Age, Biography, and Wiki
Diana, Princess of Wales, was born on July 1, 1961, to John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, and Frances Shand Kydd. She became the first wife of Charles III, then Prince of Wales, and mother of Princes William and Harry. Diana was known for her charitable work, particularly in areas such as HIV/AIDS and landmine removal. She passed away on August 31, 1997, at the age of 36 in a car accident in Paris.
| Occupation | Environmentalist |
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| Date of Birth | 1 July 1961 |
| Age | 64 Years |
| Birth Place | Park House, Sandringham, England |
| Horoscope | Cancer |
| Country | England |
| Date of death | 31 August, 1997 |
| Died Place | Paris, France |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Diana was known for her slender figure and elegant appearance. However, specific details about her height and weight are not readily documented in most sources.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Diana was married to Charles III from 1981 until their divorce in 1996. After her marriage ended, she did not remarry but was involved in a few high-profile relationships. Her most notable relationship after her divorce was with Dodi Fayed, with whom she was traveling when she passed away.
Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her activism and glamour, which made her an international icon, earned her enduring popularity.
In 1981, while working as a nursery teacher's assistant, she became engaged to Charles, the eldest son of Elizabeth II. Their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in July 1981 and made her Princess of Wales, a role in which she was enthusiastically received by the public. The couple had two sons, William and Harry, who were then respectively second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. Diana's marriage to Charles suffered due to their incompatibility and extramarital affairs. They separated in 1992, soon after the breakdown of their relationship became public knowledge. Their marital difficulties were widely publicised, and the couple divorced in 1996.
She was delivered at Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk. The Spencer family had been closely allied with the British royal family for several generations; her grandmothers, Cynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer, and Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, had served as ladies-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Her parents were hoping for a boy to carry on the family line, and no name was chosen for a week until they settled on Diana Frances after her mother and Lady Diana Spencer, a many-times-great-aunt who was also a prospective Princess of Wales as a potential bride for Frederick, Prince of Wales. Within the family, she was also known informally as "Duch", a reference to her duchess-like attitude in childhood.
On 30 August 1961, Diana was baptised at St. Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham. She grew up with three siblings: Sarah, Jane, and Charles. The desire for an heir added strain to her parents' marriage, and Lady Althorp was sent to Harley Street clinics in London to determine the cause of the "problem". The experience was described as "humiliating" by Diana's younger brother, Charles: "It was a dreadful time for my parents and probably the root of their divorce because I don't think they ever got over it". Diana grew up in Park House, situated on the Sandringham estate. The family leased the house from its owner, Queen Elizabeth II, whom Diana called "Aunt Lilibet" since childhood. The royal family frequently holidayed at the neighbouring Sandringham House, and Diana played with Princes Andrew and Edward.
Diana was seven years old when her parents divorced. Her mother later began a relationship with Peter Shand Kydd and married him in 1969. Diana lived with her mother in London during her parents' separation in 1967, but during that year's Christmas holidays, Lord Althorp refused to let his daughter return to London with Lady Althorp. Shortly afterwards, he won custody of Diana with support from his former mother-in-law, Lady Fermoy. In 1976, Lord Althorp married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth. Diana's relationship with her stepmother was particularly bad. She resented Raine, whom she called a "bully". On one occasion Diana pushed her down the stairs. She later described her childhood as "very unhappy" and "very unstable, the whole thing". She became known as Lady Diana after her father later inherited the title of Earl Spencer in 1975, at which point her father moved the entire family from Park House to Althorp, the Spencer seat in Northamptonshire.
In the mid-1970s, Diana did voluntary work at the psychiatric Darenth Park Hospital near Dartford, Kent. In 1978 Diana worked for three months as a nanny for Philippa and Jeremy Whitaker in Hampshire. After attending Institut Alpin Videmanette (a finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland) for one term, and leaving after the Easter term of 1978, Diana returned to London, where she shared her mother's flat with two school friends. In London, she took an advanced cooking course and worked at a series of low-paying jobs; she worked as a dance instructor for youth until a skiing accident caused her to miss three months of work. She then found employment as a playgroup pre-school assistant, did some cleaning work for her sister Sarah and several of her friends, and acted as a hostess at parties. She spent time working as a nanny for the Robertsons, an American family living in London, and worked as a nursery teacher's assistant at the Young England School in Pimlico. In July 1979, her mother bought her a flat at Coleherne Court in Earl's Court as an 18th birthday present. She lived there with three flatmates until 25 February 1981.
Diana first met Charles, Prince of Wales, the Queen's eldest son and heir apparent, when she was 16 in November 1977. He was then 29 and dating her older sister, Sarah. Charles and Diana were guests at a country weekend during the summer of 1980 and he took a serious interest in her as a potential bride. The relationship progressed when he invited her aboard the royal yacht Britannia for a sailing weekend to Cowes. This was followed by an invitation to Balmoral Castle (the royal family's Scottish residence) to meet his family. She was well received by the Queen, the Queen Mother and the Duke of Edinburgh. Charles subsequently courted Diana in London. He proposed on 6 February 1981 at Windsor Castle, and she accepted, but their engagement was kept secret for two and a half weeks.
Their engagement became official on 24 February 1981. Diana selected her own engagement ring. Following the engagement, she left her occupation as a nursery teacher's assistant and temporarily lived at the Queen Mother's residence, Clarence House. She subsequently resided at Buckingham Palace until the wedding, where, according to the biographer Ingrid Seward, her life was "incredibly lonely". Diana was the first Englishwoman to marry the first in line to the throne since Anne Hyde married James, Duke of York and Albany (later James VII and II), over 300 years earlier, and she was also the first royal bride to have a paying job before her engagement. Diana's first public appearance with Charles was at a charity ball held at Goldsmiths' Hall in March 1981, where she was introduced to Princess Grace of Monaco.
Five years into the marriage, the couple's incompatibility and age difference became visible and damaging. In 1986, Diana began a relationship with James Hewitt, the family's former riding instructor and in the same year, Charles resumed his relationship with his former girlfriend Camilla Parker Bowles. The media speculated that Hewitt, not Charles, was Harry's father based on the alleged physical similarity between Hewitt and Harry, but Hewitt and others have denied this.
The Queen and Prince Philip hosted a meeting between Charles and Diana and unsuccessfully tried to effect a reconciliation. Philip wrote to Diana and expressed his disappointment at the extramarital affairs of both her and Charles; he asked her to examine their behaviour from the other's point of view. Diana reportedly found the letters difficult, but nevertheless appreciated that he was acting with good intent. It was alleged by some people, including Diana's close friend Simone Simmons, that Diana and Philip had a tense relationship; however, other observers said their letters provided no sign of friction between them. Philip later issued a statement, publicly denying allegations of his insulting Diana.
Between 1992 and 1993, Diana hired a voice coach, Peter Settelen, to help her develop her public speaking voice. In a videotape recorded by Settelen in 1992, Diana said that in 1984 through to 1986, she had been "deeply in love with someone who worked in this environment". It is thought she was referring to Barry Mannakee, who was transferred to the Diplomatic Protection Squad in 1986 after his managers had determined that his relationship with Diana had been inappropriate. Diana said in the tape that Mannakee had been "chucked out" from his role as her bodyguard following suspicion that the two were having an affair. Penny Junor suggested in her 1998 book that Diana was in a romantic relationship with Mannakee. Diana's friends dismissed the claim as absurd. In the subsequently released tapes, Diana said she had feelings for that "someone", saying "I was quite happy to give all this up [and] just to go off and live with him". She described him as "the greatest friend [she's] ever had", though she denied any sexual relationship with him. She also spoke bitterly of her husband saying that "[He] made me feel so inadequate in every possible way, that each time I came up for air he pushed me down again."
Although she blamed Parker Bowles for her marital troubles, Diana began to believe her husband had been involved in other affairs. In October 1993 Diana wrote to her butler Paul Burrell, telling him that she believed her husband was now in love with his personal assistant Tiggy Legge-Bourke—who was also his sons' former nanny—and was planning to have her killed "to make the path clear for him to marry Tiggy". Legge-Bourke had been hired by Charles as a young companion for his sons while they were in his care, and Diana was resentful of Legge-Bourke and her relationship with the young princes. Charles sought public understanding via a televised interview with Jonathan Dimbleby on 29 June 1994. In the interview, he said he had rekindled his relationship with Parker Bowles in 1986 only after his marriage to Diana had "irretrievably broken down". In the same year, Diana's affair with Hewitt was exposed in detail in the book Princess in Love by Anna Pasternak, with Hewitt acting as the main source. Diana was evidently disturbed and outraged when the book was released, although Pasternak claimed Hewitt had acted with Diana's support to avoid having the affair covered in Andrew Morton's second book. In the same year, the News of the World claimed that Diana had had an affair with the married art dealer Oliver Hoare. According to Hoare's obituary, there was little doubt she had been in a relationship with him. However, Diana denied any romantic relationship with Hoare, whom she described as a friend. She was also linked by the press to the rugby union player Will Carling and private equity investor Theodore J. Forstmann, yet these claims were neither confirmed nor proven.
The journalist Martin Bashir interviewed Diana for the BBC current affairs show Panorama. The interview was broadcast on 20 November 1995. Diana discussed her own and her husband's extramarital affairs. Referring to Charles's relationship with Parker Bowles, she said: "Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." She also expressed doubt about her husband's suitability for kingship. The authors Tina Brown, Sally Bedell Smith, and Sarah Bradford support Diana's admission in the interview that she had suffered from depression, bulimia and had engaged numerous times in the act of self-harm; the show's transcript records Diana confirming many of her mental health problems. The combination of illnesses from which Diana herself said she suffered resulted in some of her biographers opining that she had borderline personality disorder. It was later revealed that Bashir had used forged bank statements to win Diana and her brother's trust to secure the interview, falsely indicating people close to her had been paid for spying. Lord Dyson conducted an independent inquiry into the issue and concluded that Bashir had "little difficulty in playing on [Diana's] fears and paranoia", a sentiment that was shared by Diana's son William.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Charles, Prince of Wales (later Charles III) (m. 29 July 1981-28 August 1996) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of her death, Princess Diana's net worth was estimated at approximately £21 million (about $31.5 million USD) or $25 million according to some sources. Her net worth included her divorce settlement of £17 million and other assets. Her sons, Princes William and Harry, inherited a significant portion of her estate, which was placed in trust. By the time they turned 30, each had received around $40 million from the trust.
Career, Business, and Investments
Princess Diana's career was largely focused on her role as a member of the royal family and her extensive charitable work. Her involvement in various philanthropic causes raised awareness and funds for numerous organizations. She was particularly known for her efforts in de-stigmatizing diseases like HIV/AIDS by publicly shaking hands with patients.
Social Network
Although Princess Diana passed away before the widespread use of social media, her legacy continues to inspire and influence online communities. Her sons, William and Harry, maintain a strong presence on social media platforms through their official royal accounts.
Diana became Princess of Wales at age 20 when she married Charles, then 32, on 29 July 1981. The wedding was held at St Paul's Cathedral, which offered more seating than Westminster Abbey, a church that was generally used for royal weddings. The service was widely described as a "fairytale wedding" and was watched by a global television audience of 750million people while 600,000 spectators lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the couple en route to the ceremony. At the altar, Diana inadvertently reversed the order of his first two names, saying "Philip Charles" Arthur George instead. She did not say she would "obey" him; that traditional vow was left out at the couple's request, which caused some comment at the time. Diana wore a dress valued at £9,000 with a 25-foot (7.62-metre) train. Within a few years of the wedding, the Queen extended Diana visible tokens of membership in the royal family, lending her the Queen Mary's Lover's Knot Tiara and granting her the badge of the Royal Family Order of Elizabeth II.
Diana said she and Charles were closest during her pregnancy with Harry. She was aware their second child was a boy, but did not share the knowledge with anyone else, including Charles, who hoped for a girl.
Diana gave her sons wider experiences than was usual for royal children. She rarely deferred to Charles or to the royal family, and was often intransigent when it came to the children. She chose their first given names, dismissed a royal family nanny and engaged one of her own choosing, selected their schools and clothing, planned their outings, and took them to school herself as often as her schedule permitted. She also organised her public duties around their timetables. Diana was reported to have described Harry as "naughty, just like me", and William as "my little wise old man" whom she started to rely on as her confidant by his early teens.
By 1987, cracks in the marriage had become visible and the couple's unhappiness and cold attitude towards one another were being reported by the press, who dubbed them "the Glums" because of their evident discomfort in each other's company. In 1989, Diana was at a birthday party for Parker Bowles's sister, Annabel Elliot, when she confronted Parker Bowles about her and Charles's extramarital affair. These affairs were later exposed in 1992 with the publication of Andrew Morton's book, Diana: Her True Story. The book, which also revealed Diana's allegedly suicidal unhappiness, caused a media storm. In 1991, James Colthurst conducted secret interviews with Diana in which she had talked about her marital issues and difficulties. These recordings were later used as a source for Morton's book. During her lifetime, both Diana and Morton denied her direct involvement in the writing process and maintained that family and friends were the book's main source; however, after her death Morton acknowledged Diana's role in writing the tell-all in the book's updated edition, Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words.
The interview proved to be the tipping point. On 20 December, Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen had sent letters to Charles and Diana, advising them to divorce. The Queen's move was backed by Prime Minister John Major and by senior privy counsellors, and, according to the BBC, was decided after two weeks of talks. Charles formally agreed to the divorce in a written statement soon after. In February 1996, Diana announced her agreement after negotiations with Charles and representatives of the Queen, irritating Buckingham Palace by issuing her own announcement of the divorce agreement and its terms. In July 1996, the couple agreed on the terms of their divorce. This followed shortly after Diana's accusation that Charles's personal assistant Tiggy Legge-Bourke had aborted his child, after which Legge-Bourke instructed her solicitor Peter Carter-Ruck to demand an apology. Diana's private secretary Patrick Jephson resigned shortly before the story broke, later writing that Diana had "exulted in accusing Legge-Bourke of having had an abortion". The rumours of Legge-Bourke's alleged abortion were apparently spread by Martin Bashir as a means to gain his Panorama interview with Diana.
Education
Diana was educated at West Heath Girls' School in Kent. She did not attend university but was well-versed in languages, including French and German.
In summary, Princess Diana's lasting impact is a testament to her dedication to philanthropy and her role as a member of the British royal family. Her legacy continues to inspire and influence people worldwide.
Diana was initially home-schooled under the supervision of her governess, Gertrude Allen. She began her formal education at Silfield Private School in King's Lynn, Norfolk, and moved to Riddlesworth Hall School, an all-girls boarding school near Thetford, when she was nine. She joined her sisters at West Heath Girls' School in Sevenoaks, Kent, in 1973. She did not perform well academically, failing her O-levels twice. Her outstanding community spirit was recognised with an award from West Heath. She left West Heath when she was sixteen. Her brother Charles recalls her as being quite shy up until that time. She demonstrated musical ability as a skilled pianist. She also excelled in swimming and diving, and studied ballet and tap dance.
