PARIS: Twenty years ago on August 31, 1997, Britain’s Princess Diana died in a high-speed car crash in Paris.
For the next week, up to her spectacular funeral, Britain was plunged into an unprecedented outpouring of popular grief which shook the monarchy.
Here is how the week unfolded:
Divorced for the past year from heir to the throne Prince Charles, Diana, 36, and her new millionaire lover, Egyptian Dodi Al-Fayed, are stalked by a posse of press photographers over the summer as they holiday in the Mediterranean.
They arrive in the afternoon of August 30 in Paris and dine in the evening at the Hotel Ritz, in the luxurious Place Vendome. They try to leave discreetly shortly after midnight in a Mercedes.
Chased by paparazzi on motorcycles, the powerful sedan careers at high speed into a pillar in an underpass near the Alma Bridge opposite the Eiffel Tower on the north bank of the River Seine.
Diana is pulled out of the Mercedes, which has been reduced to twisted metal, by rescue workers.
Al-Fayed and their chauffeur, who the probe shows had a high level of alcohol in his blood, die instantly. Their bodyguard is seriously injured.
Seven photographers are arrested. From the next day, photographs of the crash will be offered to magazines for a million dollars each.
Diana is taken to Pitie-Salpetriere university hospital where at 4:00 am (0200 GMT) she dies of massive chest injuries after two hours of desperate surgery.
France’s ambassador to Britain telephones Queen Elizabeth II’s aides at Balmoral, in Scotland, where the Queen, her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, Charles as well as the couple’s two children, William, 15 and Harry, 12, are holidaying over the summer.
Britain awakes in mourning. Under a grey sky hundreds of tearful Londoners start to lay flowers in front of Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace, the princess’s residence.
A tearful young Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair pays homage to “the people’s princess.”
The world reacts with dismay. US president Bill Clinton says he is “profoundly saddened.”
In India Mother Teresa prays for Diana, just days before her own death, and US rock star Michael Jackson cancels a concert in Belgium in shock.
The press is the first to be accused. Diana’s brother Charles Spencer says newspapers have blood on their hands.
Embarrassed, the British tabloid press elevates Diana to the status of an icon.
“Born a Lady. Became our Princess. Died a Saint,” writes the Daily Mirror.
The popular fervor grows. At Saint James’s Palace, where Diana’s body is taken, it takes eleven hours to reach condolence books.
“The vision of the bouquets of flowers is amazing: a veritable sea, almost a hundred meters long,” AFP writes.
The organization of the funeral proves complex.
Since her divorce Diana is no longer known as “Her Royal Highness” and does not have the right to a state funeral, although she still had the title of princess.
But Britons call for a tribute worthy of their “queen of hearts.”
Anger mounts at the silence of the royal family, still holed up in Balmoral.
Newspapers, furious that the Union Jack flag is not flying at half-mast over Buckingham Palace, call on the Queen to address her subjects.
The Sun tabloid asks : “Where is our Queen ? Where is our flag ?” It says not flying the flag is a “stark insult to Diana’s memory .”
The Queen decides on September 5 to pay homage to her former daughter-in-law, whom she did not like, in a televised speech for only the second time in her reign. She then publicly bows before Diana’s coffin.
“If they (the royals) fail to heed her lesson, they will bury not just Diana on Saturday — but their future too,” The Guardian broadsheet warns, as nearly a quarter of Britons call for the abolition of the monarchy in a poll.
The next day, nearly a million people watch as the funeral procession passes in a deep silence punctuated by sobs and tolling bells.
Their heads bowed, the two princes follow the coffin, accompanied by Prince Charles, the Duke of Edinburgh and her brother Earl Spencer, under the eyes of 2.5 billion television viewers around the world.
At Westminster Abbey, 2,000 invitees, including US First Lady Hillary Clinton, Blair, opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US film star Tom Cruise attend the ceremony.
Elton John adapts his song “Candle in the Wind,” rewriting the lyrics in homage to Diana.
In the afternoon, the princess is buried discreetly on a small island at Althorp, Diana’s ancestral home.
Diana’s death: Week of grief shakes the monarchy
Diana’s death: Week of grief shakes the monarchy
Incoming: The biggest movies due out before summer 2026
- From Baby Yoda’s big-screen debut to the return of Miranda Priestly, here are some of the biggest films heading our way in the next few months
‘Project Hail Mary’
Directors: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller, Lionel Boyce
Due out: March
MGM paid a reported $3 million to acquire the rights to this 2021 sci-fi novel by Andy Weir (author of “The Martian”), which has now been adapted for this blockbuster starring Gosling as Dr. Ryland Grace. Grace wakes up on a spacecraft with no memory of who he is or why he’s there. He gradually works out that he’s the sole survivor of a crew sent to the Tau Ceti solar system hoping to find a way to fix the results of a “catastrophic event” on Earth. Fortunately, it turns out Grace is kind of a science genius. Equally fortunately, it turns out he may not have to save the world all on his own.
‘Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die’
Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Pena
Due out: January
After its premiere at Fantastic Fest last year, Variety described Verbinski’s sci-fi action comedy as “an unapologetically irreverent, wildly inventive, end-is-nigh take on the time-loop movie” with a “hyper-referential script … full of inside jokes for gamers.” The guy stuck in that time loop is Rockwell’s man from the future, who’s on his 118th attempt to save the world from a rogue artificial intelligence. To do so, he needs to convince just the right mix of misfits from the late-night patrons of a diner in Los Angeles to undertake what could well be a suicide mission.
‘Wuthering Heights’
Director: Emerald Fennell
Starring: Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi, Hong Chau
Due out: February
Fennell’s latest feature is billed as a “loose adaptation” of Emily Bronte’s 1847 Gothic classic —the story of the ill-fated passion shared between the well-to-do Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a young man of low social standing and uncertain ethnic origins, in the moorlands of Yorkshire in northern England. Warner Bros. are playing up the love-story side of Bronte’s layered and often troubling novel, setting a Valentine’s week release.
‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’
Director: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
Voice cast: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day
Due out: April
Critics were not especially kind to 2023’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” but that certainly didn’t dissuade audiences, who made it the second-highest grossing film of that year, behind only “Barbie.” With the same team returning to helm and voice the movie (with the additions of Benny Safdie and Brie Larson to the cast), chances are that “Galaxy” will have much the same reaction from the two groups as the eponymous Brooklyn plumber and his brother Luigi head into outer space with Princess Peach and Toad to take on Bowser’s son, Bowser Jr (Safdie).
‘Michael’
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Jaafar Jackson, Nia Long, Miles Teller
Due out: April
The biggest biopic of the year will likely be this feature about one of the most culturally significant music stars in history, Michael Jackson — aka The King of Pop. It depicts his journey from child star in the Jackson 5 to global superstar in the Eighties, and reportedly does not whitewash the allegations of child sexual abuse that dogged the singer for years (with producer Graham King saying he wanted to “humanize but not sanitize” Jackson’s story) — although Michael’s own daughter, Paris, has described the script as “sugar-coated” and “dishonest.”
‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’
Director: David Frankel
Starring: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt
Due out: May
With all the original stars returning (despite the reported initial reluctance of Streep and Hathaway to do so) along with the director and main producer, this sequel to the acclaimed 2006 comedy drama about aspiring journalist Andrea “Andy” Sachs (Hathaway), who lands a job as PA to an absolute nightmare of a fashion-magazine editor — Miranda Priestly (Streep) should be a guaranteed hit. If it sticks to the story of Lauren Weisberger’s “Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns,” then we’ll find that Andy, a decade on, is now herself the editor of a bridal magazine and planning her own wedding. But she’s still haunted by her experiences with Miranda.
‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’
Director: Jon Favreau
Starring: Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, Jeremy Allen White
Due out: May
The latest feature from the “Star Wars” franchise builds on one of its most successful TV spinoffs, “The Mandalorian.” It sees bounty hunter Din Djarin (aka The Mandalorian) and his one-time target-turned-adoptive son Grogu — the Force-sensitive infant from the same species as the Jedi master Yoda — enlisted by the New Republic to help them combat the remaining Imperial warlords threatening the galaxy after the collapse of the Galactic Empire.
