The royals - Kitty Kelley [265]
Charles Spencer asserted that his wife had become addicted to drugs while traveling the world as a top fashion model and would be unable to resist the lure of drugs if he gave her more money. So he rejected paying alimony. He demanded total custody of the couple’s four children and threatened to go to trial. But after the barrage of negative publicity, he backed down and settled out of court. The newspapers declared victory for his wife, who shared custody and received a lump sum payment of $3 million.
The Earl Spencer was again criticized when he announced plans to build a shrine to Diana at Althorp and charge tourists $15 to view the island where she is buried. He said the site would be opened annually from her birthday, July 1, through August 30, the eve of her death. The anniversary of her death, August 31, will be preserved as a private day for the family to remember her. He posted a message on a new Althorp House Web site: “Diana is safely back at home, where her mortal remains can be cared for, and where her memory lives on forever.” Eight million calls jammed telephone hotlines as people around the world tried to book tickets. The Daily Mail reported the story as “A Ticket to Mourn.”
The Earl said he was not exploiting his sister’s death but merely responding to the public’s desire to honor her memory. When he announced plans to erect a temple at the lake’s edge so visitors could leave floral tributes, one British columnist sniped, “It’s right near the manger where she was born.” When Spencer said he planned to convert an eighteenth-century stable into a museum filled with memorabilia celebrating Diana’s life, the same columnist inquired about pony rides and a petting zoo.
“NOW HE’S GONE TOO FAR” was the headline announcing his plans to stage a rock concert near his sister’s grave in honor of what would have been her thirty-seventh birthday. Even Diana’s favorite performers, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, and George Michael, said they could not participate owing to their previous engagements.
In the sad days after Dodi’s and Diana’s deaths, Michael Cole, the al-Fayed spokesman, appeared on television to talk mawkishly of the couple’s “enduring” love and the “probability” of their eventual marriage. He said they had exchanged gifts on their last day together: Diana gave Dodi a pair of gold cuff links that had belonged to her father and a gold cigar cutter inscribed “With love from Diana.” Dodi gave her a $205,000 ring that they had selected from Repossi Jewelers on the Place Vendome in Paris. The al-Fayed spokesman also said Dodi had a sterling silver plaque inscribed with a poem* that he had placed under her pillow in his apartment, where they had planned to spend the night.
As French magistrates investigated the fatal crash, bizarre conspiracy theories sprang up. Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi accused British intelligence agents of killing the Princess and her Egyptian lover to prevent a possible marriage that could have embarrassed the British royal family by producing children with Muslim names.
Dodi’s father, Mohamed al-Fayed, was the main source for Death of a Princess, a book that claimed Diana was pregnant and about to convert to Islam when she died. He intimated something sinister about the collision that killed her and his son. “It [their relationship] was a very serious matter,” he told the book’s authors, who worked for Time magazine. “Maybe the future king is going to have a half brother who is a ‘nigger,’ and Mohamed al-Fayed is going to be the stepgrandfather of the future king. This is how they think, this Establishment. They are a completely different type of human being.”
Maddened by grief, he raged against Earl Spencer, Prince Charles, and Prince Philip because they had not sent him condolences. “I feel hurt, upset, used,” al-Fayed told the press. “My only crime is that I am the father of the man who Diana fell in love with and who made her