princess diana and dodi yacht kiss

'The Crown' season 6 recreates famous photographs of Princess Diana, Dodi Fayed, and King Charles. Here is how they compare to the real photos.

• "The Crown" season six recreates the first public photos of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed kissing.
• It also recreates snaps from King Charles' photo shoot with his sons, Princes William and Harry.
• Here is how the drama's recreations compare to the real photos.

"The Crown" is back for a sixth and final season.

The first four episodes focus on the final months of Princess Diana's life as she begins dating Dodi Fayed, with whom she died in a tragic car crash in Paris in August 1997.

The second episode of season six, "Two Photographs," contrasts two key moments that took place in the summer of 1997.

The first is the media frenzy that ensued when the UK's Sunday Mirror newspaper published the first photos of Diana and Dodi kissing on a yacht in Sardinia.

The second is a photo shoot depicting Prince Charles and his sons, Princes William and Harry , having a much more subdued vacation at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.

Here's how "The Crown" depicts the moments — and what they looked like in real life.

On August 10, 1997, the UK's Sunday Mirror published the very first photograph of Diana and Dodi kissing on its front page. The headline? "The Kiss."

The photographs of Diana and Dodi were taken by Italian photographer Mario Brenna.

The Sunday Mirror published a 10-page spread of Brenna's photos, which it called "the most sensational pictures ever."

Under the headline was the text: "Now Dodi flies off to buy an engagement ring for Diana."

Here's how the front page was faithfully recreated in "The Crown."

In the show, a teenage Prince William (Rufus Kampa) is shown covertly reading the newspaper in his room, which causes him to grow concerned about his mother's relationship with Dodi.

Viewers also see the moment Diana and Dodi share the kiss, not realizing that a photographer is nearby.

After the explosive Diana photos were published, King Charles took part in a photo shoot with Princes William and Harry at Balmoral on August 12, 1997.

In "The Crown," the photo shoot is depicted as a response to the photos of Diana and Dodi in an effort to show Charles in a more sympathetic light to the British public.

Here's how the photo shoot is recreated in the show.

In "The Crown," Charles' aides hire the mild-mannered Scottish photographer Duncan Muir to take the photos. However, it appears that the character was invented for the purposes of the series.

In truth, the photo shoot, which took place during the royals' annual vacation to Balmoral, was attended by a number of Fleet Street photographers, per The Telegraph .

Princes William and Harry did indeed skip stones across the water, as shown in "The Crown."

And here they are with their pet dog.

"The Crown" takes some creative license when it comes to depicting how British newspapers ran these photos.

Charles' jaunt with his two sons is shown dominating the front pages of British newspapers — but this never happened.

In the show, the photo of the princes appears on the front page of The Mirror the day after they're released as a "royal world picture exclusive."

In reality, the photos didn't make such a splash that day. Instead, a story about Diana took the prime spot.

"Di and Dodi fly to psychic Rita," the front page of The Mirror read on August 13, 1997.

The pictures of the princes were featured in the newspaper but on pages eight and nine , showing that the tame photoshoot was no match for the public's appetite for updates about Dodi and Diana's romance.

Likewise, The Daily Record didn't feature the photos on the front page. Its coverage also noted how "embarrassed" William and Harry looked.

The Daily Record ran the photos on page five, instead choosing to dedicate the front page to a story that interested readers more: dustmen who had gone on strike to support a colleague accused of hitting a love rival with a wheelie bin.

The newspaper also commented on how William and Harry looked in the photos, with a subheading that read: "Young princes look embarrassed by dad's Harry Lauder image," per the British Newspaper Archive.

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.

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The true story behind Princess Diana's iconic yacht photo

All you need to know about the iconic photo of the late princess of wales that went around the globe.

Princess Diana was always a fashion icon , we can never forget her legendary 'revenge' dress , but one of her best-known looks was snapped when she holidayed on the Jonikal yacht with the al-Fayed family, scenes which were immortalised in the fifth and sixth seasons of The Crown .

The holiday that Diana enjoyed, alongside sons Prince William and Prince Harry , would be her last before she was tragically killed in a car accident in 1997. One of the most memorable photos saw the late Princess of Wales sat on the yacht's diving board looking out over the sea.

Even though the photo of Diana in the teal swimsuit is now one of the most poignant photos of the late royal, how much do you know of the story behind it? Read on to find out all you need to know…

Why was Diana on the yacht?

Princess Diana had become friends with the businessman Mohamed al-Fayed, with the pair reportedly meeting a polo match before becoming friends. Following her divorce from the then Prince Charles and the ending of her relationship with heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan, Mohamed invited Diana to join him and his family on a trip to St Tropez, in southern France.

Ahead of the trip, Diana had been in Milan to attend the funeral of fashion designer and friend Gianna Versace, who had been murdered by Andrew Cunanan. The late royal later travelled to Sarajevo, in Bosnia, to highlight the issue of landmines in the country. During her time in the city, she met with people who had been injured by the mines.

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The trip would end up being Diana's first time meeting Dodi al-Fayed, and the filmmaker's then-girlfriend, Kelly Fisher, was allegedly on the trip.

Who took the photo?

On 10 August, paparazzi photos were published in the Sunday Mirror showing Princess Diana and Dodi sharing a kiss, which intensified media presence around the couple and their holiday. Paparazzi photographers began renting dinghies to try and get new photos of the royal, with some even going for prices up to £1million.

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It's ultimately unknown which photographer grabbed the photo of Diana on the side of the yacht, which was published on 24 August, a week before Diana died. The snap saw the Princess in her teal swimsuit sat at the end of the yacht's diving board, with a life ring floating in the water beneath her.

See below for more images of Diana on the Jonikal…

Diana and Dodi

Diana and Dodi grew close on the trip, and in this photo the pair shared an intimate moment as they relaxed in the sun together.

Diana with the al-Fayed family

The late Princess of Wales had been invited on the trip by Mohamed al-Fayed, and she enjoyed the businessman's company during her time onboard.

Diana in blue

Diana favoured the teal swimsuit during her time in St Tropez.

Diana's paparazzi moment

The royal was aware of the media presence, and she light-heartedly teased photographers in this photo, mimicking a pair of binoculars with her hands.

Diana stretches

The mum-of-two also brought this stunning green and blue one-piece with her on the trip, and in this photo she enjoyed some morning stretches on the yacht's deck.

Diana's family moment

Diana didn't go on the holiday alone, and she also enjoyed time with her sons Prince William and Prince Harry, and a young Harry can be seen here with his mum while she spoke to someone on the phone.

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The True Story Behind 'The Crown’s Infamous Kiss Photograph

Princess Diana became the most photographed woman in the world after "The Kiss."

Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Season 6 of The Crown.

The Big Picture

• Princess Diana's life was constantly invaded by the paparazzi, who followed her every movement and turned her personal relationships into a public spectacle.
• Mario Brenna's photograph of Diana and Dodi Fayed sharing an intimate moment on a yacht sparked a frenzy in the press and fueled a relentless pursuit for their pictures.
• The paparazzi's obsession with capturing Diana's image ultimately contributed to her tragic death in a car crash, and "The Kiss" photograph played a significant role in these events.

Since the imminent rise of paparazzi culture during the 1990s, candid photographs of celebrities have always held a negative stigma, especially after the tragic death of Princess Diana ( Elizabeth Debicki ). Part 1 of The Crown 's final season, streaming on Netflix, has a major focus on the summer of 1997, when the recently divorced Princess of Wales became the prized jewel of a media frenzy. Without the personal security of the Royal Family, Diana was not afforded the kind of privacy she was given during her marriage to Prince Charles ( Dominic West ). Her every movement was followed through long-lens cameras ( Diana reportedly yelled at a photographer outside a movie theater in London and shouted, “You make my life hell!" ), and the press made her life into a scrutinized fishbowl — even her personal relationships were not her own.

Episode 2, "Two Photographs," revisits the paparazzi's ruthless pursuit of Princess Diana's picture. The start of the show introduces the audience to a real-life character who was responsible for capturing the infamous Sunday Mirror photograph, Italian paparazzo Mario Brenna . The photograph shows "Di" and Dodi Fayed ( Khalid Abdalla ) sharing an intimate moment aboard a yacht on the Mediterranean Sea. Although the latest season of The Crown is a dramatized account of these events , it's no secret that Brenna's successful photograph is shown to have preluded Diana's deathly car chase less than a month later. But there's so much more to the story behind "The Kiss."

Follows the political rivalries and romance of Queen Elizabeth II's reign and the events that shaped the second half of the 20th century.

What's the Truth Behind Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed's Romance?

On July 11, 1997, Diana and her sons, Prince William ( Rufus Kampas ) and Prince Harry ( Fflyn Edwards ), were kindly invited to join Mohamed Al-Fayed ( Salim Daw ), the business owner of Hôtel Ritz Paris and Harrods department store, at his Saint Tropez villa for a summer vacation. Dodi Fayed unexpectedly joined the party aboard Al-Fayed's yacht t he Jonikal, which becomes an integral character of its own seen in the final season of The Crown . Di, Dodi, and the Princes were said to have enjoyed a splendid time aboard the yacht, and Diana and Dodi grew fond of one another during this period.

According to Netflix's Beneath The Crown: The True Story of Diana and Dodi's Last Summer , both Princess Diana and Dodi were involved with other romantic partners before they met. Diana was reportedly dating heart surgeon Hasnat Khan ( Humayun Saeed ), whom she often referred to as "Mr. Wonderful," and clearly had big plans for their future . In the summer of 1997, Dr. Khan was rumored to have broken up with the Princess because of the consistent media attention surrounding them. On the other hand, Dodi, being a successful film producer , had a reputation as a playboy and was seen dating multiple A-list women over the course of his Hollywood career, including actress Brooke Shields, before meeting model Kelly Fisher, whom he was engaged to at the time he met the Princess of Wales.

After the vacation, Diana returned home to an apartment full of roses and an $11,000 gold Cartier watch as a present from Dodi. Diana's friends believe she developed an interest in dating Dodi to make Dr. Khan jealous . Just 11 days later, the Princess returned alone to the Jonikal and embarked on a week-long trip with Al-Fayed's son. The media went crazy, with rumors spreading of a possible romance. Most of the press coverage was heavily negative, which sparked numerous amounts of controversy around the pair. Photographers rose in numbers as the couple's relationship grew truer every day. Per Beneath The Crown , it surfaced that Mohamed Al-Fayed asked renowned publicist Max Clifford to positively endorse their relationship. Photographers were then tipped off to find Diana and Dodi's location, and on August 10, Mario Brenna found them first.

How Did Mario Brenna's "The Kiss" Change Princess Diana's Life Forever?

Per The Independent , Mario Brenna was an official photographer for the Versace fashion house who lived in Monaco in 1997. Brenna happened to discover the yacht on an inflatable boat off of the Sardinian coast (He claims he spent occasional summers around the Mediterranean Sea to catch celebrities vacationing, as stated in the National Post .) He slowly approached the Jonikal when he thought he had seen a former acquaintance. To his shock, it was actually the "People's Princess" in the arms of Dodi Fayed. Captured from 500 yards away, Brenna hurriedly snapped photos of the couple "kissing" onboard and flew straight to London to show fellow celebrity photographer Jason Fraser the historic images.

Brenna recounts finding the couple that day as a “great stroke of luck." Despite the summer haze, the photograph sparked a chaotic bidding war between major publishing companies. Brenna ultimately sold "The Kiss" to the Sunday Mirror for £250,000 . The Sun and The Daily additionally paid him £100,000 each. Fraser, who helped in negotiating the deals, sold the rights internationally, which brought their earnings to over $2.1 million in global sales.

Following Brenna's phenomenon, "The Kiss" fueled an all-out paparazzi hunt for Princess Diana and Dodi's picture. Everywhere they traveled, the paparazzi hounded the couple, with no respect for their privacy. If Brenna could make a fortune out of one photo, other photographers had a chance to do the same. Diana participated in several humanitarian works following the picture, including becoming an advocate for landmine removals in developing countries. However, her efforts were regularly overlooked by her affair with Dodi. The couple also received racist backlash after "The Kiss," with most comments disapproving of Dodi's ethnicity as depicted in The Crown .

Swarms of press, even helicopters, surrounded the yacht in which Dodi and Diana often stayed. As stated in Beneath The Crown, Dodi had encouraged Diana to dabble in Hollywood acting, with talks to co-star alongside Kevin Costner in a sequel to the box-office hit The Bodyguard . These dreams would never come to fruition. On August 31, 1997, Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed were declared dead following a car crash through a tunnel at Place de l’Alma in Paris, France . There are countless conspiracies revolving around their deaths, but it was undeniable that their car was mercilessly tailed by a pack of paparazzi who wanted to snap the couple's picture. Mario Brenna confesses to The New York Times that he couldn't help but think "The Kiss" triggered the horrifying events that led to the death of Princess Diana: "If it hadn’t been me, someone else would certainly have captured those images."

What Does 'The Crown' Get Right and Wrong About "The Kiss"?

The Crown is no stranger to negative criticism when it comes to dramatizing the lives of the Royal Family. Aside from a few historical flaws, Episode 2, "Two Photographs", surprisingly does an adequate job of re-imagining the events that made Princess Diana one of the most photographed persons of all time. What the show changes is Prince Charles's reaction to seeing the picture in the Sunday Mirror. The episode depicts Charles hiring Scottish photographer Duncan Muir, a fictionalized character, to take pictures of him with William and Harry as a ploy to outshine the publicity from Diana's controversial photo. It is later revealed that the Scotland photoshoot dominated the front pages of The Mirror and The Daily Record, but this didn't happen.

According to Business Insider , on August 12, 1997, the young Princes and their father participated in a photo shoot at the royals' annual vacation at Balmoral. A handful of photographers snapped the photos, not one, and the images were featured only on pages eight, nine, and five of the respective newspapers. The failed Scotland pics were still overshadowed by the public's fascination with "The Kiss," and the press made rather unfavorable remarks with subheadings like: "Young princes look embarrassed by dad's Harry Lauder image."

"Two Photographs" also mixes up some facts regarding how Dodi started courting the "People's Princess." In the show, Mohamed Al-Fayed acts as a matchmaker for the couple, endlessly pressuring Dodi to flirt with the Princess in order to prove he is worthy of inheriting his father's wealth. Dodi seems stressed about making a connection with Diana during her vacation onboard the yacht as he is engaged to Kelly Fisher (a fact that is accurate). When the couple does become more intimate, The Crown implies that Al-Fayed tipped off Mario Brenna as to their whereabouts, but Brenna claimed the misconception that Al-Fayed hired him to take "The Kiss" was "absurd and completely invented."

What the final season does right in Part 1 is the portrayal of Diana and Dodi's romantic affair and the paparazzi's relentless invasion of their private lives. Di and Dodi briefly dated for a little over a month, and their relationship was always under the microscope. As shown in The Crown , the pair did develop fond feelings for one another, and a rumored engagement as well, but the press could only imagine what their true relationship entailed. History has proven that Diana was nothing but a cash grab to the paparazzi who sought her out only in hopes of making a fortune overnight. Once she and Dodi became the eye of the world, the media never respected her space, time, or family when it came to capturing "the shot." The Crown ultimately does not sugarcoat the brutal paparazzi culture that led to Princess Diana's final moments .

Per the National Post, Brenna admitted that The Crown never made an effort to contact him about the true story of how he captured "The Kiss" or his feelings following the doomed aftermath. Furthermore, he told the Times he does not agree with how he or the paparazzi are represented in the final season. "Two Photographs," despite its blemishes, urges fans to acknowledge the prestigious drama as a fictionalized chronicle and acts as a time machine to reflect on the unfortunate events that shocked the world into a bitter period of grief. If "The Kiss" was never captured, would the "People's Princess" still be here today?

The Crown is available to stream exclusively on Netflix in the U.S.

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‘The Crown’: Behind the Photo of an Embrace That Changed Princess Diana’s Life

In the show, Mohamed al-Fayed sends the photographer Mario Brenna to capture shots of Diana and al-Fayed’s son, Dodi, on vacation. The portrayal is inaccurate, Brenna says.

By Alex Marshall

Reporting from London

It’s summer 1997, and Princess Diana is flirting with Dodi Fayed, a globe-trotting playboy, on the Jonikal, a yacht floating on sparkling Mediterranean waters.

Diana, teasingly, says that she likes men who have lips that are “just the right temperature.”

“Are mine the right temperature?” Dodi replies.

“I don’t know,” Diana says: “Need to check.” Then, the couple kiss, blissfully unaware that just a few meters away, Mario Brenna, a slick Italian photographer, is on a boat, with a long-lens camera trained on the couple.

A few days later, Brenna’s shots of the princess and her new beau are on the front pages of newspapers worldwide.

This is a central scene in the sixth and final season of Netflix’s royal drama “The Crown” — the first batch of episodes premiered on Thursday — and a moment that signaled the start of a tabloid frenzy around the couple that many blame for their deaths on Aug. 31, 1997, in a car crash in Paris as they were chased by photographers.

Yet the depiction is far from accurate, according to Brenna, speaking in what he said was his first interview with an English-language newspaper.

For a start, “The Crown” has Mohamed al-Fayed — Dodi’s father, and a retail and hotel tycoon who died this year — appearing to hire Brenna to take the shots, in an effort to push Diana and Dodi’s relationship into the public eye, and cajole the pair to marry.

In an email, Annie Sulzberger, the head of research for the show — she is also the sister of The Times’s publisher, A.G. Sulzberger — said that “there are a few theories about how Brenna managed to find the Jonikal moored somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea,” but the one the team found most credible was that one of al-Fayed’s employees leaked the boat’s location to Brenna.

But Brenna said the idea that al-Fayed hired him was “absurd and completely invented,” and that no one leaked information about the yacht’s whereabouts to him. Every summer at that time, he was in Sardinia so he could take paparazzi shots of famous people, he said, and coming across Diana and Dodi was simply a “great stroke of luck.”

On Aug. 1, 1997, Brenna said he approached Diana’s yacht on a fast moving inflatable boat after mistaking a blonde woman making a telephone call on its upper deck for an old acquaintance. As he got closer, he was stunned to realize it was the princess.

Bruno Malka, Brenna’s agent at the time who helped sell the images to Paris Match magazine, said in an email that he thought Brenna was familiar with the yacht, “without knowing it was Diana and Dodi” onboard that day. Brenna was successful, Malka added, because he had spent so many years working in the region.

After spotting the couple, Brenna said he spent the next few days stalking the boat, including climbing a cliff to get a better view. From that elevated position, about 400 meters away from Diana, he took several photos of Diana and Dodi in an embrace. The shots were almost blurred, Brenna said, because the heat haze meant he struggled to get the pair in focus.

Still, he knew immediately he’d secured “a historic photo.” He’d also captured an image that “solved my personal and family problems,” he said, at a time when he had recently divorced and so “was not swimming in wealth.”

He unloaded the rolls of film from the camera, then buried them to make sure they didn’t get exposed to the sun as he tried to take more images, and also as he feared a competitor might have seen him at work and try to steal his camera and so obtain the images every other photographer in the Mediterranean had been hoping to get first.

On Aug. 10, the Sunday Mirror, a British tabloid, splashed Brenna’s image on its front page . “The Kiss,” the headline read. Soon, Brenna said, he was selling the pictures worldwide. In the following six-to-eight months, he said, he made about 1.7 million pounds, or $2.1 million, from his photos of the couple.

Brenna’s pictures — and the prices news outlets paid for them — sparked a frenzy. In 2013, Jason Fraser, a British photographer who helped Brenna sell his images, told The Daily Mail that after they were published, over 2,000 photographers arrived in the Mediterranean hoping to get their own snaps of Diana and Dodi. “I felt the whole thing was spinning out of control,” Fraser said. Weeks later, the couple died.

In “The Crown,” Brenna (portrayed by Enzo Cilenti) explains his methods to camera. To capture celebrities misbehaving, the fictional Brenna says, you have to take risks. Paparazzi also have to act like “hunters … killers.”

Brenna said in the email interview that he did not share this opinion of his work (“I do not identify with the term ‘killer,’”) and that he was never contacted by anyone from “The Crown” to learn about his experiences (Netflix did not respond to a request for comment).

After Diana and Dodi’s death, al-Fayed sued Fraser, the British photographer, for taking photos of Diana and Dodi on a boat, saying it was an invasion of privacy. Brenna said he did not face any such action, adding his images were legal as they “were taken outdoors, in a public place.” And he regretted the privacy crackdown that happened since, with governments and stars trying to stop the paparazzi from taking photos: “There is still the right to report,” he said.

Today, Brenna lives near Lake Como, in Italy, where he said he’s photographed celebrities including George Clooney, Miley Cyrus and Beyoncé, even as the dawn of social media had impacted his profession significantly, including its financial rewards.

Brenna said he and his family enjoyed the success of the photos throughout August 1997. But then, Diana died. When he heard the news, Brenna said, he “couldn’t believe it” and cried, not least because he had two children himself and so could understand what her death would mean for Diana’s boys. He made a decision “not to speak or disclose anything about the incident until William and Harry reached adulthood.”

The mere thought that his images “could have contributed to fueling the hunt for Diana and Dodi obviously saddens me,” Brenna said. But he did not think his work added significantly to the furor around the princess.

“If it hadn’t been me,” he added, “someone else would certainly have captured those images.”

Alex Marshall is a European culture reporter, based in London. More about Alex Marshall

What Really Happened During Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed’s Vacation?

The Crown depicts her jaunts on Mohamed Al-Fayed’s yacht, the Jonikal, where her romance with Dodi kicked off.

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Diana was invited by Mohamed, a friend and businessman, to vacation in Saint-Tropez with her sons in July 1997. The Harrods owner would also goad his own son to join, too. The invitation came at a good time, after a few rough blows for Diana: Prince Charles was throwing a lavish birthday party for Camilla Parker Bowles at Highgrove, the house he and Diana once shared. And she had just broken up with surgeon Hasnat Khan, due to the media frenzy around their relationship. It was the month before William and Harry would be at Balmoral with their father and the rest of the royals, who no longer accepted her. So off she went, straight to the $20 million yacht that Fayed bought just before the trip to impress her—Tina Brown writes in The Diana Chronicles .

Prince Harry has looked back fondly at that trip, mostly because of the quality time they spent with their mom. “Actually, we’d been with Mummy weeks earlier when she first met him [Dodi], in St. Tropez,” he writes in her memoir Spare , per Today . “We were having a grand time, just the three of us, staying at some old gent’s villa.

“There was much laughter, horseplay, the norm whenever Mummy and Willy and I were together, though even more so on that holiday. Everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven. The weather was sublime, the food was tasty, Mummy was smiling.”

But the cameras followed her, like they always did. The Crown depicts photographers sailing out toward the Jonikal to snap images of the princess sunbathing and swimming in her one-piece. It also shows her approaching the boats filled with paparazzi to forge a deal: She’ll pose for them for a few shots if they’ll leave her and her kids alone.

Part of this is true. The New York Times reported in 1997 that Diana was quite cooperative with the press, at least during the first trip in July: “Three times, on separate occasions, she went out to the sea front and jumped off a small pier into the water, with photographers around her. Then, after leaving for 10 days with Mr. Fayed on the boat trip during which the photographs of the embracing couple were taken, she returned.”

“It was clear enough to all of us that she wanted to show the British establishment she was free,” Frederic Garcia, who photographed Diana on the trip, told the paper at the time. But her and the Al-Fayeds’ exasperation with the media grew after helicopters flew over the boat, according to the NYT .

Perhaps her openness to being photographed was her response to Camilla’s birthday party. “She just wanted to make the people at Balmoral as angry as possible,” her friend, art collector Lord Palumbo, told Brown. Now it wasn’t just a revenge dress; it was a revenge photo shoot with revenge swimsuits on a revenge vacation.

Brown even writes that the biggest photos from the trip, of the princess kissing a shirtless Dodi on the boat, “were the direct result of tips from Diana herself.” After they were published, she called photographer Jason Fraser, who “was in cahoots” with Mario Brenna, who shot the images, to ask why the pictures were so grainy. But she wasn’t the only one working with the press. Mohamed also had a publicist tip gossip columns on her and Dodi’s whereabouts and frame their getaway as a sensational romance, according to Brown.

Meanwhile, Dodi was juggling this burgeoning love story with another one. He was already engaged when he first joined Diana on the boat at his father’s behest in July. His fiancée was Kelly Fisher , an American actress and model, and their wedding was scheduled for the following month, on August 9, 1997. He had even left Fisher in Paris to board the Jonikal in St. Tropez. She joined later but, just as it’s shown in The Crown , she was relegated to a different Al-Fayed boat, where Dodi would visit her at night, Brown writes. Fisher soon caught on. In August, she sued Dodi for breach of contract, and was represented by high-profile lawyer Gloria Allred. But she withdrew the suit after his death.

In Spare , Harry remembered thinking Dodi was “cheeky” but overall was content with the relationship: “As long as Mummy’s happy, I told Willy, who said, he felt the same.” But Brown reported in her 2007 book that Prince William grew concerned. He told friends it was weird that they were on vacation with what seemed like a “substitute family.” When photos of Diana and Dodi on the boat were published, William complained to her that the boys at school would mock him for it.

After doing significant charity work in Bosnia with land mine victims, Diana reconvened with Dodi on the Jonikal in August. “The fact that she came back for a second visit so soon really shows her loneliness more than it does a passion for Dodi,” Dominick Dunne reported for Vanity Fair in 2008. But the privacy—or whatever amount of it that they had—might have appealed to her. “A splendid yacht. A helicopter. A private plane. Guards to keep the paparazzi at bay. She probably knew that she was being used by a social climber for his and his son’s advancement in London society, but in high society it was a fair deal. Each benefited.”

Dodi and Diana’s romance would be short-lived, but he showered her with gifts during their six-week relationship, including a pearl bracelet and diamond wristwatch, according to Vanity Fair . With him, the princess felt “so taken care of,” her confidant Lady Elsa Bowker told Brown. And on top of that, he was a “sympathetic, unthreatening listener,” wrote Tom Bower, author of Mohamed Al-Fayed’s unauthorized biography.

But their relationship probably wasn’t going to be a lasting one. According to Brown, Diana suspected Dodi might propose to her, but told a friend that the ring would go “firmly on the fourth finger of my right hand,” meaning she would not have accepted. Her sister Sarah McCorquodale later testified, “I just did not think the relationship had much longer to go.”

It’s been believed that the romance was even orchestrated by Mohamed himself. According to Bower, the older Al-Fayed would check in on Dodi and Diana during the trip (which is also portrayed in The Crown this season). McCorquodale also told the court that Diana “thought the boat was being bugged by Mr Al-Fayed Senior.”

On that second trip in August, Diana and Dodi were photographed together in the South of France and Sardinia, before heading to Paris for their tragic final days. There, they would be chased by cameras again for the last time.

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What really happened here?

"The Crown," which has been telling the long story of Queen Elizabeth II's reign since 2016, is a dramatic and fictional interpretation of history. It's full of invention and supposition , the educated guesses of creator Peter Morgan about what happened in the private lives of the British royal family for over half a century. But it leaves viewers dying to know what really happened behind the palace walls.

In fact, watching Part 1 of Netflix's final season (now streaming) might leave you with a bevy of questions. Four new episodes, set in 1997 in the weeks leading up to the death of Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki), zoom in on the private life of the People's Princess after her divorce from Prince Charles (Dominic West). They focus primarily on her relationship with Harrods heir Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), who died with her in a car crash in Paris in August 1997.

But what part of the story "The Crown" tells actually happened? Did Dodi really propose to Diana on the day of the crash? Did Dodi's father Mohamed (Salim Daw) really push them together and call the paparazzi on them? And did Diana's death really bring the world to a standstill?

'The Crown' fact check: How did Will and Kate meet? Did the queen want to abdicate throne?

To separate fact from fiction, USA TOAY spoke with Hugo Vickers, the historian and biographer who has literally written the book on the royals, as well as Debicki and Abdalla, who explain how they researched the love affair they portrayed.

Did Dodi Fayed really leave his fiancée just before their wedding because of Diana?

When Diana and Dodi began their initial relationship, he was engaged to American model Kelly Fisher (Erin Richards). He broke off their engagement to pursue Diana, and it had major consequences, as the show portrays. "She tried to sue him," Vickers says. It generated "a lot of publicity." But "she dropped the case when he was killed."

Was Charles secretly campaigning for Camilla’s legitimacy while Diana was still alive?

The first episode of the new season shows Charles working hard to get positive press coverage of his long love Camilla Parker Bowles (Olivia Williams). He also tries to convince his mother, Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton), to legitimize Camilla as his partner by attending her birthday party, which Elizabeth refuses to do. Vickers says Charles was "definitely trying to put Camilla on the map" and increase her popularity in the country. However, "the so-called campaign was somewhat put on hold after Diana’s death."

Did Mohamed Al-Fayed really summon the paparazzi to take the infamous photos of Dodi and Diana kissing?

It's hard to know exactly how photographer Mario Brenna learned that Diana and Dodi were vacationing together on the Fayeds' yacht in Monte Carlo when he took the infamous photos of them kissing, embracing and sunbathing. Vickers can only surmise, based on the behavior of Mohamed Al-Fayed at the time, that he might have. "He certainly did similar things. Hard to know the exact details. But he was using Diana, no question of that."

The photos led to a bidding war, and the international sensation the show portrays. It was "massive," says Vickers. A 10-page spread of photos was published in the Sunday Mirror on Aug. 10. Brenna and his partner made more than $2 million from them.

Did Charles scheme with his publicist to do a ‘counter photo’ with the boys?

There were photos of Prince Charles, Prince WIlliam (Rufus Kampa) and Prince Harry (Fflyn Edwards) taken at Balmoral in August 1997, but they didn't happen exactly as the show portrays. "Tim Graham, a well known photographer, took those photos on Aug. 16," Vickers says, and not the small-time Scottish photographer the series invents. The photos also weren't quite as out-of-character for either Charles' family or other royals when they were at Balmoral, as the show portrays. The royals routinely had planned photo shoots at the estate while on vacation, and still do.

Read our review of Season 6: Death, duty and Diana rule ‘The Crown’ in a bleak Part 1 of its final season

The show implies Dodi had spurious motives courting Diana, egged on by his father. How much do we know about that?

Mohamed Fayed bought the yacht Jonikal especially to entertain Diana, Vickers says. "The motives were rather as shown: ensnaring Diana." It's impossible to know Dodi's personal motives or feelings.

Abdalla and Debicki say they studied hundreds of photographs and hours of surveillance footage of Dodi and Diana on the day of the crash. They watched it all, "second by second, minute by minute," Abdalla says. "You see this incredibly tender hand hold behind their backs and their heads nuzzled against each other and very gentle caressing, for seven minutes. And from that you understand the tenderness of a certain kind of falling in love."

Did Dodi propose to Diana in Paris on the day of the crash?

In the series, Dodi makes Diana stop in Paris (on the trip where they would soon die) to buy an engagement ring he thinks she wants. He then proposes to her, but she says no.

"It is said he bought a ring," Vickers says, but "she was not going to marry him." A 1998 book by Time magazine correspondents Tom Sancton and Scott MacLeod about Diana's death suggests that Dodi planned to propose . At an inquest in 2007, evidence was presented that Dodi went to the Repossi shop on the Place Vendôme in Paris on Aug. 30 and purchased a diamond ring.

All you need to know: 'The Crown' Season 6: Release date, cast, trailer, how to watch Part 1 of new season

In 'The Crown,' Diana and Dodi’s driver has several drinks in the hours leading up to the crash. Is that true?

"He did," Vickers says. Investigations into the crash found that their driver, Henri Paul (Yoann Blanc), who also died in the crash, had two drinks at the Ritz hotel, where the couple was hanging out just before the crash.

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The True Story Behind Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed's "The Kiss" Pic

• Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

T he Crown's sixth season delves into the PR "war" between Prince Charles and Princess Diana —specifically Charles' somewhat eye-roll inducing insecurity that Diana's spotlight overshadowed his own.

In the second episode of the season, titled "Two Photographs," we see Charles at Balmoral Castle when photos of "The Kiss" between Diana and Dodi Fayed drop—prompting him to hit back with some staged pics of himself, Prince William, and Prince Harry . But how true to reality was this battle of press pictures? Let's dig into the facts.

The True Story of "The Kiss"

Per a 2008 article in Vanity Fair , "The Kiss" (a paparazzi shot of Diana and Dodi kissing on vacation) was released in the Sunday Mirror on August 10, 1997. And the outlet paid a ton of money to publish this particular invasion of privacy. According to a fact check from The Telegraph , photographer Mario Brenna made £250,000 selling the pictures to The Mirror , not to mention $5 million selling the rights worldwide.

The Crown was pretty faithful in recreating the pics, even making a mock-up a copy of The Mirror for the episode:

But the show also implies that Dodi's dad tipped off Brenna, which The Telegraph says is less accurate. According to the outlet, "some have said" Brenna happened to be in Sardinia at the time the photos were taken and got lucky, while author Tina Brown speculates that Diana herself tipped him off.

The True Story of That Balmoral Photo-Opp

The Crown depicts Charles' Balmoral photoshoot as a direct response to "The Kiss," and honestly the timing is definitely side-eye inducing considering this shoot took place on August 12, 1997—just two days after The Mirror dropped its issue.

Here is the real photo of Charles, Wills, and Harry:

Versus what we saw on The Crown :

Meanwhile, the whole side-plot involving photographer Duncan Muir seems to be fictionalized, as the Telegraph reports these photos were actually taken by a group of press pool photographers. It's also unknown if they were a direct response to "The Kiss."

Anyway, now seems like a good time to mention that last season , The Crown started adding mentions of the show being fiction under its trailers, specifically using the language, "Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatization tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II and the political and personal events that shaped her reign."

Oh, and speaking of kisses...just gonna leave you with this:

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Diana's photos with Dodi and Charles's Balmoral photoshoot explained

The second episode of The Crown season 6 centres around two famous photographs.

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The Crown's sixth and final season is concluding in two parts, with the first four episodes available to watch now on Netflix, revolving around the final days of Princess Diana before her death in a car crash on 31st August 1997.

The second episode of the season 6 , titled Two Photographs, contrasts two important moments that occurred in the summer of 1997 – the paparazzi shot of Diana and Dodi Fayed kissing on holiday, dubbed The Kiss, which was published in The Sunday Mirror, and a photoshoot of Prince Charles and his sons, Prince William and Harry, enjoying a much quieter holiday at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.

The Netflix show depicts Charles's staged pictures as a direct retaliation against the photo of Diana and Dodi kissing.

But how accurate is this depiction and when were the two pictures taken? Read on for everything you need to know about the photos taken of Diana and Dodi and Charles's Balmoral photoshoot with William and Harry.

When were the pictures of Diana and Dodi taken?

On 10th August 1997, pictures of Diana and Dodi kissing were published in The Sunday Mirror, with one published on the front cover alongside the headline: "The Kiss."

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The photos were taken by Italian photographer Mario Brenna and were reportedly sold for £1 million . They showed Diana lounging on the deck of the yacht with Dodi and kissing him.

Underneath the headline, the front cover of The Sunday Mirror read: "Now Dodi flies off to buy an engagement ring for Diana."

After having first met at a polo tournament, Diana and Dodi had first reconnected in mid-July 1997 in St Tropez, when she was staying at his father's villa.

They were pictured together at the time, swimming in the ocean along with William and Harry.

When was the Balmoral photoshoot of Charles, William and Harry set up?

Also in August 1997, the same month as the photos of Diana and Dodi were published in The Sunday Mirror, photos were taken of Prince Charles at Polvier, by the River Dee in the Balmoral Estate, alongside Princes William and Harry.

Charles was wearing a kilt and sporran and was holding a shepherd's crook walking stick, and the family had two dogs with them - Prince William's Labrador Widgeon and Prince Charles's Jack Russell Tigga.

As in The Crown, the images show William skimming stones in the river as his father and brother watch on. We don't know for certain, as is suggested in the episode, that this image was purposefully captured to contrast those published of Diana.

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The trio also took similar photos on 16th August, with Charles once again dressed in a kilt - but this time in a green jumper.

One of these photos was posted to The Royal Family's official account on Twitter, which has recently been rebranded as X, on Father's Day this year, alongside the caption: "To Dads everywhere, we wish you a very special Father’s Day today."

The Crown season 6 part 1 is streaming on Netflix from Thursday 16th November 2023. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month . Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream .

Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on.

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‘The Crown’: The Story Behind That Princess Diana Yacht Photo

Perched on the edge of a diving board in a blue swimsuit, the famous paparazzi shot caught the former royal in a moment of reflection

It’s telling that the lead image in the promotion of the final series of The Crown, a show ostensibly about Queen Elizabeth II and her ascendent line of heirs, is not of HRH. Instead, it’s an iconic shot of the person who's really at the centre of the Netflix show's sixth season: the late Princess Diana.

The photo in question has become embedded in popular culture since it was taken on Diana’s last holiday before her death. The ex-royal sits, pensively, on the diving board of a superyacht, looking out to sea in a turquoise swimsuit. But what is the true story behind one of the most famous images of the Princess Of Wales?

The backstory

In July 1997, Diana was on a Mediterranean holiday with her boyfriend at the time, Dodi Al Fayed, son of the then-Harrods’ boss, the late Mohammed Al Fayed. Diana and Dodi – and the Princes William and Harry – all spent time together in Castle St. Therese, Al Fayed’s 30-bedroom villa in St. Tropez in the South of France.

But Diana was called to Milan on 22 July, where she attended the funeral of her friend Gianni Versace, who was murdered by a fan on the steps of his Miami home on 15 July.

The author and friend of Diana, Tina Brown, later wrote: “The murder of the flamboyant fashion star Gianni Versace... while Diana was on Al Fayed's yacht, was a meteor shower in the exploding sky of her final summer.”

With the weight of the death of her friend still on her mind, in early August, Diana travelled alone to Sarajevo to publicise the fight against landmines in the country. Here, she came face to face with some horrific tales of mutilation of the people, and spent time working with rehabilitation groups of survivors.

By early August, after an emotionally turbulent few weeks, Diana was back on holiday with Dodi, this time on his yacht, known as Jonikal.

But on 10 August, pictures of Diana and Dodi kissing in Sardinia were published in the Sunday Mirror , and all hell broke loose; especially when it was claimed Diana could possibly be engaged, or even pregnant. In the trailer for series six, Imelda Staunton’s Queen is shown the front-page splash and told: “Interest in the princess’ private life is unlikely to die down any time soon”, and it’s likely that in real life Diana would have received a stern phone call from the palace.

From this point onwards, it only intensified the swarms of paparazzi clamouring for pictures of the pair on holiday. Video footage from the trip shows dinghies filled with men with long-lens pictures surrounding the yacht, desperate to catch another money-spinning shot of the couple together – with figures going as high as £1 million a photo.

On 24 August, Diana, dressed in just the teal swimsuit, took a walk out to the diving board of the yacht and sat down on it. She would have had a lot to process from the past few weeks.

She would also have known the press were desperate for pictures of her and Dodi together – perhaps she told him to stay below deck to protect him while she gave photographers a shot to appease them.

But according to one paparazzo in the documentary Sex & Power , the romance was just for show: “No-one knows this, so it’s ­actually quite interesting. [The crew member] said, ‘They don’t share the same bedroom, he calls her ma’am, is ­incredibly deferential and respectful. But as soon as she goes outside to wave to the paps, she’s bending over and kissing him and hugging him’... The truth [of their romance] is the opposite.”

Was this then another posed shot designed to reset the narrative, or was it simply a candid picture of the troubled princess in genuine thought? Whatever the case may be, the photo's melancholy pull is still being felt.

The first half of The Crown series 6 streams on Netflix from November 16.

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How does The Crown 's Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed storyline compare to their real-life relationship?

By Olivia McCrea-Hedley

The first half of the final series of The Crown is finally here, depicting the six-week romance between Princess Diana (played by Elizabeth Debicki) and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) – which was tragically the last six weeks of their lives.

The Crown is, first and foremost, a TV show. So, as with previous seasons, the lines between fact and fiction can often appear blurred. While we know that some of the events of season 6 definitely did take place, we’ll never know just how much truth is behind the private moments and conversations depicted on screen.

But, we’ll do our best to pick out the real from the re-imagined. Here’s how the relationship between Diana and Dodi is pictured in The Crown , and the moments that actually did happen in real life. Everything else, as the show's creators have stated, is down to interpretation.

*Warning: The Crown spoilers ahead.*

And how they matched up to the real thing.

By Charlie Teather

When Diana met Dodi

In The Crown : Back in Season 5 of The Crown , Diana, Princess of Wales, was pictured meeting film producer Dodi Fayed (the son of businessman Mohamed al-Fayed) in 1986, during a polo match in which Fayed played against Prince Charles at Windsor. However, their romance didn’t begin until much later.

Season 6 then tells the story of how the two came to be in a relationship. Set in 1997, one year after Diana’s divorce from Charles, the series shows Fayed’s father inviting Diana and her children, Princes William and Harry, aboard his yacht in St Tropez for the summer.

In reality: Diana did meet Dodi at a polo match at Windsor in 1986. She also accompanied the Fayeds on their yacht in St Tropez with her children – and thus became the centre of a media storm surrounding their relationship.

The set-up – and their first kiss

In The Crown : The show depicts Diana being hounded by paparazzi in St Tropez, with Diana asking them to leave her alone. The photographers took many now-famous photographs of her on the yacht – including a photo of her and Dodi kissing.

By Emma Howarth

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Throughout the season, Mohamed al-Fayed is portrayed as trying to set Diana up with his eldest son, Dodi – ringing up the maid to ask if they had been “intimate” and seemingly organising the photograph of them kissing to be taken.

In reality: Diana and Dodi did kiss on the yacht – the paparazzi photo of them kissing was, at the time, reportedly the most-expensive paparazzi photo ever sold. There have been multiple theories about who tipped off photographer Mario Brenna to take the photographs, from Diana to those close to her, though we'll most likely never know.

Since The Crown aired, Brenna told New York Times that the storyline that Mohamed hired him to take the photographs was “absurd and completely invented.”

The proposal

In The Crown : Episode 3 of the series, titled Dis-Moi Oui (“tell me yes”) reimagines the final hours of Diana and Dodi’s lives. After dinner at The Ritz in Paris – which they have to leave due to overwhelming paparazzi attention – the two head upstairs to one of the hotel suites, where Dodi proposes to Diana with a ring she had seen in a jewellery shop in Monte Carlo.

While Diana does not accept the proposal – “I know the whole world is wondering if we’re going to get married, but that’s not a reason to actually do it” – the two have a drink and speak about how they need to live their lives going forwards. They then decide to head to Dodi’s Parisian apartment – and, sadly, viewers know the tragic turn the story takes. Their car is tailed by paparazzi and their driver is intoxicated, which results in a fatal crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel.

From St. Andrews to Mallorca, here are all of the real-life locations you can spot in the hit Netflix show.

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In reality: We will never know exactly what took place in the hotel room – however according to a 2004 report into Diana's death, the couple were upset by paparazzi’s “intrusive behaviour” at The Ritz, and they did head upstairs from the restaurant to the hotel’s Imperial Suite for dinner instead.

At the inquest into their death in 2007, CCTV footage was shown of Dodi buying an engagement ring in a jewellery store across the square from the Ritz Paris on the afternoon before their dinner. Further CCTV footage showed the assistant to the president of the Ritz Paris, Claude Roulet, taking an item back to the couple’s suite. However, there is no confirmation of what this item was.

A ring bearing the inscription "Dis-moi Oui" (hence the name of the episode) was recovered from Dodi’s Parisian apartment after the couple’s death, along with a receipt dated 30 August 1997, the day before the crash, listing a “bague de fiançaille” (engagement ring).

At the inquest, Dodi’s father claimed that they had met the jeweller behind the ring in Monte Carlo during their yacht holiday, and he believed that his son had planned to propose to Diana that night.

The Crown is currently available to watch on Netflix – series six part two will air on 16 December 2023.

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Inside the £13m 208ft ‘love boat’ yacht where Princess Diana & Dodi Fayed had their romantic fling which is on The Crown

• Becky Pemberton
• Published : 12:36, 16 Nov 2023
• Updated : 12:36, 16 Nov 2023

THE famous £13million superyacht where Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed enjoyed their romantic fling is featured on the new season of The Crown.

The glamorous royal and her wealthy boyfriend were famously pictured kissing on the luxury “love boat” Jonikal, which is now called Bash, before their tragic deaths in 1997.

Photos of the couple’s Mediterranean getaway circulated around the world, with The Sunday Mirror paying £250,000 for first rights to the collection.

The fall out of the photos was depicted on the sixth and final season of Netflix’s The Crown, with the Queen , played by Imelda Staunton , seen viewing the multi-page spread back home.

The stunning 208ft yacht can hold up to 18 people across nine staterooms, along with 26 crew members.

It also offers a range of impressive amenities including a jacuzzi, swim platform, sun deck, formal dining room, a bar, and office space.

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The yacht belonged to Dodi’s multi-millionaire father Mohamed Al-Fayed .

The billionaire former Harrods owner amassed his astonishing fortune running several high-profile business ventures and a Premier League football club prior to the announcement of his death in August 2023.

The ship was first launched in 1990, and has had a number of owners over the years.

According to Boat International, it was sold earlier this year, and although the sum hasn’t been disclosed, the asking price was €15,500,000 (£13million).

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Diana’s final month included two cruises on The Jonikal.

The holidays sparked unfounded rumours that Diana was pregnant and about to announce plans to marry Dodi .

Dodi died aged 42 in a Paris car crash with Diana 26 years ago.

The pair first met at a polo match in 1989, but they did not get together until Dodi invited the princess to stay at his father's 30-bedroom villa in St Tropez in July 1997.

Much of Dodi's fortune was spent on impressing a string of beautiful models and actresses.

The playboy was linked to Blue Lagoon actress Brooke Shields, Val Kilmer’s ex-wife Joanne Whalley, Stranger Things star Winona Ryder and Frank Sinatra’s daughter Tina.

Following the 1997 car crash that led to the couple's deaths, Mohamed attempted to sell the yacht on a number of occasions before ultimately parting with it in 2014.

It was most recently purchased by Bassim Haidar in June of 2021, who sold it just over a year later with plans to upgrade to a larger vessel.

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Inside the Superyacht Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed Spent Their Final Vacation On

A look at the vessel that saw the beloved royal’s last vacation.

It was hot gossip, this adventure that the princess took abroad after having finalized her divorce from then Prince Charles less than a year before—something that was hinted at at the end of season 5 of The Crown as Queen Elizabeth is pressed to endorse a vacation a-sea with Fayed and her grandchildren, Prince Harry and Prince William. Diana was famously photographed sitting on the passerelle of this boat. Years later, in real life, Harry described the trip in his memoir, Spare , with fond recollection. “Everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven,” he wrote.

While the series was filmed on a lookalike super yacht in Mallorca , the real boat was equally lavish. The 208-foot ship was commissioned by Dodi’s father, former Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, who brought on naval architect Vincenzo Ruggiero to design it in the late 1980s. It was built by Italian shipyard Codecasa and launched in 1990. The steel and aluminum super yacht boasted nine staterooms that altogether accommodate up to 18 people, in addition to a crew of 26. Amenities included a Jacuzzi, swim platform, sun deck, formal dining room, a bar, and office space. Mohamed had named the yacht Jonikal (it has subsequently been called Sokar and is currently called Bash ) .

Shortly after Diana’s and Dodi’s deaths, Mohamed gave the interior a redesign by H2 Yacht Design and a refit that included extending the hull. He attempted to sell the yacht on a number of occasions, ultimately parting with it in 2014 to an anonymous buyer. The new owner carried out further work, including machinery upgrades, a repaint, and fresh teak decks. In 2021, the yacht came into the hands of Bassim Haidar , the founder of Intercomm and GMT, who gave it a further $9.7 million refit after a reported bridge deck fire—and its current name Bash . It’s now back to turn-key condition after an 18-month remodel completed in April 2023 by marine engineering and management company Capax and boat interior company Bobic Yacht Interiors . It features a beauty salon, massage area, high-tech gym, and a spacious main salon.

In May, Robb Report reported that Bash is available for charter in the Mediterranean starting at $278,000 per week, plus expenses. In June, Haidar listed Bash for $16.8 million, according to Boat International .

There was a second motor yacht named Cujo, which Diana and Fayed also took earlier that summer. It was built in Italy in 1972 for John von Neumann, who commissioned the Italian Baglietto shipyard to build the world's fastest motor yacht. She was given two 18-cylinder engines that allowed it to go as fast as 42 knots. Fayed had bought the boat from his cousin, Saudi businessman and arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. In August, the Mediterranean Sea reclaimed Cujo, as the 62-foot artifact of Diana’s life hit an unidentified object off Beaulieu-sur-Mer on July 29 and sprang a leak, Vanity Fair reported. The seven people on board were rescued by teams from Antibes and safely returned to shore.

An imitation of Jonikal will feature in The Crown season 6, a set that was intended to visually illuminate the tension between Diana and the royal family. “Diana’s south of France adventure was bright and lovely pastel colors, and her world even in Kensington Palace is optimistic and warm, compared to the queen’s residence at Balmoral, which is very static, with gloomy light and drab colors,” set decorator Alison Harvey tells ELLE DECOR.

Filming on the yacht off the island of Mallorca (a St. Tropez stand-in) required many moving parts with few do-overs. “We brought in the drapes, the artwork, many furnishings,” Harvey explains. “Everything was set in the early ’90s, so we thought hard about the colors and textures that we brought in.” Harvey’s team had just half a day to dress the yacht, and then it was off to sea. “There was no getting on or off after that,” Harvey says, adding that they were “subsumed by the logistics of what we had to achieve and the time we had to do it.”

However painstaking the process, the yacht scenes will offer an intriguing context—though largely fictitious—for the iconic photographs that exist of those final weeks leading up to Diana’s death.

Rachel Silva, the Assistant Digital Editor at ELLE DECOR, covers design, architecture, trends, and anything to do with haute couture. She has previously written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, and Citywire.

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The True Story of Princess Diana's Vacation on Mohamed Al Fayed's Yacht in Saint Tropez

The trip features in the final season of The Crown .

"Everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven," Prince Harry shared about the vacation he and Prince William joined his mother for aboard the vessel in his memoir, Spare . Here, some of the most memorable photos of Princess Diana with her sons and the Fayeds on the Jonikal in July 1997.

Princess Diana on board the Jonikal yacht, where she first got to know Dodi better.

Princess Diana was friendly with Mohamed Al Fayed, who had been in royal-adjacent circles for some time due to his ownership of Harrods department store.

Diana brought her two sons, Prince William (head down, center) and Prince Harry (right), on vacation with her.

"We'd been with Mummy weeks earlier when she first met him, in St. Tropez," Harry writes in Spare —the 'him' refers to Dodi. "We were having a grand time, just the three of us, staying at some old gent's villa."

At the time, Diana had recently broken up with British Pakistani heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan, who could not handle the media attention surrounding their relationship. Her friends later shared that they believed her fling with Dodi was to make Hasnat jealous.

Diana pictured with her bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, who would later be the sole survivor of the crash that killed Princess Diana and Dodi.

Princess Diana waved to Trevor ashore in Saint-Tropez.

The Princess looked happy to be spending time with her sons.

Harry writes, "There was much laughter, horseplay, the norm whenever Mummy and Willy and I were together, though even more so on that holiday. Everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven. The weather was sublime, the food was tasty, Mummy was smiling."

Paparazzi snapped Diana giving her youngest, Prince Harry, a big hug.

Diana, ever the style icon, had some great swimwear moments on this vacation, including this neon set.

She also rocked a leopard-print one piece.

Princess Diana was beginning to navigate her not-quite-royal, but definitely not normal, life post her divorce from Prince Charles .

At the time, Dodi was reportedly dating American model Kelly Fisher —and she said that she was actually on the yacht in Saint Tropez with the Fayeds and Princess Diana.

Princess Diana made sure the vacation was fun for her sons; here, she rode on a jet ski with Prince Harry.

"Best of all," Harry remembers in Spare, "there were jet skis. Whose were they? Don't know. But I vividly remember Willy and me riding them out to the deepest part of the channel, circling while waiting for the big ferries to come. We used their massive wakes as ramps to get airborne. I'm not sure how we weren't killed"

Wearing life jackets, the royal mother-son duo zoomed around in the water together.

Princess Diana smiled as she swam in the sea off the coast of France.

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma , a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram .

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Princess Diana Kisses Dodi In Photo: Royal Had ‘Terrible Taste In Men’

Princess Diana’s photo kissing Dodi Fayed has resurfaced.

A snap of the late Princess of Wales hugging and kissing her boyfriend was shared on Instagram . The photo is the cover of a Sunday Mirror report. According to the headline, “Now Dodi flies off to buy an engagement ring for Diana.”

Royal fans who saw the picture had mixed reactions about it. Some said it was good that the royal found a new man while others were sad to see Princess Diana with another man. One netizen claimed that Fayed was just a fling before adding that Princess Diana was not stupid.

“She had terrible taste in men, so sad , the world still miss her,” one follower commented.

Meanwhile, another follower believed that no man would have ever deserved Princess Diana. Some fans reacted and said that royal fans should let Prince William and Prince Harry’s mom rest in peace.

“We’re keeping her memory alive. It's not like we're disturbing her grave. What do you do after somebody dies. You keep their memory alive and share important and interesting things about them,” a different user added.

Just recently, Prince Harry released an emotional statement to protect his wife Meghan Markle from the press who also harassed Princess Diana when she was still alive. According to the duke, he is seeing the same pattern of media treatment from his mom to his wife.

However, several sources did not agree with Prince Harry. According to Stephen Glover , Prince Harry misrepresented Princess Diana’s relationship with the press. He pointed out that the duke wrongly sees his mom as a “wholly innocent victim” of the media.

News.com.au’s royal correspondent Daniela Elser shared the same opinion. For her, Princess Diana understood the power of the press. In fact, she worked with the media during those times when she needed a voice and to fight back at the royal family. The media also helped her solidify her public image as a caring and joyful parent in contrast to Prince Charles, who appeared more dreary and musty.

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We Love Diana Because She Took on the Royals and Won

By writing a novel about a Diana impersonator, I hoped to examine why we commoners are drawn to her—and, perhaps, to understand her particular appeal for the lonely and damaged.

Chris Bohjalian

Photo Illustraiton by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

Diana Spencer—aka Princess Diana , Lady Di, Dutch—lived barely a year as a divorced woman. Her divorce from Prince Charles was finalized on Aug. 28, 1996; she’d die in the infamous car crash in Paris a mere 368 days later on Aug. 31, 1997.

She had, in fact, been separated from Charles since December 1992, living in a murky marital purgatory for nearly four years before their divorce—a limbo, given her status as “royal but not royal,” that arguably continued even those last 368 days between divorce and death. She was a thirty-something single mom of two boys figuring out how to date… in a fishbowl. That was (speaking metaphorically) a minefield and took, I’m confident, more courage than her walks into actual minefields.

There are a variety of reasons why many of us remain obsessed with her and her progeny. The movies, the books, the documentaries, the musicals, the plays, and the TV series are an indication of the depth and breadth of our addiction.

OK, only some of us are addicted, and most of that “us” is female. I happen to be that rare male who, apparently, knows more about the royal family than I do about Rome.

Journalists question Diana Spencer as she gets into her car following the announcement of her engagement to Prince Charles in February 1981.

Evening Standard via Getty

I am fascinated by Diana. I’ve had historical figures in some of my earlier books, such as Hour of the Witch and The Lioness , but my new novel, The Princess of Las Vegas , is the first time I’ve attempted to explore why one of them remains in the zeitgeist long after she’s gone.

Long after she’s gone.

Perhaps I should have written, “after she’s gone.” Because it hasn’t been all that long. And we know that. The wounds certainly haven’t healed for the Spencers and Windsors, for her friends and lovers and butlers and handlers and, yes, children. What must it be like for them to see her mythologized? Just when the scab might be healing, along comes another re-imagining of the woman. And what does it say about the rest of us that we can’t get enough of Lady Di?

I can’t speak for the playwrights, novelists, and screenwriters who’ve attempted to resurrect a woman gone barely a quarter of a century, but I know for me it’s too soon.

And so the titular “princess” of my new novel is not the woman herself, but instead a Princess Diana impersonator in a tribute show at a shabby, off-the-strip Las Vegas casino. People who know bits of Diana’s biography will recognize some moments: there she is dancing with John Travolta at the Reagan White House, there she is embracing her two little boys, there she is trying to cope with a debilitating eating disorder. (There’s only one instance we know when Diana wrote to someone about bulimia. In January 1996, she penned a letter to Richard Saunders on Kensington Palace stationery to comfort him, reassuring him that if she could conquer bulimia, he could, too. The letter is part of the collection of Diana memorabilia at the Princess Diana Exhibit in—wait for it—Las Vegas.)

But by writing a novel about an impersonator, rather than the princess herself, I was hoping to examine why we commoners are drawn to her—and, perhaps, to understand her particular appeal for the lonely and damaged, and why we remain fixated on those cobalt eyes and iconic lowered chin. The blond bob.

Now, The Princess of Las Vegas is, like easily a half-dozen of my novels, a character study in the guise of a slow-burn thriller. The setting is Vegas, and so there are mobsters and schemers and dreamers, as well as the wounded and the just plan sad. There are fake Elvises, Sinatras, and Michel Jacksons. And there are, yes, a couple of corpses. But lots of it, for me, was a journey into why we won’t let Diana go, why we insist on revisiting her story.

And the answer is not, it seems to me, the tragedy of her death at 36. Heaven, if it’s real, is packed with dead, young celebrities who no longer loom large in our minds, including the infamous “27 Club” of musicians who died at that age. Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, and Janis Joplin are only four of the most well-known.

Nor is it the idea that all of us supposed when Diana and Charles had their fairy tale wedding in 1981 that this would be a fairy tale marriage. (Oh, possibly it was. But, if so, the saga was spun by Grimm, not Disney.)

Rather, I suspect, we are still riveted by Diana because that 20-year-old girl in a wedding train the length of the river Thames would grow into a woman who did not simply take on a millennial-old monarchy—she’d beat it. She’d beat them, the people behind all that rigidity and tradition, at least some of whom would prove to be soulless hypocrites. She’d win. Her knees might have been buckled by betrayal and heartbreak, but she got off the mat and, in the end, stood tall. She stopped slouching against her statuesque height and denying who she was inside.

Princess Diana in her wedding dress.

Fox Photos via Getty

Which, perhaps, might also explain why so many more women than men follow the royals. The men in all those castles, most of the time, behaved a lot worse than the women. I find it interesting that even Queen Elizabeth, so vilified in the days after Diana’s death, would have her image rehabilitated by the time she died in 2022. (I credit our adoration for Claire Foy in the first two seasons of The Crown .)

Moreover, Diana was so fearless that she would do the most courageous thing imaginable. She would share her vulnerabilities and brokenness with the world. Whether it was her eating disorder or her despair at the idea she had married the wrong man—and that man had married the wrong woman—she would allow us a window into her pain. That, I suppose, is the same part of her that reached out to men stricken with AIDS and children injured by landmines, and would lead millions of people around the world to “identify” with her. We saw her as an underdog for whom we could root, a princess who led (her words) “from the heart, not the head.” She was the woman whom then Prime Minister Tony Blair christened “the people’s princess” while mourning her the day that she died. (Isn’t it fascinating to realize she was never called “the people’s princess” when she was alive?)

And, yes, Diana defeated the monarchy not because she was sweet and humble. Let’s face it, rarely do the meek in point of fact inherit the Earth. She won because she played the game better than the royals themselves, and while the press, in the end, deserves much of the blame for her death, she herself could be a Machiavellian publicist who used them, too. (Who knows? If she’d lived, perhaps she would have taught her daughter-in-law, Kate Middleton, how to Photoshop an image for the social networks so you don’t fuel conspiracy theories that you’re dead, rather than merely recuperating from abdominal surgery in private. I think Diana would have been one hell of an Instagram star.)

Even in the days before that cataclysmic car accident in Paris, Diana was wielding that double-edged sword as if she were fighting for her life in Game of Thrones —which she was. Take, for instance, those iconic images of her on the Jonikal , the yacht owned by the father of her last paramour, Dodi Fayed, in the Mediterranean waters off Corsica. There are the photos of the kiss with Fayed and the poignant snapshot of her alone in a light blue tank suit on the yacht’s diving board, an image beloved because it seems to capture her loneliness on the one hand—a solitary woman with so much sea and sky around her—while conjuring the idea that the poor girl is about to walk the plank on a pirate ship. The fact she’d be gone within days makes it all the more dramatic in hindsight.

Diana in St. Tropez shortly before she and boyfriend Dodi Fayed died in a car crash in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997.

Michel Dufour/Getty

But here’s the thing about those photographs. While Dodi Fayed’s father, Mohamed Al-Fayed, may have thought he was the puppet master pulling the strings of the media, biographer Tina Brown, among others, suggests that Diana herself may have been tipping off the paparazzi. When those images would appear in the tabloids, she called one photographer not to complain that she felt her privacy had been violated, but to grumble that they were fuzzy. Let’s not forget, this was a woman so media savvy by 1994 that while Charles was confessing to the world on British television that he had indeed been unfaithful to Diana, she showed up at a gala in what has come to be called the “revenge dress,” a tight, black, off-the-shoulder sheath that fell to mid-thigh.

Diana’s trajectory may have begun as a victim, but it didn’t end there. She was no milquetoast princess. She was a fighter who knew what she wanted—and that, I believe, is why we still love her today.

Chris Bohjalian is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 24 books, including his new novel, The Princess of Las Vegas , to be published March 19. Find him at Www.ChrisBohjalian.com or Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X (still), Goodreads, Litsy, TikTok (badly).

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When a Top Lawyer Claimed Princess Diana Was ‘Killed After Plan to Frighten Her Went Wrong'

The tragic death of Princess Diana still evokes speculation and controversy. Back then, leading lawyer Michael Mansfield shed light on the circumstances surrounding her passing. Mansfield’s revelations suggest that Diana was not targeted for assassination but instead became a victim of a plan gone awry–a plan intended to intimidate her into ending her relationship with Dodi al Fayed and curbing her alleged anti-establishment sentiments.

Mansfield, who represented Mohamed al Fayed, Dodi's father, during the 2007 inquest into Diana's death, asserted a few years ago, “I don’t believe anyone wanted to see her dead. I think there was a plan to sabotage the relationship (with Dodi) and alter her life, to try to stop her activities. But this plan went very badly and ended with her death.”

As per Daily Mail , Mansfield shared, “I believe the relationship between Princess Diana and Dodi al Fayed displeased the authorities. In spite of all the work Mohamed al Fayed did for children and hospitals, he was persona non grata in Britain . As far as Diana was concerned, she had given interviews attacking the Royal Family for the way they treated her, but I think what most annoyed the authorities was that Diana became very actively involved in the campaign against land mines. The UK arms sales industry is huge, it's one of the biggest three in the world. The investigation into Diana's death showed she was preparing to denounce British complicity in the sale of weapons to countries that do not respect human rights.”

The inquest into Diana's death in 2008, which concluded that she was unlawfully killed due to the grossly negligent driving of her chauffeur, Henri Paul, and the actions of pursuing paparazzi, has been a subject of ongoing scrutiny and skepticism. Previously, the lawyer told The Mirror , "The idea that it’s purely and simply a road accident is not right. So I want to dispel that. The truth does come to the surface in the end, but somebody’s got to be looking for it in order for that to happen... There’s much more to come out of this case in the long run, and it will surface somewhere." He added, "Questions still remain about whether this was a staged accident as the ­Princess herself had predicted."

Mansfield's perspective definitely added another layer of complexity to the narrative, especially for diehard Princess Diana fans. “In the case of Diana and Dodi, I have always believed that whatever had caused the crash, it was not an accident. As it transpired, that belief was shared by the jury at the inquest. Diana's fears for her safety and her preoccupation with surveillance were thoroughly canvassed, and in my view were found to be entirely justified. Unfortunately, her predictions came to pass.” Mansfield concluded.

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