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LONDON – More than two decades after her death in a car crash shocked the world, British Princess Diana is back in the papers.
As season four of the hit series “The Crown” debuts this weekend with his character for the first time, questions have also arisen about how the BBC secured a landmark interview with the royal there. At 25 years.
Nicknamed the ‘People’s Princess,’ Lady Diana Spencer as she was called before her marriage to Prince Charles, mesmerized millions as she rose from an anonymous aristocratic teenager to an icon – almost overnight.
Released on Sunday, “The Crown” follows the British royal family of the 1970s as a “suitable” bride for heir to the throne is sought to save the estate, before the fairy-tale union spirals out of control.
“Princess Diana was an icon, and her effect on the world remains profound and inspiring,” British actress Emma Corrin, who plays the royal, said in a statement.
The royal family seemed “complicated” because the human need to “feel fulfilled and to feel loved” often “jars” with the demands of being a royal, Corrins said in a separate interview with NBC News.
The Netflix show also features Queen Elizabeth II, the formidable matriarch played by Olivia Colman interacting with the first female British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, played by Gillian Anderson.
Kristina Lee, a teacher from North Carolina, has been drawn to Diana’s “kindness” and “magic” and is eagerly awaiting the portrayal of the princess on the show.
“She opened up the British monarchy in a way that I think no one else could have,” she told NBC News.
Lee now runs a Facebook group for ardent “The Crown” fans, where they recall and dissect episodes. Despite the passage of time, Lee said she believed that “the majority of people still have empathy for Diana and her plight.”
She said one of her “best memories” was staying up late to watch the royal wedding in 1981. Years later, she was glued to the screen again when news of Diana’s death broke. in France.
“I remember what I was wearing, what I was doing… I cried like a member of my family died,” she says.
Two years before Diana’s death in 1997 in a car crash in a tunnel in Paris, she shocked the nation by sharing details of her unhappy marriage in a BBC interview, telling host Martin Bashir that “we There were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded “- a reference to Charles rekindling his relationship with his now second wife Camilla.
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Watched by more than 20 million viewers in the UK, the interview came under close scrutiny again this week after a new documentary, “Diana’s Interview: A Princess’s Revenge,” claimed that Bashir had used dishonest tactics to gain the Princess’s trust.
He claimed that Bashir, currently the BBC’s religion editor after working for a while at ABC News and MSNBC, had a graphic designer create fake bank statements, which he allegedly used to convince Diana that royal employees were paid to spy on him.
Diana’s brother Charles Spencer demanded an apology from the BBC and an independent investigation into how Bashir got the interview with his sister.
“This interview was fundamental, it was so important because it was the first time Diana had expressed feelings about her royal life and marriage … it was always going to be sensational, explosive and eye-catching,” said royal commentator Camilla Tominey. NBC News.
Although the BBC advertised Bashir’s interview as the “journalistic triumph of the century,” it led Diana to become “alienated from a very large number of close friends, staff,” she said. added.
An internal BBC investigation at the time of the original show concluded that Bashir had not coerced Diana into giving the interview and that he had not spoken publicly since the last statements.
He is currently recovering from heart surgery and complications from Covid-19, the BBC said in a statement.
“The BBC takes this very seriously and we want to find out the truth,” said Managing Director Tim Davie. “We are in the process of commissioning a solid and independent investigation.”
The broadcaster also recovered “the princess’s original handwritten note which is mentioned in our archives at the time,” a BBC spokesperson told NBC News on Saturday. The content of the note has not been outlined but will be forwarded “to the independent investigation,” he added.
Fans like Lee, however, are concerned that the lessons about the press intrusion of Diana’s death, which many attribute to paparazzi photographers, have not been heard.
She said a new generation of royals, including Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, were being stalked by the media.
Adding that she wished Diana’s life “hadn’t ended the way she did”.
“Her memory will always be paramount in my life,” she says.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Keir Simmons, Michele Neubert and Sarah Harman contributed.
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