Princess Diana Secretly Drove Around London at Night for This Heartbreaking Reason
Princess Diana in Washington, D.C. in October 1990.Credit: GettyThe Gist
Diana would secretly drive around London at night, in part to see how “the homeless were coping,” according to Dickie Arbiter.
Arbiter, Queen Elizabeth’s press spokesperson from 1988 to 2000, also worked closely with Princess Diana.
Diana’s trips were also driven by “boredom” and being “very lonely,” he said.
Though she was arguably the most famous woman in the world during her lifetime, Princess Diana was often lonely and bored at her Kensington Palace home, according to Dickie Arbiter, who served as Queen Elizabeth’s press spokesperson from 1988 to 2000.
Arbiter, who worked closely with the former Princess of Wales, told The Daily Mail’s “Palace Confidential” that at night, Diana would secretly drive around London alone to see how “the homeless were coping.” Homelessness was a major tenet of her royal work, and her son Prince William has taken up the mantle in his own royal life.
Princess Diana on October 15, 1994.Credit: Getty
The palace aide said that the princess felt her nighttime trips were “something she had to do,” and added they were also driven by being “very lonely” and by “boredom.”
“All she had was a telephone to phone friends,” he said. “Her friends were reluctant to go through the security hoops [to see her at Kensington Palace]. She had to give security her friends’ names, addresses, car numbers, what time they were coming, and when they were leaving. It was a bit of a rigmarole.”
Arbiter added that Diana “entertained people at lunch, but she didn’t entertain at dinner, so she was always desperate to find things to do. She would try to escape, telling her protection officer, ‘I’m not going anywhere tonight. You can have the night off.’”
Princess Diana on October 8, 1996.Credit: Getty
“Lo and behold, the car would come anyway, and she’d drive around Paddington,” he continued. “Not just to hand money to sex workers, but to drive past and see how the homeless were coping.” Doing so “was something she felt she had to do, but it was also something that she was doing out of boredom,” Arbiter said.
Arbiter is the author of the new book On Duty With the Royals: The Inside Story of the Modern Monarchy and worked with Diana and Prince Charles through their 1992 separation, 1996 divorce. He was also in charge of media operations for Diana’s funeral in 1997 following her death at just 36 years old.
Dickie Arbiter and Princess Diana on April 27, 1990.Credit: Getty
Arbiter also gave his opinion on Diana’s brother Charles Spencer’s book Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, calling the memoir “long on him and short on factual accuracy.” Specifically regarding Spencer’s portrayal of Charles, then the Prince of Wales, Arbiter said he “does not recognize” the man Spencer described. Arbiter worked closely with the then-Prince of Wales after Diana’s death and said, “It’s just not in Charles’s DNA to be the sort of person Spencer is portraying.”
“I saw him the day Diana returned, which was hours after she had died,” he remembered. “He got off that plane, and I don’t think I’d ever seen him that distraught since the death of his great uncle, Lord Mountbatten [in 1979]. The man was a wreck. So for Spencer to suggest that he was like somebody who had won the lottery is just make believe. It’s la la land.”
He added, “I was there in the forefront. I was in charge of all media operations. There were things in [Swan Song] where I thought, ‘Where did he get this from?’”
Charles Spencer, Prince Harry, Prince William, and Prince Charles at Princess Diana’s funeral.Credit: Getty
Spencer spoke to veteran journalist Katie Couric for her “Next Question With Katie Couric” podcast, and the former Today anchor backed up Arbiter’s claims that the princess was often lonely at home. Couric met Diana in Chicago in 1996, and told her that she must be exhausted after “traveling all over the country,” Couric said. “I don’t know how many cities she was going to, but you know, just exhausting, shaking hands, making small talk, meeting person after person after person. I said, ‘You must be so excited to go home.’”
Princess Diana in Chicago in 1996.
By 1996, Charles and Diana had separated, so her sons William and Prince Harry were not with her all the time. “And she kind of looked at me and said, ‘Yes, but I’ll be going home to an empty house,’” Couric added.
on InStyle
Source: Entertainment
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