What would have happened had Diana lived that night, instead of died?

🤷🏻‍♂️.

She and Dodi would have broken up.

There would have been very harsh consequences for the driver, if he survived.

She would have toned back her social life and travel and spent more time with her kids, maybe (hopefully) sought some serious therapy. Perhaps she would have reunited with that doctor she really loved who broke up with her.

She may have diverted some of her philanthropic energy to seeking limits on intrusive paparazzi or campaigning against drunk driving.

OR - she would have kept up on the destructive path she was on and done something awful like marrying Donald Trump.

Suicide

She would have married some Middle Eastern multi-millionaire or billionaire (NOT Dodi), and she would now be living in sequestered quarters in an Abu Dhabi high-rise penthouse and now allowed to go outside unless she wore a full hijab. Her life would be even worse than when she was married to Charles.

Nobody would know the name Meghan Markle

[quote]I wonder if there could have been a backlash from people thinking she'd been so loony and irresponsible that it was her own damned fault

I know there are people hateful enough to find a way to twist things and create a new narrative but how could she have been personally blamed for what happened? It's not her fault (or Dodi Fayed's fault) the paparazzi followed them everywhere they went

An aristo twitter friend's family were long time friends with the Spencers. She said ALL of them had mental issues going far, far back into their lineage. I don't know why that doesn't get out more, it wasn't just her. Guessing her cunt brother keeps the lid on it. Anyway, something would have gone sideways eventually if she didn't get serious help. I think that the best thing for her would have been to move to the States. Get the help she needed from our more advanced therapists, and likely would have ended up marrying some tech billionaire. Or perhaps made a Diane von Furstenberg move and get her own Barry Diller

R6, there were a lot of people wondering what the hell she was thinking the last summer of her life. She was behaving erratically, impulsively. The crash was not a one off... it was the end of a string of odd, slightly unseemly actions and decisions. I put forward the theory that public opinion might have blamed the victim in some fashion. You rise, you fall. They build you up, they tear you down. That's all.

Forgot to add, this is an interesting question OP. Thanks for posting. Of course the MM trolls will ruin it but they manage to ruin threads about meatloaf, so....waddyagonnado?

I think of Diana whenever I put on my seatbelt in the back seat of a car.

She would have moved to the US.

If she had lived, I think she would have had to reckon with her sons’ anger at how public she and Charles made their family problems. One or both of them would have still acted out and she would have been blamed as a bad mom when things like Harry’s Nazi moment happened.

William might not have sought out Kate and her family as a port in a storm, and instead married someone less dependable.

Harry may still have sought out someone like Meghan. Sometimes people who are angry at their families but unwilling to speak up themselves pick spouses who will create conflict for them.

If Diana had recovered and moved to the US c. 1998, who would you pair her up with?

She almost certainly would have moved to New York in the US. Tina Brown would just be leaving The New Yorker to work with Harvey Weinstein. JFK Jr. would be working on George and on rocky ground with Carolyn. Donald and Melania weren’t together until fall 1998. Bill and Hillary would be in the middle of the Lewinsky scandal. The Google guys would still be single, but not famous yet, and Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were both taken. Michael Bloomberg is single at the time. Jeffrey Epstein would be lurking around New York somewhere. Maybe George Clooney would have settled down earlier?

^ Poor Diana. Another husband who wouldn't give it to her?!

My Oscar role wouldn’t have happened, so fuck this scenario.

If she’d survived? She’d be shitting and pissing into bags and using a chin-controlled motorized chair.

I don't think she would have married Dodi, but I do think she would have married someone very wealthy and from the Middle East.

I don't think she would have married an American.

I think the sons would still have had problems. I don't think she would have spent as much time with them as people say she would have.

She might have bought a pied-a-terre in NY or maybe even in Calif (as she is reported to have said) but I suspect, after a brief spell at one too many Met Gala fundraisers, or one too many L.A. movie premieres, she would have high-tailed it back to London to be with the boys and keep a close eye on them and their "girlfriends."

I think that the door to Dr. Khan was permanently shut and that was no longer an option for either of them. I like to think she might have found herself a nice billionaire and settled down somewhere on some estate in the Cotswolds, in the vicinity of Anne, Charles, Edward while still doing charity work, special appearances, special fundraisers. But that country setting image doesn't really jibe with the flamboyant, theatrical, devil may care persona of hers.

I think she would have likely re-invented herself after the Queen Mother's death in 2002. She would have seen Charles' heartbreak over his grandmother's death, the Queen's mourning of her mother, her sister, Margaret and understood in a more visceral way, the importance of family in the context of the rapid shifting of power happening from QEII, to Charles and then William. She was still too young to see (BRF) history being played out and how her role might have gained in ever increasing importance and value to the boys, in particular William as the older members - the pillars, Prince Philip - of the family slowly passed on. Instead, the BRF was busy trying to 'erase' her metaphorically - but that's a whole other story.

I had a similar statement to r17 about marrying an American in my post at r18 but I took it out before posting. lol But I agree - doubt she would have married a yank.

[quote] I know there are people hateful enough to find a way to twist things and create a new narrative but how could she have been personally blamed for what happened?

She didn't wear a seatbelt even though she was the mother of two underage children.

I don't see her as marrying an American celebrity--she seemed to want a quieter life and be the center of someone's universe. That would not have happened had she married an American billionaire or movie star.

Charles likely would’ve married Camilla sooner.

I highly doubt she would have married outside the commonwealth, though I do stand by my "Barry Diller" marriage of convenience. High profile Canadian, perhaps?

She wanted to marry George Michael, but for some reason, it wasn't in the cards for her.

Maybe the Saatchi guy who married Nigella? He sounds like a nightmare, though.

I understand what you're saying, R8, but what was the bad decision she made on that particular night that would have made her responsible? The only thing I can come up with is if she had been single or stayed at home that night she'd still be alive, I can imagine victim blamers saying that.

[quote]Or would it have broken the fever and after a period of recovery (and reflection) she would have continued her interests at a less manic pace?

To answer your question, surviving that kind of accident under those circumstances would require a very long physical recovery and would leave you with PTSD. When she eventually returned to public life I can imagine her speaking out about international privacy and paparazzi laws, she would likely be given more privacy (anything is "more" compared to none) as a result but she'd never be free from tabloids and photographers. Based on the way people change after they have near death experiences I think she would have become a more hands on mother, as much as she was capable of being; I imagine both of her sons would have ended up with different wives and William wouldn’t be such a robot. Tensions with the BRF would have escalated, in time things would simmer down but they would never be genuinely friendly. Knowing she had a public platform she'd continue to use it bring awareness to various causes but her charity work would be scaled down. She would eventually have a wealthy companion but he would be no one we've heard of and they'd try, and likely fail, to live a quiet life. PTSD is a real bitch so Diana living with PTSD and having to deal with the press for the rest of her life would force her to work on her mental health, doing so would make her a stronger person who would not allow anyone undermine her mental or emotional wellbeing.

Being more realistic, had she survived she would have either been another Terri Schiavo on life support with a feeding tube and family members fighting over whether to pull the plug OR she would have been severely disabled.

r26 I agree. Though for the sake of keeping the dialogue alive, let's say she got out of it, but "only" with a TBI (which is enough of a disaster) and PTSD, on top of her other mental health issues.

Why I am intrigued about this scenario is because I survived a car accident similar to hers, but in my case, though I was out of the hospital within a day, I'm still struggling mentally and I was a fucking mental case before. And this was over 20 years ago.

R8, I meant is as more of a feeling that people would have, rather than a statement they might make. It's not uncommon when something awful happens for people to look for a way to rationalize it so it won't be as if it could happen to them. (Granted 99% are never going to be pursued to the death by photographers, but any of us could be in a fatal crash.) The minute you hear lung cancer, the first question is: did she smoke? I hold Diana was slipping form the pedestal to some degree when she died. So a live Diana might have been blamed for tempting fate, whereas a dead Diana was perfected.

We would never have experienced this:

R28 Yes, blamed in an Icarus way, not an “it’s your fault the car crashed” way.

I don't think Charles and Camilla ever would have married had Diana survived, unless Diana subsequently remarried first. I have no doubt Charles would still be hatching bonehead schemes to try to get public opinion to a point her could marry her, though, until his mother or his sister beat him over the head with a sceptre. "She's old, she's ugly and nobody wants to see it except you!!!!"

r25 She likely would have married him, and fuck what a disaster THAT would have been.

Shots of him smacking her in the face in a cafe? Just like he did with his Nigella replacement? Same cafe too.

The public would have eventually grown tired of her shenanigans and in turn she'd have become more desperate to keep attention on herself and resorted to more outrageous antics. At some point, even William and Harry would have had their fill just as her own brother and sisters had. If she were alive now, she still would not acknowledge that she was partially to blame for her own mess of a life.

Her Plantar Warts would have eventually returned, and of course she would have blamed ME AGAIN. I could never catch a break from that flighty woman.

Was she all set for money, or would she have had to resort to Fergie-style endorsement deals or marrying for money?

R35 She was quite well set, but of course it's never enough.

Ste died because she was driven by a drunk, hired by her loser boyfriend, and because she wasn’t wearing a seat belt. It was not the paparazzi, whose attention she so much craved when it suited her purposes, who killed her.

She would have completed her world conquest and destroyed her enemies. Why do you think she was collecting land mines?

I don’t think she would’ve married again. I think she would’ve withdrawn and quietly did some charity work behind the scenes, only see a handful of friends and started painting.

People have totally dropped finding out what the bodyguard knew/didn't know. Guessing that's the Grey Men at work.

"He can't remember"

OK, sirs! *tugs at forelock(s) and skedaddles.

[quote]Why I am intrigued about this scenario is because I survived a car accident similar to hers, but in my case, though I was out of the hospital within a day, I'm still struggling mentally and I was a fucking mental case before. And this was over 20 years ago. 27

Wow. I’m sorry you’ve gone thru that R27 but I’m glad you’re still with us.

[quote]a live Diana might have been blamed for tempting fate, whereas a dead Diana was perfected. 28

[quote][R28] Yes, blamed in an Icarus way, not an “it’s your fault the car crashed” way. 30

Of course, duh, thanks R28 & R30.

Wow - we got a common understanding without somebody calling somebody else a cunt.

What if Paul McCartney had gone for Di after Linda died, instead of Heather Mills?

I don't think Paul McCartney could have stayed very long with Di. On the Howard Stern show, Stern cross-examined McCartney about Christie Brinkley trying to date him (Paul). Paul was quiet but didn't deny that Christie had come after him. Point is: I don't think Paul is out looking for a star woman.

I'm not familiar with the Dr. Khan story. Anyone care to summarize it for me? Please and thank you.

This is a good piece on him. Basically, he was a legitimately great normal guy who Di fell for. They dated for two years but he just couldn’t handle all the craziness that came with her, including her attempting to start planning a wedding. There’s a theory she was trying to use the Dodi trips as a way to make Dr Khan jealous.

Great article. Thanks r46. It's kind of a must-read. Gives you an insight in how she really had few choices in her position, and the choices she thought she had were like...NOPE.

Maybe she would have started an international campaign promoting seat belts. With photos of the destroyed car and soft music in the background as she fights back tears about the lost victims. Seat belts save lives! What 36 year women with 2 young children doesn't wear a seat belt?

Khan was a heart surgeon she fell hard for around the time of are shortly after her divorce. Astoundingly, the press never found out. She wanted way more than he could give and it blew up but Fayed came on the scene as rebound or at least a prop with which she taunted Khan. Whether she was in love with him for real or it was just another Diana episode who can say.

She would have fallen off her pedestal because she had allowed herself to become a vulgar rich man’s bit of posh.

It was definitely easier for the BRF with Diana out of the way all these years.

Even with a seatbelt, wouldn’t she have been injured?

She would have had a trajectory like Jackie O. She would marry some gnomish plutocrat whom she expects to outlive, lose a great many of her fans, and vacuum up a lot of money. Jackie had sense in the parenting department, but I'm not so sure about Di. Jackie also got herself a job and a paramour with money. If Di was lucky, she will have enough money to be a philanthropist and find some other fabulously wealthy men to data. At least Di wouldn't have a blood sucking sister trying to get money out of her.

r53 Well fucking said

She would have married me and become the best First Lady America ever had.

We wouldn't have had that stupid Elton John song.

I envision a Farrow esque situation where Diana spends all of her time on Twitter attacking Charles, Camilla and the queen and siccing one of her sons on them as well ( probably Harry). She frequently does interviews discussing how she was " gaslit" during her entire marriage. Has multiple failed relationships over the course of years. Probably does the Rose McGowan bit of going after anyone who associated with her enemy Charles as " complicit" and encourages her fans to do the same.

God, don't compare her to that Mia mess. Diana herself might have been a mess, but would not go quite that far, and would not need to. Likely she would have had "friends" that would have done the talking for her. Have to remember she was the future King's mother so even given that stupid interview she knew she still had boundaries.

Di would have gotten into Instagram but not Twitter. She mostly liked to speak through third parties. I bet she would’ve done a huge blowout interview on Oprah in the early 2000s, though.

She would have found a way to make Harry King.

R10 Absolutely, I do that too. And I often mention it to people. So who knows maybe some lives got saved.

I probably would have gotten another couple of books out about her.

It sure would have been nice to see Diana grow older and her projects and causes that would have been highlighted. An international figure like her is once in a lifetime. Diana's popularity would have remained high and more so than the royal family. She may or may not have remarried, but it would have been several years--maybe into her early 40s before remarrying. Ultimately, she would have remained in the UK. There would be no Meghan Markle asking "Is he nice?" Diana would have ushered her right out the door. Diana was a monarchist, and if per chance Harry got involved with Markle, Diana would have been very disappointed in her son. She would be proud of William and Kate.

Diana would've had Meghan's number immediately and would've seen right through her, as William did.

Diana would have been supremely jealous of Kate being a new younger princess and deposing her from the top spot. Diana would.also be jealous of William's fondness for the Middletons. William would have had to put Diana in her place. There would have been a big row and a long time of barely speaking. Diana would eventually come around but there would still be distance.

She would be on her third or fourth divorce, and we would have been spared one of the more nauseating weeks of my life—the hysterical grief; the pathetic Elton John song; her brother’s crass, hypocritical eulogy, with its totally empty promises of the Spencer’s maintaining a a vital role in the lives of her sons, which he fortunately forgot before he even left the abbey..

They rarely saw their Uncle Spencer and he had nothing to do with their upbringing, his eulogy comments were odd as William and Harry barely knew him.

Will and Harry would have ended up with completely different women than Kate and Meghan. The trajectory of their lives would have been very different.

I disagree. I think William would still end up with Kate and Kate would know how to handle Diana, deferential and not posing a threat to the mother-son bond (at first anyway). William would still retreat to the Middleton’s to escape whatever Diana Drama was brewing in the tabloids. Once the kids were born, there might be issues as William would have less time for her.

Harry would still be quite the lad, but less angry. I agree that MM would not get any traction there. Diana would’ve seen her for the phony she is.

Diana was a dumb fraud with mental issues and the collective meltdown people had after she died was embarrassing.

There's a lot I think is good guessing in R65. I would have hoped, had she lived, she would have got more therapy, good therapy, not crystals, and been able to come to terms with her past and find some inner acceptance. I think she was figuring out 'work'. But she was still angry and impulsive when she died. However, with 40 and 50 ahead, and time and money, maybe she would have sorted herself out. I do think the Fayed fling was an immature 'look at me' to Khan. She had an instinct for self-preservation (at the very very last minute, hello, Panorama) and that aristocratic certainty that comes from knowing who your ancestors are, even if you don't like yourself, so I don't see her going down the path to complete dissolution and winding up crazier or in rehab successively or in bad marriages with super dodgy characters. She was a bad tactician when it came to taking on the monarchy but she had reasonably good instincts when it came to protecting herself. She was using Fayed that summer (hamfistedly) but from everything I read it wasn't anything other than that.

Jackie smoked heavily through all of her pregnancies r53 causing the death of at least two of her unborn children through stillbirth due to her smoking. Hardly one to look up to for parenting advice.

Oh Harry definitely r68, but very likely not William.

In Jackie's day the dangers of smoking while pregnant were not fully understood. It was very common for pregnant women to smoke their way through their pregnancies. My grandmother, who was exactly Jackie's age, smoked like a chimney and all three of her pregnancies were fine.

But Jackie kept doing it even AFTER the deaths. She had no inner voice or gut feeling telling her it was dangerous? Please. Women knew.

r75 it was a different era. The effects of smoking were not really known yet.

This is my thread bitches, not Jackie's. What do I have to do to get your attention, throw myself down the steps?!

My mother smoked like a chimney. My sisters and I have all lived happily into our 70s. It was the STDs JFK gave her that caused Jackie's miscarriages, not the smoking.

Thé lives of the Kennedy’s used to be covered relentlessly. I had never heard the tobacco theory of her miscarriages. Google doesn’t turn this up either. I’m somewhat sceptical this was the cause or that she knew of it. I’m not sure how many female smokers abstained from tobacco for their entire pregnancies.

It was the STDs, this has been written about.

The Kennedys used to be discussed endlessly, books were always coming out and constant magazine covers. However, with the passage of time and new generations the Kennedy mystique has faded. It was quite a long time ago.

We would have been spared Goodby English Rose by Elton

She would have been unrecognizable with all the cosmetic surgeries, desperately trying to look 30 (or younger) for 40+ more years. She would be married a couple more times to a couple rich as fuck guys and she would, of course, portray herself as the wronged spouse in the inevitable divorces. She would still be moaning how hard her life is being a celebrity and a princess, that Charles had cheated on her, and that she was only 19 when she married him, etc. St. Diana all the way.

And maybe she would finally blurt out that Harry was not Charles' son.

Harry is Charles' son, that old myth about James Hewitt is ridiculous.

This goes away to explain it, though I don’t know why she’d want to stand in lines again?

[Quote]If Diana had recovered and moved to the US c. 1998, who would you pair her up with?

I think I read this in Tina Brown's bio. Billionaire Teddy Forstmann sent her weekly bouquets to her following the divorce from Charles. His Wiki page states that they were had a relationship without verified attribution. He moved on to Padma Laksimi (sic?).

If they'd married, she would have wound up a very wealthy widow.

Much to The Family's horror, she was still alive after the crash. That had to be dealt with...

Harry may still have married Meghan Markle or someone similar to her. He had a poster of Halle Berry on his dorm wall. He was attracted to that look / something a little bit exotic. Lots of gingers are probably attracted to a woman with darker hair.

Yes, Diana's death was obviously tragic for William and Harry, but they were 15 and 12, respectively. You are largely formed at that point.

Doubtful r 87. He was really messed up by his mother's early death. You are most certainly not fully formed at that point, not even close!

r87 is Rachel Johnson-notatory

sectioned, Bedlam, padded cell, straight jacket, lithium, with any luck; suicide

Am I reading this wrong, the Neanderthals had a cult worshiping the future Princess Diana?

Is there any truth to the rumour that her seatbelt was sabotaged and that's why she wasn't wearing it? I can't even remember where I read this part of the conspiracy theory. You know how many loons have posted with their own theories

I've never heard that rumor, R92, I just looked it up and on April 25, 2006 "The Express" had a headline titled "Diana seatbelt sabotage probe," but I can't find the actual article.

[quote]Claims that the seatbelt which would have saved Princess Diana's life was sabotaged are now being investigated by detectives.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

Diana survived the crash according to the first witness on the scene who was completely censored/ignored /threatened by French investigators. She was exterminated in the ambulance, which took 1 hour and 20 minutes to travel 4 kilometers on empty streets to Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital... passing 2 other closer hospitals. A meticulously planned hit.

There would have been no Meghan Markle because Harry, while still staying dumb, wouldn't have had the trauma of his mother's death at a point he was still maturing. I mean, he was never going to be a surgeon or an engineer but with a live mother to know, vs. a dead mother to idolize, he probably wouldn't have been as... vulnerable... to... certain types of personality or agenda. But of course the Sussexes are perfectly matched....

But R95 then how did she get to the island with Elvis?

I don't know anyone who wears a seatbelt in the back of a limo, but maybe one would buckle up once they saw that their driver was a drunken lunatic on the road?

IDK why but I never wear a seatbelt in the backseat of any car. Perhaps I will start doing so now.

r95 you are a complete moron. French EMT procedure is to treat the person in the ambulance on-site before going to the hospital, or at least it was back then. This was mentioned constantly at the time.

Diana's driver was shitfaced drunk. If you've ever been in a car with a person who's had a lot to drink, the smell hits you in two seconds and it's very pungent. As soon as I smelled booze on the driver, I would've hopped out of that car in a second.