The royals - Kitty Kelley [253]
Yet by the standards of her world, she had been shorn of what had made her most valuable. Stripped of HRH, she lost her prized standing in society. As Diana, Princess of Wales, she was socially inferior to her own children. No longer royal, she resigned her patronage of more than one hundred charities and gave up her military regiments. Her friends worried about how she would survive such a blow. “I fear for her,” wrote historian Paul Johnson, one of her staunchest defenders. “One society matron said to me yesterday: ‘If I was publicly cast off like that, I really think I’d be tempted to do away with myself.’ ”
To the outside world, the thirty-five-year-old Princess still radiated royalty. Her sparkling beauty made her as lyrical as the “glimmering girl” of Yeats’s poem who inspired the wandering aengus to pluck the “silver apples of the moon.” But within her own world she was no longer a contender: “DI KO’d in Palace Rigged Title Fight” was one newspaper appraisal. Even antiroyalists, who sneered at social precedence, recognized that she had been flattened. “Throne for a loss,” as one man put it. “She has lost something,” wrote Stephen Glover in the Daily Telegraph, “which, according to the standards by which she lives, was infinitely precious.”
The loss showed itself within days. Her once respectful press corps turned snippy. Photographers still showed up in full force to cover her because she remained the most famous woman in the world. But they started acting like hooligans, shouting in a way they would never have dared to do before. When she was royal they groveled: “Please, ma’am, one more shot.” When she was no longer royal they were less respectful. One photographer, urging her to smile in his direction, hollered, “Hey, Di, cheat it to the left a little, will ya?” Unflattering photos began popping up: one caught her getting out of a car with mussed hair; another showed her skirt hiked up to her hips. Once adoring, some photographers acted as if she had personally offended them by losing her royal status. In retaliation they subjected her to the same harsh lens they aimed at pop divas and rock stars. Without the protection of her royal nimbus, Diana had been reduced to celebrity camera fodder like Mick, Michael, and Madonna.
Another indignity was inflicted on her while she was shopping in Harvey Nichols, her favorite London department store. A security guard directed a surveillance camera at her bosom and gathered footage of her cleavage. The guard was arrested for theft and taken into court, where the tape was produced. He was accused of video rape, but his female lawyer blamed Diana: “If a member of the public, whether royal or not, is willing to go into public showing a low cleavage, it ill behooves anyone to criticize the taking of a picture.”
Weeks later a London tabloid published grainy photographs from a staged video that purported to be Diana in her bra doing a striptease for her former lover, James Hewitt, before jumping on top of him for a horsey-back ride. The photographs were published around the world. But the video was a hoax, and the newspaper apologized on page one. “We were conned by cunning fraudsters,” said the editor, “and are sorry for any hurt or offense caused.” What went unsaid was that Diana’s previous behavior had been such that editors—and readers—were prepared to accept the trick as truth.
The royal divorce became final on August 28, 1996, and the Sun headlined the news triumphantly: “Bye Bye Big Ears.” Even Mother Teresa was pleased. “I know I should preach for family love and unity,” the eighty-five-year-old nun told a reporter in India, “but nobody was happy anyhow.” Britain’s Prime Minister acted swiftly to reassure the country that Charles had no “immediate” plans to marry again. Then he briefed the Queen, warning her that remarriage, especially to Camilla Parker Bowles, would be disastrous for the monarchy. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Queen acknowledged the irony: