The Real Story Behind Those Photos of Princess Diana in a Philadelphia Eagles Jacket
If you’re a Princess Diana fan or a Philadelphia Eagles fan, chances are you’ve likely seen pictures of the late royal sporting a jacket with the NFL team‘s logo.
Photos have been shared on social media over the years of the princess wearing the coat on a few occasions. So was she a big Eagles fan? Well, not exactly. For anyone who hasn’t heard the story behind those photos of Princess Diana wearing the throwback Birds jacket before it’s worth repeating.
When Princess Diana started rocking the Philadelphia Eagles jacket
Although Princess Diana didn’t know much at all about American football and had never been to an Eagles game in her life, she did rock the team’s colors numerous times.
The first time fans saw the then-Princess of Wales in the kelly green jacket was in January 1991 when she was pictured with it on while dropping her youngest son, Prince Harry, off at the Wetherby School in London. She also wore it during an outing at Alton Towers Theme Park in Staffordshire, England with her children, and when she graced the cover of a magazine in 1994.
So where did she get that Eagles bomber she wore those times?
What Grace Kelly had to do with Diana’s bomber jacket
Princess Diana met a man named Jack Edelstein in 1982 at the funeral of Philadelphia native Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Edelstein, who was friends with Grace Kelly’s brother Jack and worked as a statistician for the Eagles at the time, got to talking with Diana and learned that she liked the colors green and silver which are the football team’s colors.
NBC Sports Philadelphia reported that Diana was “sort of charmed by the Eagles logo. She thought the Eagle in flight was a graceful looking logo … Jack decided to send her a nice gift with the Eagles logo on it. So he sent her one of those really handsome jackets with the logo.”
Diana wore the coat when she was on the cover of People magazine
In June 1994, Diana graced the cover of People Magazine smiling brightly in the now-iconic jacket. While Diana wore the coat a number of times as NBC Sports Philadelphia noted, “the photo of her wearing it [that] wound up on the cover of People magazine totally came out of the blue” and “that Eagles jacket became a very hot fashion item. Not just in Philadelphia but all over the place.”
Three years after she was on the cover in Eagles gear, Princess Diana died following a car accident in Paris. To this day no one knows what happened to the jacket but some believe it is still in either Prince William or Prince Harry’s possession.
