in the tunnel, you know that this news is just broken. If you were the car that's been clipped in that tunnel that you know that Princess Diana has been killed in, why would you not come forward? But they never trace that vehicle. So years later,

[01:09:49] it gets discovered that one of the paparazzi who was trading Diana and Dodi in Saint-Tropez actually owned a white Fia Punto and he has since died. And so suddenly people start saying that this was the white Fia Uno in the tunnel and that he was murdered because MI6 had put him up to killing Diana and Dodi. Apparently the proof was that the paint from the paparazzo's car matched paint samples taken from the tunnel. But Adam, this is factory paint. It's likely that every single

[01:10:16] white Fia Uno from that factory would have the same paint. Plus the paparazzo didn't even live in Paris. He lived 90 miles away. So there's no record of him actually being anywhere near the city that night. It later transpires that the reason he died was because that he had committed suicide. Apparently he had gone into debt trying to support his son's racing car hobby, which is why he became a paparazzo in the first place. Like the demand for pictures of Diana was peaking at this time,

[01:10:44] but after her death, the entire industry just ends up collapsing and so he was broke again. And so he goes ahead and commits suicide. Imagine the emotional weight his suicide would have placed on his son. But that's the real heartbreak there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And is this the exact car that was in the tunnel? No. Or is it just another car? There's a random car. Exactly. There's no evidence that this was the car. It just so happens to be a white Fia Uno. And that's the problem with

[01:11:10] all of this. If you stare at something long enough, you'll eventually see something that satisfies what you're looking for. It's like in the cartoons, right? Where you've got two shipwrecked men. They're both starving. They're looking at each other. Eventually one of them morphs into like a chicken drumstick, right? It's because it's what you want the most. So I really do not think that Diana was assassinated. I honestly just think that this was just an awful, awful tragedy. Yeah, I'd agree. I think people are, like you say, looking for someone to blame or looking for some

[01:11:38] reason behind all of this. But what it is, is just a series of poor choices and events that have led to this accident. Yeah. So across the world, the news of her death officially breaks at 4.41am. The royal family, they're notified first. They're all up in Balmoral for the summer. Their immediate concern is how they're going to break the news to William and Harry. But also they can't delay it because as soon as they wake up, the news is going to be everywhere. So the next morning when they wake

[01:12:06] up, Charles comes into the room and he tells them. And I just cannot imagine what that must have been like to hear that news that your mother had died. I don't think anyone imagines what that's like because these boys, they would have gone to bed after, you know, they've just had, they're spending a holiday with their family and they expect to wake up, have breakfast, carry on as normal. And yet they've got their father coming in, telling them like the, one of the worst pieces of news they'll ever hear. Yeah, for sure. Later that day, Charles and Diane's sister, they fly to Paris to retrieve her body,

[01:12:35] which must also for Charles be something of such an emotional rollercoaster. I imagine that in spite of everything that they went through for Charles, this must have been that moment of brutal perspective, like for all the bitterness, all the public fighting, the personal failures, probably in that moment, just none of that mattered anymore. What I found really interesting was that following their divorce, the tensions between them was starting to lift. Like right before their divorce papers were signed, Diane invites Charles over to Kensington Palace for tea

[01:13:03] and they end up having a really honest conversation. It's sort of like a post-mortem of their relationship. The thing that connects them in that moment isn't blame or anger or resentment. It's actually a sense of shared history. And their conclusion is that, oh, well, like we really did try. That's interesting. So they both felt like they put everything into it, but I don't know, when we've gone through the previous episodes, it didn't feel like they were on the same page, but perhaps they both at different times of the relationship wanted it to work.

[01:13:33] Yeah, of course. And that was so apparent, especially when Diana would have those sessions with her stylist. She would always ask, even towards the end of the marriage, like, do you think my husband will find me sex in this? Like she tried. And I think that to a degree, Charles wanted it to work as well. But then at the same time, he also did love Camilla. So it's a very complex situation. But soon after the divorce, one of Charles's favourite author dies. It was one of those authors that he would read aloud to Diana, those long, dry passengers that he thought were like really romantic. Exactly.

[01:14:03] And so when he dies, Diana sends Charles a note saying, I know you must be suffering. I'm really sorry. And so when Charles goes to Paris, he has to identify Diana's body. So he's there with a respectful Diana as a person and as a mother to their children. Tina Brown describes the moment he walks in to identify Diana's body. The prince went into the room alone to view his former wife in death. At the moment Charles enters Diana's chamber, he was still calm and collected,

[01:14:31] but it was another man who emerged. A man utterly shattered by what had just happened. He later told Camilla that seeing Diana's lifeless body was the worst sight that he had ever had to bear witness to. I could only think of her as a girl I first met, not as the woman she became and not the problems we had been through. I wept for her and I wept for our boys. So through that, you get the

[01:14:56] sense that there's a perspective shift, right? For all the problems they went through in that moment, just none of that mattered anymore. Tina Brown also goes on to say, he trained all his life like the queen to transfer the expression of emotion to something other than his cause. The prince became agitated by a single detail, the loss in the crash of one of Diana's gold earrings. No, he kept repeating, she can't go without a second earring.

[01:15:25] It's kind of odd in a way that's what he chooses to focus on. But I guess he's dealing with that grief, isn't he? Yeah, grief manifests itself in so many different ways, isn't it? Yeah, and whilst that might seem like such a strange thing to us who wasn't in that moment, I'm guessing all he now wants is just the best end or way to lay her to rest. And so anything, any minor detail like that, I guess he's going to like really fuss over.

[01:15:51] Yeah, for sure. Meanwhile, back in Balmoral, the queen's focus is purely on William and Harry. Every channel has cut to the breaking news of Diana's death. And it's just a complete circus, one channel to the next. So the queen orders that all televisions in the castle be removed so the boys won't have to see it. And honestly, this is exactly what they need because it allows them to insulate themselves so that the boys can just grieve their mother without kind of this media circus

[01:16:17] unraveling around them, which is a real tender gesture in this private moment from the queen as a grandmother, right? Yeah, because you turn on the TV, all they're going to see, every sort of news program, everything for those like 24, 48 hours was pretty much just about Diana. That's it. So I totally get why she did that. But here's the thing, regardless of what's going on in their private lives, royal protocol still takes precedence in this moment. The official position is that Diana

[01:16:45] is not a member of the royal family. Typically, there's a whole bunch of protocols that spring into action, like officially announcing the death through the palace, initiating plans for the funeral and laying in state. But protocol dictated that none of this applies to Diana. All the public end up seeing is just how cold the royal family are being. Like, sure, the royal family are going to mourn her death 100%. And they do everything they need to do normally, but it's all behind closed

[01:17:12] doors. So there's none of this usual pomp and pageantry that would happen if she was an official member of the royal family. Yeah. And I remember that around this time, there was this kind of silence, wasn't there, by the queen? Because naturally, she's looking after her grandsons and doing everything perhaps a family should be doing at that moment in time. But because she didn't make a public announcement, it seemed there's this expectation of the queen to do that. And it didn't come for a couple of days. And that didn't look

[01:17:40] good for the queen until she made that announcement, which is really strange. Exactly. The thing is, though, at this moment in time, there's no intention to make any kind of public announcements, even if it's delayed. But the public do not understand this, right? So a series of events that follow start to really erode the public's perception of the royal family. The first thing that happens is when people start laying flowers outside of Buckner Palace. At first, the police start banning people from doing so. This is eventually seen as the royal

[01:18:07] family's doing. And it becomes a symbol of disdain towards Diana. But Adam, the real, reason is because the entrance to Buckner Palace is technically a roadway. At this point, the number of people laying flowers is relatively small. But as more and more people show up, the police finally recognise that actually, do you know what? This is a really unprecedented situation. And so they lift the ban and instead they start diverting traffic around the area. So that's the first sea vest planted. It's small, but it's planted nonetheless.

[01:18:38] The next is a flag so it's time to be flown at half-mast. And very quickly, members of the public start to notice that there's no flag on the flagpole above Buckner Palace. And this quickly becomes yet another symbol of the royal family's apparent disdain towards Diana. So you start to see headlines like, show us you care and where is your flag. But again, Adam, there's actually a very good reason why there's no flag above Buckner Palace. Do you know the reason why? Um, what at all? Or just at this moment in time?

[01:19:07] At all? I have no idea. Because it's not a flagpole. It's not a flagpole in the traditional sense. What it actually is, is a royal standard whose sole purpose is to indicate when the queen is in residence. The reason there's no flag on it is because the queen is in Balmoral. It has never flown any other flag other than the royal standard. And so when it does fly the royal standard, it can't be flown at half-mast because the queen can't be half in residence.

[01:19:38] She could be in the doorway. Yeah. But symbolically, to the public, they see this as a snub. And even then, only a few people really notice this. It's the press who pick up on this and see this as an opportunity to, like, capitalise on it. Like, there are tonnes of royal correspondents specifically assigned to report on the royal family. So they likely know the reason for this. And yet, they still send journalists out to ask people, hey, what do you think about the fact that there's no flag flying a half-mast?

[01:20:07] And of course, ordinary people who hadn't even thought about this at this point are like, yeah, that's outrageous! And so it just ends up snowballing from there. That is bizarre. The fact that there's correspondents that know for the reason behind this, but they use that for, like, news sensationalists. Why am I surprised? We cover this every episode. It could be that these correspondents, there are fewer than obviously regular journalists,

[01:20:32] so their voices get overshadowed. But the fact is that this is the narrative that is now unfolding. Surely the BBC royal correspondent, which I think at the time was Jenny Bond, would have put this straight. Yeah, well done for remembering that. I'm very impressed. So the next thing is the official Book of Condolences, right? The palace arranges for one to be set up and people can come and sign it. Only one is set up, and so people wait in line for literally hours, some people upwards of 12 hours. Eventually, journalists go and interview

[01:21:02] people in these lines, right? They're deliberately stoking the fire. And they say, what do you think about the royal family only setting up one book and making you wait all day? And so they've been asked this leading question, and this ends up just building up more resentment towards the royal family. And by the way, I'm not defending the royal family here, because when they are asked for their comments on this, their response is, well, this is how it's always done, right? So unlike the police, who very quickly recognise that this situation is completely

[01:21:30] unprecedented, let's change the rules temporarily, the institution remains rigid, and they do not see a problem with it. They fail to see what the public needs in that moment. And that is a signal that the royal family cares, even if it's against protocol or not what they normally do. Just show us something. That's at the crux of all of this, and they're not getting it. Yeah, this is just, this is what kind of puts that wedge between the royal family and just the

[01:21:57] general public. If there's not that sign of relatability, how are we supposed to cheer them on and stuff like that? We need something, like you say. That's it. And as we discussed in the previous episode, Charles has no idea that his little job is about optics and symbols and standing as a figurehead for the country, right? And it's clear now that Charles is just a product of the entire institution that has lost sight of that too.

[01:22:22] They're so obsessed with preserving ritual that they fail to adapt to the changing world around them. Or to look at the situation and say, okay, the usual rules maybe shouldn't apply here. Let's just do something different. But shots aren't just being fired at the royal family, Adam. Like the whole country is really angry and they're desperate to blame someone. So with almost every single passing day, you have this weird situation where blame starts being

[01:22:49] diverted in all sorts of directions. After the royal family, people start blaming the press for the constant coverage of Diana and the relentless harassment in the photography that they made her endure her entire life. So you start to see headlines like, Diana was hounded to death, murdered by the press pack. And why didn't they help her? Referring to obviously the photographers at the crash scene who, instead of doing anything, they just ended up taking photographs and trying to sell them for $300,000. Do you know what I mean?

[01:23:16] I mean, they should be slightly attacked for that because that is just disgusting. But it's interesting that the press are reporting like, Diana hounded to death when probably they themselves or photographers within the papers, Daily Mail or whatever, would have done this at one point. Exactly. But blaming the press is tricky because it forces people to rationalise and eventually realise that the press wouldn't have hounded Diana like this if there wasn't a public

[01:23:40] demand for her coverage. So like in real time, you see headlines changing to things like, did we all drive Diana to her death? So people are really holding up a mirror now and realising that actually we all have a part to play. Yeah, but to me, is that the press just spinning it so there's less focus on them by saying we're all part to blame? Because that's what it comes across as to me. It's true. The press are only serving up what they think the public wants because if it makes

[01:24:09] money, it demonstrates that that's what the public wants. But yes, you're right in what you say. Mm-hmm. But then a few days later, Henry Paul's toxicology report is released, which shows that he was drunk with the equivalent of nine shots of whiskey in the system. And so the blame is then directed towards him. But then it ends up in this weird cycle where it just goes round and round. First, it's the royal family. Then it's the press. Then it's the public. Then it goes back to the royal family. Then it's the press. Then it's the public. It just goes on and on and on.

[01:24:37] But when it comes to the royal family, they finally recognise that they do really need to break protocol. And I personally do not believe it has anything to do with Diana. I honestly believe it's purely just to protect their own self-image. This is from Andrew Morton's book where he paints a picture of the contrast between the royal family and actually who Diana was. He says, Those few days after her death captured forever the contrast between the princess and the house of

[01:25:03] Windsor. Her openness was their distance. Her affection was their formality. Her spontaneity, their rigidity. Her glamour, their dullness. Her modernity, their stale ritual. And I think it's in this moment that the royal family recognises that they have this disconnect and how Diana's connection with the public was essentially the only thing keeping the royal family hanging on by a thread,

[01:25:33] especially throughout the 1990s. Yeah, she was the most popular royal quite quickly as soon as she was integrated. So it's odd that they didn't see it at the time. But I guess, like you say, they're so blinded by protocol and this is the way it's always been that they didn't see the value that she could really bring to them. That's right. And so through this realisation, the queen decides to come back to London. She instructs a union jack to be raised on the royal standard above Buckingham Palace

[01:26:00] and set to half-mast, which of course to them makes no sense, but that's fine. They're just giving the public what they want. In fact, Prince Charles says something like, in the days following Diana's death, he felt like he was an alien on this planet because of just how bizarre everything was and like how everything was shifting and changing and what they needed to do. Really? That's so strange. Like what else did they have to adapt to aside from putting a bloody flag on

[01:26:25] the flying a flag from Buckingham Palace? They cannot relate to the public in any way and that's on them, basically. The queen then also goes outside of the palace to shake hands with the crowd. There is this moment when someone hands her a bouquet and the queen instinctively goes to place it on the sea of flowers that are formed outside the palace. But then the person is like, no, no, actually these are for you. And so actually there's a tender moment where you realise all the queen

[01:26:52] needs to do is just show just a little bit of compassion publicly. But also that same day, she gives a live address on television where she says those famous words, what I say to you now, I say as your queen and as a grandmother, and I say it from the heart. And in that speech, Adam, she acknowledges the overwhelming sadness being experienced throughout Britain and the world since Diana's death, but also the royal family's difficulty in expressing

[01:27:19] their sense of loss. She mentions kind of feeling disbelief and the incomprehension and anger and the concerns for those that were left behind. So in a sense, obviously there's a little bit of damage control going on there, but at the same time, people also seem to feel like actually that's a great justification for her silence is that it was being done in private, right? And it was out of concern for her boys. And just like that, Adam, the public have forgiven the royal family.

[01:27:47] I think that's all they needed to do was that. Had they done that earlier, they probably could have avoided a lot of this. Exactly. Their readiness to forgive is testament to just how little the public actually need from the royal family. Do you know what I mean? That makes me think when people have died since then, like Prince Philip, did she acknowledge? Did she do a speech? You know, we saw her mourning in the church, didn't we? But I don't remember her coming on air.

[01:28:15] When Prince Philip died, there was a hell of a lot more visibility, way more than there ever had been, especially during the 90s, the 80s and 70s. Because the death of Princess Diana did make some sweeping changes across the royal family. In the late 1990s, their approval ratings were 57%. By 2025, it recovers to 74%. So in comparison to before Diana's death, you'll now notice how the

[01:28:41] official Christmas address almost always focuses around this concept of family and unity between the royal family and the public. It almost kind of creates this image of we're all one, right? The royal family and the public and a country, we're all just one single entity. In the early 2000s, they also start publishing more personal things on their blogs and their socials. They open up more and more private family events to the public that wouldn't normally get official coverage. But also,

[01:29:10] whenever there's a scandal that breaks out, rather than remaining silent, they now address it obligately. Yeah, they do. Because I'm just thinking, well, they don't always necessarily talk about the specifics. But for example, with Andrew, they made changes to his title. So whilst they didn't necessarily directly reference the allegations, they, yeah, they do make changes. Exactly. Yes, they do what they need to do in order to satisfy the public's concerns or what the public's needs are. So really, Diana's legacy

[01:29:39] influences the next generation of royals, who now incorporate kind of more of a warmth and connection with the public into kind of their style of monarchy. This is what we see from William and Kate, right? And for a time with Harry and Meghan. One thing the public don't get, though, is a state funeral for Diana. Instead, she's given what they call a royal ceremonial funeral, which is basically the same

[01:30:04] in every single way, except by name. Yeah, they seem to like their own sort of definition or some things they want to keep exactly the same, but they're willing to make some compromises. Yeah, for sure. And so Diana's funeral is held on the 6th of September 1997. Did you watch it in the coverage? I probably did. But the thing that I think sticks in my mind is her children, Harry and William and Charles as well, obviously, but all walking behind the coffin for however many miles.

[01:30:31] I can't remember how exactly long it was. Yeah, that's it. That's the thing that sticks out to me as well. And the thing is, though, usually when a member of the royal family dies, they usually have a very specific plan already mapped out for that person. It usually has a weird codename. For example, the Queen's was called Operation London Bridge. But because Diana was 36 years old, right, and still very young, there was never any plan put in place for her death. So instead, they use the funeral plans for the Queen Mother, which they called Operation Taybridge.

[01:30:59] They just use that as a template for Diana's funeral. But the key change that they make was that they had to extend the procession route, just because so many people wanted to actually attend, which must have been the biggest burn for the royal family. Like to them, she was no longer a royal, right? And here was a funeral set to be bigger than anything that any of them could ever experience or expect. Yeah, I guess so. But then, I don't know. She was the most popular. So she's gonna get the

[01:31:28] crowds, isn't she? Yeah, exactly. The only thing that comes to mind in this instance is, ooh, nurse. Do you know? Because nurses help people, and they think that all our family need a nurse. Ooh, needed a band-aid. Exactly. During the procession, it was originally planned that Prince Philip, Diana's brother Charles Spencer, and Prince Charles would all walk behind Diana's coffin. But because Prince Charles was so scared that he would be booed, he ranges for both William and

[01:31:52] Harry, both 12 and 15 at the time, to walk alongside them. Basically, he was using them as a shield. That makes him seem like a proper dick if he did that. Absolutely. 100%. It's a spineless piece of shit, basically. That's how I interpret it. Yeah, of course, if that is true and everything. But I just, to make his sons walk behind their mum's coffin, I just think, would the crowd have done that? I don't know. I think they would have been a bit more respectful to Boo. Their focus is not on Charles. Their focus is on Diana.

[01:32:21] But also, I feel bad for William and Harry, because this is going to be really tough for both of them to get through this procession. In the footage, you actually see Prince Philip pointing out all the different landmarks as they pass along the way. And that's just purely to help them stay composed and stay emotionless, if you will, because that's what royal royal dictates. Her funeral is actually held at Westminster Abbey. And during the funeral, Diana's brother gives a eulogy where he brazenly takes shots at the royal family for their treatment of her throughout her life. He specifically says,

[01:32:52] Diana was someone with natural nobility, who was classless and who proved in her last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic. He also promises that he and the blood family would continue the imaginative and loving way Diana had been guiding her sons so that they wouldn't be overwhelmed by duty and tradition, but could sing openly as Diana had planned. So I'll say it again, Adam.

[01:33:19] Ooh, nurse. Shots are literally fired all over the place. And they've just got to sit there, because I imagine all the royal family are at this funeral, right? So they've just got to sit there and go, oh, we've got to take that one on the chin. Absolutely. He's got a point, you know. But interestingly, though, he also says that we shouldn't rush to canonise Diana. Instead, we should remember her for the person she was. Flawed, complicated, and brilliant. And then, Adam, as he finishes his eulogy, there's this sudden roar, like a deep rumble,

[01:33:48] as rain starts to sweep across the abbey's roof. But, Adam, it's not rain. It's applause, because there are thousands of people outside who are watching on the screens, and they've all just erupted in clapping as he ends his speech. That clapping then starts flooding into the abbey, starting at the back. It travels all the way forward until it reaches the altar, where the royal family are. And then you see William and Harry clapping as well, except for the royal family, all of which stay silent.

[01:34:16] Well, they're not going to clap. They're not going to go, yeah, good point. Yeah, we should really be more emotive. That's not going to happen. It's not. But you're supposed to be outraged by that and go, fuckers, they haven't even learned at this point. I wouldn't expect anything less. No, neither would I. And Adam, do you know what? That is the story of Princess Diana, a girl who was chosen, a woman who was adored, a mother, a lightning rod,

[01:34:44] and a casualty of the monarchy. And also, whether she wanted or not, a myth. It's such an incredibly sad sort of end to such, I don't know, it feels like such a positive person. Yes, she was flawed. Yes, she had all these sort of things behind closed doors we didn't really truly understand. But she just seemed like the rest of us in a way. And she tried to fit in and she tried to do her best, which I think is what anyone could want, really. Yeah. A special lady, as you might say.

[01:35:12] Yeah. And I just think like in the future, like we look at the royal family of like the Tudors and stuff like that. What are people going to be learning about Diana in like 200 years? This is someone that's going to be cemented in history. Yeah. There's not many saints that are made in modern day society or in the modern day world. Mother Teresa is probably the most notable modern day person. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually, as the myth solidifies itself of Diana, that they decide that they turn her into a saint.

[01:35:42] I see a world where we have a saint, Diana. But also for the reasons, as you mentioned, because of how real and flawed and relatable she was. Why the hell not? It goes to show that someone who can deeply care for human beings and also being totally genuine and real could still be a saint. Why not? Why can't someone flawed be a saint? At the end of all this, which is essentially the saga

[01:36:12] of Diana's life, is that in her private life, she tried really hard to be a wife, but was turned into a liability. She was shut down and she was oppressed. In her public life, she tried to be a representative for humanity's pain and suffering and was just turned into a product. When it became too much for her, she just decided to break free. But sadly, it just ended up being too late because then

[01:36:38] she became a casualty of becoming this product. Do you know what I mean? I mean, imagine if she was alive today. Yes, Charles would be with Camilla. That would still be happening. But I wonder what she would have achieved. Like, I generally think she would have gone on to do a lot more good in the world. So yeah, that was a long three episodes, Adam. These are probably the longest episodes we've done, but I really think it's worth it. I really enjoyed doing this episode. It was an epic.

[01:37:06] It was an epic. A saga. So yeah, I guess we are going back to just regular group crime, incredible people, historical events in the next few episodes, I guess, until our next big personality comes along. Normal programming will resume. Yeah. Should we run the outro for this week? Let's do it. And so that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things. We hope you enjoy the ride as much as we did.

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[01:38:04] We drop new episodes every Tuesday. And until then, remember, the truth doesn't always sell, but the myth always does. We'll see you next time. See ya.