It’s been nearly 25 years since Princess Diana died. Despite her short life, she left an enduring impact on the royal family and the world.
Her greatest legacies are her sons, of course. Here, we celebrate Princess Diana for all the ways she flouted tradition.
She was a hands-on mum, indeed: The 20-year-old mother took a completely modern and new view of child-rearing from the beginning. She chose her sons’ first names herself and breastfed them as infants. And she didn’t follow how Queen Elizabeth II handled Prince Charles’ early years. Princess Diana and Charles bucked the royal trend of separation by taking nine-month-old William with his nanny on a six-week tour to Australia and New Zealand.
People also say that Prince William and Prince Harry were very much fortunate with Diana as a mother. Why? That’s because her ideas were so different from the previous generation.
Also read: Prince Charles wanted these names for William and Harry, but Diana said “No”.
She sent her boys to school: At his mother’s insistence and will, the Duke of Cambridge became the first heir to the throne to attend a public school. He went to Jane Mynor’s nursery school near Kensington Palace. This decision to have William being brought up like a normal kid and not a royal did wonders in every possible way it could.
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Princess Diana exposed her kids to a non-royal way of life: It wasn’t just attending the public school where she rebelled against the constraints of royal childhood. She took the boys to get hamburgers at McDonald’s. Sometimes rode the tube and the bus, and let them wear jeans and baseball caps. At Disney, they stood in line like everyone else.
The Princess of Wales, Diana made bold style choices: For a 1985 appearance in Melbourne, the forever fashion icon accented her gown with an emerald-and-diamond choker. But, she wore it as a tiara. Well, we’re quite enough sure that wasn’t how Queen Elizabeth, who gave the necklace as a wedding gift, imagined the art being worn or displayed.
Diana talked frankly with the press: In 1995, Diana secretly gave a very revealing interview. Though her aides claimed she later regretted it, she tried to take control of the media around her life. It was her first solo interview and was watched by more than 21.5 million people in the United Kingdom.
Also read: 5 similarities between Duchess Catherine and Diana we all can relate to.
In the interview, she addressed Prince Charles’s longtime relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles quite openly. She said: “A woman’s instinct is a very good one. Obviously, I had knowledge of it from people who minded and cared about our marriage. There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded”.
And, that’s not just enough yet: The feisty and bold princess also didn’t deny her own eventual affair with James Hewitt. She said: “Yes, I adored him. I was in love with him. But, I was let down”.
But, this was not over yet, within a month of the interview, Diana’s press secretary had resigned. And, Queen Elizabeth seeing all this got angry. She then sent the couple a letter urging them to divorce.
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