The Sad ‘Problem’ Princess Diana Really Believed She Had
Princess Diana was known as the “People’s Princess” and she earned that title well. She was extremely caring and empathetic. She devoted huge amounts of time to charity and humanitarian work. The world already knows how it all played out. Princess Diana was a fresh-faced youth looking for love. She thought she had finally found her happy ending with Prince Charles, but it worked out a little differently.
Princess Diana’s marriage wasn’t a happy one
Princess Diana’s marriage was anything but happy. She was a woman in search of love and affection and she didn’t find it with Charles. He was busy with his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles or his other activities. Diana suffered immensely and spent many years trying to come to terms with her decision and what her life was going to be like now.
Princess Diana’s sad belief
In a 2017 podcast BBC 5 Live series, Images of Diana, Natasha Kaplinsky, a journalist, recalls how the Princess initially confessed a sad belief she had that surrounded her life and happiness, including her marriage.
In a 2012 BBC interview with Rosa Monckton, she said Princess Diana told her, “My problem is when people get to know me, they don’t love me anymore.” Monckton was on a holiday with Princess Diana when she confessed the information to her.
Diana had reasons behind her bold statement that she laid out for Monckton. “First of all, my mother left me, then my father left me essentially when he married again and then my husband left me,” Diana revealed to Monckton. “And then I go out onto the streets and people I’ve never met say that they love me.”
Princess Diana was clearly unaware of exactly why the common people loved her so much. She was just like them in so many ways. A friend said of Diana’s belief, “That was a very difficult way for her to live her life.”
Princess Diana went on a vacation a few weeks before her death
Diana and Monckton went on a little holiday together to Greece shortly before her death. “On 15 August, the two of us went away to Greece for six days on a tiny little boat. And it was really a perfect holiday,” she recalled.
“And for once nobody found her because we were on such a tiny little boat and every evening the captain would look at the news and he would see ten helicopters everybody looking for her, huge boats everywhere and we would go somewhere else,” said Monckton.
What did Princess Diana do on her vacation away from the spotlight? What any normal person would do. She had fun, “swimming, talking and puntering around the little islands, reading, sleeping, eating and drinking,” according to Monckton. The relaxing time came just weeks before Diana’s death in a tragic car accident on August 31, 1997.
Diana found solace in helping other people
Despite her belief that no one loved her once they got to know her, she channeled her energy into her charities, and even at one time was a patron over 100 of them. She made positive changes with her visits to homeless shelters and hospitals with AIDS patients. She helped change the stigma surrounding AIDS during a time when people were still unsure about how it was transferred. Diana shocked the world and changed it forever when she shook the hand of an AIDS patient. She felt most at home around the less fortunate and she channeled her energies into good works.
It’s hard to believe that a woman beloved by millions felt unloved. It’s clear she was wrong in her assessment because the world has gotten to know her and loves her even more than she will ever know.
