Back In The Public Eye

Princess Diana emerged from her divorce with a new style, a new crusade (banning land mines), and a new love…

“It’s the 28th August, 1996 – 15 years of marriage have now been signed off,” Princess Diana wrote on the day that her divorce was finalised. “I never wanted a divorce and always dreamt of a happy marriage with loving support from Charles. Although that was never meant to be, we do have two wonderful boys who are deeply loved by their parents. A part of me will always love Charles, but how I wish he’d looked after me and been proud of my work.”

Close friends say that Princess Diana was blooming after her divorce, and she even considered the possibility that Prince Charles and Camilla might get married.

“Oh I don’t care,” she said, “they can get married, they probably ought to get married, it doesn’t bother me now.”

Meanwhile, she continued her public engagements, flying to Rimini in October of 1996 to receive a humanitarian award at a conference on health and delivering a speech on the challenge of an ageing population.

Later that month Princess Diana flew to Sydney, where she raised one million Australian dollars for the cardiac centre of the Victor Chang Institute there.

If Princess Diana had thought that her divorce from the Royal Family would bring her freedom and a normal life, she was very much mistaken.

Without the security of the Royalty and Diplomatic Protection Department, she was mobbed on the streets and had to lay low in her Australian hotel, with the curtains drawn even during the daytime.

As 1997 dawned, Princess Diana was at a new pinnacle of celebrity. The shy teenager, who had captured the heart of the Prince of Wales 15 years earlier, was now a beautiful, self-assured young woman, one of the most famous women on Earth, in fact. She was on speaking terms with Hillary Clinton, the Pope, the Dalai Lama, and was determined to use her influence for the greater good.