Background:

A. Royal Life

➔ The couple married in St. Paul’s Cathedral on July 29, 1981, in a globally televised
ceremony watched by an audience numbering in the hundreds of millions.

➔ They had 2 children: Prince William (June 21, 1982) and Prince Henry/Harry
(September 15, 1984)

➔ Diana struggled with severe postnatal depression, low self-esteem, eating

disorders, and the mounting strain of being constantly pursued by both the official
media royal-watchers and the tabloid press, particularly the paparazzi. Diana
presented her side in Andrew Morton’s controversial book Diana: Her True Story
(1992) and in an unusually candid television interview in 1995.

B. Separation and Divorce:

➔ In early 1993, the couple's affair was confirmed when a tape recording of an
inappropriate phone conversation between the pair that took place in 1989 was
leaked, creating scandal for the royal family. In her 1995 interview for BBC One's
Panorama, Diana famously said, "There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a
bit crowded." Camilla filed for divorce in January 1995, while Charles and Diana
finalized their divorce in August 1996.

➔ After the divorce, Diana maintained her high public profile and continued many of
the activities she had earlier undertaken on behalf of charities, supporting causes
as diverse as the arts, children’s issues, and AIDS patients. She also was involved in
efforts to ban land mines. To ensure that William and Harry had “an understanding
of people’s emotions, their insecurities, people’s distress, and their hopes and
dreams,” Diana brought her sons with her to hospitals, homeless shelters, and
orphanages.

➔ Long one of the most-photographed women in the world, Diana’s unprecedented

popularity both in Britain and abroad continued after her divorce. Although she
used that celebrity to great effect in promoting her charitable work, the media (in
particular the paparazzi) were often intrusive. It was while attempting to evade
pursuing journalists that Diana was killed, along with her companion, Dodi Fayed,
and their driver, Henri Paul, in an automobile accident in a tunnel under the streets
of Paris in 1997.

Car Crash and Death:

A. Facts
➔ Diana was with her boyfriend, Egyptian billionaire Emad "Dodi" Fayed

➔ the driver, Henri Paul, reportedly approached the entrance of a road tunnel at
Paris's Pont de l'Alma driving at approximately 70 mph. According to reports, Paul
lost control of the car and collided into a pillar in the middle of the highway.
 ➔ Paul and Fayed were pronounced dead at the scene, and Diana—still alive—was
rushed to the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital. Operating for two hours, doctors tried and
failed, to get Diana's heart beating properly again. She never regained
consciousness. Diana passed away from internal bleeding at 4:53 on the morning of
August 31, 1997.

➔ In 2019, Dr. Richard Shepherd, Britain's top forensic pathologist, concluded that
Diana died of a tiny, badly placed tear in the vein of her lung. "Her specific injury is so
rare that in my entire career I don’t believe I’ve seen another,"

➔ It could have been prevented by a seatbelt

B. Conspiracies:

➔ According to a statement from French authorities given the Monday after the crash,
Paul's blood exceeded the legal blood-alcohol limit. He had reportedly been
drinking and driving recklessly.

➔ Paul was HEAD OF SECURITY at the Hotel

➔ To this day, conspiracy theories about the crash abound. While different, the
theories share the same thesis: This was no accident.

➔ According to Stephane Darmon, a motorcycle rider for one of the paparazzi who
chased the Mercedes that night, the paparazzi present at the scene did not help the
car's doomed passengers. Instead, they took photos. "I did not see the car any more
because the light [of the flashes] was so bright. It was continuous," Darmon told

➔ In the immediate aftermath of the accident, seven French photographers were

arrested and questioned by the police. According to the New York Times, charges
of manslaughter were brought against nine photographers who followed the
Mercedes and took photos after the crash, but they were not found guilty.
However, three photographers were found guilty of invasion of privacy and were
fined a symbolic 1 euro.

➔ "I was so angry with what happened to her—and the fact that there was no justice at all.
Nothing came from that. The same people that chased her into the tunnel photographed
her dying on the backseat of that car," he says.

➔ 750 million watched Diana get married on TV, and 2.5 billion watched her funeral
procession.

1. Handwritten Letters from her butler

➔ Paul Burrell, the former royal butler of the Princess kept letters that she wrote:

➔ "I am sitting here at my desk today in October," she writes, "longing for someone to hug
me and encourage me to keep strong and hold my head high. This particular phase in my
life is the most dangerous _ X is planning 'an accident' in my car, brake failure and serious
head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry.
 "I have been battered, bruised and abused mentally by a system for 15 years now, but I
feel no resentment ... I am strong inside and maybe that is a problem for my enemies.
Thank you Charles for putting me through such hell and for giving me the opportunity to
learn from the cruel things you have done to me."

➔ The letter appears genuine: it looks like her handwriting and has apparently never
left Mr Burrell's possession. It was written in October 1996, two months after the
princess's divorce from Prince Charles and reveals a strikingly self-pitying, not to
say paranoid, mindset not dissimilar to that on show in her Panorama interview a
year earlier.

➔ "In what must now be seen as a cynical attempt to silence him, Paul Burrell was
prosecuted in the criminal courts but this bungled move has simply served to
highlight the involvement of the royal household in the strange circumstances
surrounding Diana's death.

➔ "During the investigation which led to the failed prosecution, Scotland Yard
acquired a mass of explosive evidence from Burrell in the form of letters, tapes and
videotapes which again has not seen the light of day. It is extraordinary that Paul
Burrell did not volunteer this evidence in time for the French investigation into the
crash but it is now vital that he be called to give evidence in an independent public
inquiry."

2. Her relationship with Fayed doomed her

➔ Martyn Gregory, author of Diana: The Last Days, said the Fayed was planning to
propose that night. “Dodi decided to go to the jeweler Repossi (who) showed him a
new ring, which was part of a series called ‘Tell Me Yes,’ " he said. "He didn’t buy
one of the rings, but he did order a ring for Diana, and that was delivered to the
Imperial Suite at the Ritz Hotel."

➔ After his son's death, Mohammed Fayed famously launched his own investigation
into the accident, believing the royal family was biased against his son because he
was an Egyptian Muslim.

3. The white Fiat Uno

➔ Conspiracy theorists attempted to link the Fiat to James Andanson, and thus link
the well-known French paparazzo to the crash scene, claiming he also was an MI6
informant. Operation Paget accepted Andanson's statement that he was home
with his wife during the crash.

➔ Andanson was found dead in his car in the French countryside in 2000; police ruled
it a suicide but Fayed and other doubters claim he was killed for the part they
believe he played in the alleged assassination of Diana and Dodi.

4. The driver was involved

➔ As the theory goes, Paul was paid by MI6 to assassinate Diana and Fayed. Former
MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson famously attested that he had seen Paul's file and
could confirm that he was an informant.
 ➔ Despite the fact that Paul made just $35,000 a year, he had nearly $250,000 in his
bank account at the time of his death, in addition to a significant amount of cash
with him when he died, prompting further speculation that MI6 paid him off.

5. Diana wasn’t given the appropriate Medical Treatment

➔ The ambulance carrying Princess Diana, who was still alive at the time, passed one
hospital without stopping on its way to another hospital farther away from the
scene of the crash.
➔

https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/tv-movies/a29874597/princess-diana-death/

"I was so angry with what happened to her—and the fact that there was no justice at all," Prince
Harry, Diana's youngest son, says in "The Me You Can't See."

Though Diana is personally remembered for her kindness and advocacy, her death is often
thought of as a climax of one long chase for a scoop. In the Apple TV+ documentary The Me You
Can't See, Prince Harry, the youngest of Diana and Charles's two sons, says, "When I think about
my mom, the first thing that comes to mind is always the same one over and over again: Strapped in the
car, seatbelt across, with my brother in the car as well, and my mother driving being chased by three, four,
five mopeds, with paparazzi on, and then she was always unable to drive because of the tears. There was
no protection. One of the feelings that come up with me always is the helplessness. Being a guy, but being
too young to be able to help a woman—in this case, your mother. And that happened every single day.
Every single day until the day that she died."

https://www.rd.com/list/princess-diana-death-conspiracy-theories/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2017/08/29/who-killed-princess-diana-conspiracy-
theories-still-endure/543939001/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/princess-diana-death-conspiracy-theories-
b1746545.html

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Diana-princess-of-Wales