On August 31, 1997, around four in the morning, the world stood still for a millisecond: Princess Diana, the ex-wife of Prince Charles and mother of Princes William and Harry, was dead. She had died as a result of a car accident in Paris. Her lover at the time, the Egyptian playboy Dodi Al-Fayed, and Henri Paul, the chauffeur and head of security at the Ritz Hotel, also died in the Alma tunnel.
How did that fateful journey come about? What sometimes fatal decisions were made in advance? And above all: What plans could Diana no longer pursue due to her early death at the age of just 36? The “ZDFzeit” documentary “Diana’s last night – love, life, legend” by Annika Blendl, Ulrike Grunewald and Leonie Stade asked itself these questions on Tuesday evening.
Many of the answers, which are accompanied by original surveillance camera footage, paparazzi snapshots and re-enacted game scenes, surprised and left the audience incredulous and shocked: On the morning of August 30, it was learned that Diana and Dodi spontaneously decided to go through their summer vacation to end one last night in “the city of love”.
It was to remain a secret detour: “The pilot had no idea where it was going until they got on board,” Michael Cole, the Al-Fayeds’ press secretary, recalled in the documentary. Even the employees of the luxury hotel Ritz only found out about the famous guests shortly before their arrival.
The fact that photographers were still waiting in front of the entrance when they arrived must mean that someone close to the princess must have given them a tip: Was it Dodi’s father, the billionaire Mohammed Al-Fayed, who used it to advertise his Harrods department store acquired in 1985? Or was it Diana herself who craved public interest? The documentary could not definitively answer this question.
While the head of security at the Ritz, Henri Paul, drove the couple’s luggage to Dodi’s Paris apartment and the hotel manager reserved a table in a posh restaurant on Dodi’s behalf, Diana pursued her own plans: “Towards the end of her life, Diana became stronger,” explained the British journalist Jennie Bond, “Physically and mentally. She developed a picture of who she wanted to be and the path she wanted to take.” The money and popularity of the Al-Fayeds would help her plan for the future. Mohammed Al-Fayed, on the other hand, was enthusiastic about the idea of a possible marriage between Diana and Dodi, it was said: “It was the perfect trophy for him,” said television producer Michael Attwell.
At around 5:30 p.m., Dodi al-Fayed left the Ritz and was driven to the jeweler Repossi. Here he bought an engagement ring, because of which, at least his father Mohammed claimed, he later became the victim of an assassination attempt: “He was determined to marry her,” the press spokesman Cole also recalled: “More than once Dodi said to me, she is the only one, the woman for life.” For Diana, on the other hand, the relationship with Dodi was just a “summer romance”, as her friend Derek Deane said.
Whatever the relationship between the two, the foundation stone was laid in the spring of 1997: At an event in London, Mohammed Al-Fayed invited Diana and her sons to a summer vacation in Saint Tropez. Despite the paparazzi warning, she assumed, “I think she was up to something, and it wasn’t about getting the boys a vacation,” Deane surmised.
Diana was not hiding, on the contrary: she made the British press curious with enigmatic announcements. She wanted to overshadow Camilla’s birthday party. With success: When a French photographer accidentally shot the famous kiss of Diana and Dodi on his yacht Jonikal, the photo dominated the front pages. It was the beginning of the end: “From then on, the hunt for the two was opened,” says Cole: “They were pursued until the day they died.”
The paradoxical love-hate relationship Diana cultivated with the press also drove her to one of her last phone calls, which she made from the Ritz on the day of her death: She had noticed a car, she reported to her friend, the fortune teller Rita Rogers. It followed them on the way from the airport to the hotel. It was not the first time that the princess feared for her safety: her butler Paul Burrell recalled a message she had left him some time before her death in the documentary: “She had written: The coming months are the hardest of my life. I’m afraid my husband is planning a car accident. I’m supposed to die of a head injury so he can remarry. And I thought to myself: No, never!”
Diana’s paranoia went so far that she no longer trusted her professional bodyguards from the London police. “At the end of 1993 she gave up guarding altogether – a fateful decision,” the film said. Instead, she and Dodi relied on two of Mohammed Al-Fayed’s bodyguards, who, at least that’s what the documentation suggested, were hopelessly overwhelmed by dealing with the press.
After a short phone call with her sons, Diana finally called her journalist friend Richard Kay. She was worried about the British headlines, Kay recalled in the documentary. Both her relationship with the Al-Fayeds and her political involvement were not well received in the UK. During her phone call with Kay, Diana considered emigrating to America: “She seemed set for a big change,” Kay said.
Around 7 p.m., Dodi and Diana left the hotel through the back entrance to drive to Dodi’s nearby apartment. There they wanted to change for dinner. When they left the apartment at around 9:35 p.m., they were followed by photographers. The bodyguards didn’t know where to go. This was a big mistake, said the head of royal personal security, Dai Davies. The fact that they spontaneously changed plans and rushed back to the Ritz to dine only made matters worse: “To the jeweller’s, then back to the Ritz, then to the apartment, then the plan to go to the restaurant: the one with the It was impossible to do safely for a few people,” criticized Davies.
Shortly after 10 p.m., security chief Henri Paul was ordered back to the Ritz. In the hotel bar, he and the two bodyguards waited for further instructions. Paul, who regularly took various medications, allowed himself two alcoholic drinks. A later analysis should determine 1.83 per thousand alcohol. Meanwhile, Dodi decided to drive back to the apartment. A diversionary maneuver should protect Diana from the press. For the Princess’s former bodyguard, Ken Wharfe, the idea was a lunatic: “Why the maneuver? Diana is not in danger of being killed just because the paparazzi want a picture of her. After all, an engagement or marriage could be in the offing. Give them the chance! And always go through the front door only!”
Instead, Dodi decided to start with Diana in an unchecked car from the hotel’s rear exit, while two other cars at the main entrance distracted the journalists. Henri Paul was supposed to drive the car with Dodi and Diana, bodyguard Trevor Reese-Jones decided to accompany them. The drunk Paul is said to have provoked the paparazzi further: “Don’t even try to follow us! You can’t get us,” he shouted. Little did he know that the Mercedes that had been rushed to the scene was an accident vehicle that was not allowed to drive faster than 60 km/h. At 12:24 am, fleeing from the paparazzi at 160 km/h, he lost control of the car and crashed into the 13th pillar in the Alma Tunnel. None of the occupants were wearing seat belts at the time of the accident. This was another failure of the bodyguard, Davies said.
The last quarter of an hour of the documentary was finally dedicated to the first hours after the devastating accident: The emergency doctor Frederic Mailliez remembered how he first helped Diana and then Trevor Reese-Jones, the only survivor of the accident. Photos of the completely devastated Warck were heard as emergency services got both of them out of the car before Diana’s heart stopped and she died at 4:05 am. Diana’s chauffeur, Colin Tebbutt, and her butler, Paul Burrell, were sent to Paris.
Diana’s body was in a normal hospital room at the time. They shielded the windows from the prying eyes of the paparazzi with makeshift sheets. Fans were also set up to combat the heat: “Her hair moved, her eyelashes twitched,” recalled the visibly moved Burrell: “I said to her: ‘You see, you’re just sleeping! But she didn’t sleep. You imagine it because you want to believe it.”
The film ended with images of people grieving, accompanied by Elton John’s final musical greeting, “Candle In The Wind”. Mohammed Al-Fayed was said to have never admitted complicity in the deaths of his son and the Princess of Wales. Instead, he attacked the royal family. However, several investigations by the British and French side ultimately revealed, the documentary concluded, that Diana’s death was a tragic accident.
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The original of this post “ZDFzeit” documentary reveals new details from Princess Diana’s night of death” comes from Teleschau.
