Even 25 years after her death, Princess Diana continues to enthral

• Princess Diana’s destiny still casts a shadow over the British royals a quarter-century after her death at age 36.
• Diana was killed on Aug. 31, 1997, when the limousine carrying her crashed in the Pont de L’Alma tunnel in Paris.
• Her death placed the monarchy into trouble after the public dissolution of her marriage to heir Prince Charles with revelations of feuding, adultery, and royal sorrow.

Diana, one of the world’s most recognised and photographed women, was mourned by millions worldwide.

Her allure persists after 25 years.

“Spencer” is a movie about Charles and Diana’s difficult marriage; “The Princess” is an Oscar-nominated documentary; and “The Crown” recently focused on Diana.

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There have been books, essays, TV shows, recriminations over a 1995 BBC interview, and even “Diana, The Musical,” a short-lived Broadway musical.

“Diana still has an impact, there are still documentaries being made about her, stories written about her, people are still intrigued by this woman,” said author Andrew Morton, whose 1992 biography first exposed the deep divisions in her marriage and with whom she secretly cooperated.

“She just had a charisma, she had an appeal which went beyond her royal moniker – it was of an extraordinary human being,” Morton told Reuters.

OMNIPRESENT

Princes William, 40, and Harry, 37, have spoken of the grief Diana’s death caused and how it damaged their mental health for years.

They were 15 and 12 as they followed their mother’s coffin through London to her burial.

“Every day, we wish she were still with us,” William said when the two brothers unveiled a statue in her honour last year at Kensington Palace in central London, her former home.

“I feel her presence in almost everything that I do now,” Prince Harry told a U.S. television interview in April.

Prince Charles has progressively emerged from the darkness thrown by Diana’s death and has been married to Camilla for 17 years. Some still care, according to polls.

“I think there’s a generation of people still around who feel that she (Camilla) was to blame for the break-up of the fairytale marriage,” Morton said.

The enduring fascination is also not just with her life, but the manner of her death.

WHY THE INTEREST STILL?

So why does Diana and her death generate such interest?

“I think the only other moment in my life that I really feel like time just stopped was 9/11,” filmmaker Perkins told Reuters. “Diana’s death really was a moment where the whole world just seemed to be focused on this singular event.”

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He was 11 at the time, and remembers the collective outpouring of emotion and the unprecedented scenes of mourning.

“We as humans have been telling ourselves variations of the fairytale myth for thousands and thousands of years. And suddenly this real life fairytale sort of came into being,” he said.

“And this marriage, this fairytale romance, came onto the public stage and gave a lot of people a beacon of hope, something that they really bought into and wanted to work. And I think a lot of people became emotionally invested in wanting that story to work.”

Blair stated in his 2010 book that his “people’s princess” phrase today seems “corny” and “over the top,” but that it was how Diana perceived herself and should be remembered.