A Conversation about Princess Diana from The Royal Forums - a blog about mammals who sometimes - or may eventually wear crowns and other royal garb: SH: If your opinion of Diana has changed over the years, when did you start changing your opinion? Do you remember what caused it?
BF: Well, when Diana died I was quite young but I remember it vividly. My great grandmother died on the 1st September and Diana died on the 31 August and I thought the people crying in the streets were crying for my nan. I remember my mother taking my sister and I to Kensington Palace and we put roses down but I had no idea who the woman was I supposed to be remembering because I didn't really know who Diana was. I knew who the Queen was because my other nan had a picture of her on the wall and I was always told I had to respect her because she was my better. Etc etc. So, I didn't have an opinion of Diana until I reached my teens and I was confronted with her as a member of the Royal Family. I decided that Diana had damaged the monarchy so badly that it had put the Queen in an impossible situation. Any afront to her was beyond forgiveness and so I was vehemently against Diana from the start. I adore Camilla, for some reason I always have, and I felt that one had to choose a camp to be in.
During this inquest, alot of the real Diana has been allowed to come through and so now, I don't hate her, I respect her and I'm happy to accept that she was a member of our Royal Family who like the rest of the firm, had her good and bad points. So I haven't turned into a loon with a Di obsession but I do feel that I was wrong to be so anti-Diana when there's really no need to be. Diana was Diana. Simple.
KJ:'m like you BeatrixFan, I was too little when she died to know who she was. Around my teens, I learned more about her, mostly because of her charities. My opinion never really changed about her, I've always kept the image of a troubled princess who helped people, the image of a woman with 2 sides. In spite of what I've learned about the bad she has done, I can't hate her.
FG: I agree with BeatrixFan on this point. My opinion about Princess Diana has not changed since I have never belonged to any camps. I liked late Princess Diana for her sense of style and ability to choose outfits that would enhance her look. From my Asian perspective, she did her duty as Crown Princess and secured the bloodline. However, I have to admit, Princess Diana did lack sophistication, when it came to revenge.
RJ:I guess I'm an old fart around here () as I was a teenager when Diana first came on the scene and I truly idolized her and felt she could do no wrong. I think a lot of it had to do with my age and getting caught up in the whole "fairy princess" story. As I got older I was able to look at things with more clarity and maturity. My opinion about Diana changed a bit around the time the Morton book came out. I was really shocked to read some of the things that Diana had done (pushing her stepmother down the stairs, etc.). It was really shocking to me that my idol from my teenage years could do something so cruel. I will always love Diana but now I view her as a real person rather than the perfect princess that I always thought she was. She was a good person that had lots of problems and was not very nice at times in her life. She was a real person, just like the rest of us, with imperfections as well as many good qualities.
KL: I chose the Squidgygate revelations. It was that which caused me to have an opinion of her at all. Prior to that, being an active follower of the royal family for 23 years before she appeared on the scene, I of course knew much about her but was much more interested in other members of the family and didn't pay much attention to her activities. So, the situation was that I didn't dislike her nor did I like her; I just never thought about it; she was pretty much off my radar. However, finding out from the tapes that she complained "After all I've done for this f*****g family..." made me think about her differently. I found that so self-centered and arrogant. I still think so. In addition, though, paying more attention to things about her over the years have added to my knowledge and opinions so that I do acknowledge the more attractive things she said and did. The opinion about being self-centered hasn't changed, though. I feel that the sadness of her life and situation was that, however appealing she was to many of the public and the media, she was unsuited to fulfill a role within the royal family and the monarchy.