Access and answers on the anniversary of Princess Diana’s death

It’s a story to which any fan can relate. A star, capital-S, enters your life. They join your favorite team, they write an album that speaks to you, they curate an internet presence with which you fall in love — maybe they do nothing tangible at all. But the Star is massively famous, that’s the important part. They’re a public figure who moves beyond their designation (actor, athlete, princess) and they are everywhere. They share their life and it becomes part of yours.

Then, something bad happens. Something that shatters the illusion. Something minor, a hairline crack in the facade, will only make the Star more relatable, more real. But sometimes the bad thing hits a nerve, sometimes it’s big, and the Star, well, the Star doesn’t want to share that with you. They pull back. They want privacy. But you want answers.

The people, the press and the Princess

Twenty years ago today, Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash in France. She was with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed; the Fayed deputy head of hotel security, Henri Paul; and a bodyguard, Trevor Reese-Jones. Paul, who was driving, was drunk — 0.18 percent BAC — and a 2008 inquiry concluded that Diana and Fayed were “unlawfully killed by a combination of the driving of their Mercedes by their chauffeur Henri Paul and the driving of following vehicles.”

Those following vehicles, of course, belonged to the paparazzi, who hounded Diana on that night much as they had hounded her every day of her life since she began dating Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, in 1980.

For the years she was in the public eye, Diana was immersed in a fraught alliance with the people and the press, an affair of mutual and damaging need. The press had a desperate need for, in today’s parlance, Diana #content — photos, mostly, but also stories and sound clips — for which they would pay paparazzi and “insiders” handsomely. This need was driven by the need of the people, which was a pure and toxic need driven by love, by fandom. And Diana, she needed the people and the press too. As her biographies and documentaries tell it, she needed the coverage emotionally and strategically. She needed the people and the press to both feel better about herself and fight the Royal family.

And here’s the catch: these needs? Well, they were also, only, wants.

Princess Diana’s appeal was a product of her character. She was beautiful and stylish, yes, but she was also relatable. She was described as a “commoner“ — one of the people — but in reality, she was the daughter of the 8th Earl Spencer. Still, she had a job, drove a car, wore jeans. She was playful, particularly as a mother, and joyful, but also open about bulimia, postpartum depression and infidelity. Diana made people feel like she truly cared about them, like she truly cared about you.

And she was ambitious, if somewhat naive. She made it clear at a young age that she planned to marry someone significant — “Westminster or nothing” — keeping herself “tidy” (i.e., a virgin) so that she would be an acceptable match. And yet, she didn’t seem aware of what such a marriage entailed. A prince like Charles was taught to “have as many affairs as possible, sow his wild oats, then find a sweet girl to put on a pedestal and marry.” Once courted and married, the Royal could resume his affairs. As for the noble wife, once she fulfilled her duty to provide an heir and a spare, she, too, was welcome to take a lover. If you were unhappy, you stuck it out separately and smiled when seen together in public. Love was the last thing of importance in the type of marriage Lady Diana set her sights on, and yet she was still very much a teenage girl dreaming of a fairytale.

It’s easy to see this pairing of enthusiasm and innocence play out in her relationship to the press. She thrived off the media, especially once she worked through her shyness. She quickly learned how to flirt with the cameras, give them a perfect shot and work the front page to her advantage. But she also overestimated her power to pull back, believing they would stop when she said so.

Instead, the UK tabloids never let up. Editors and paparazzi active at the time openly admit  they worked with unlimited expense accounts and an imperative to be intrusive.

At a time when the nature of news was changing, Diana rewrote the terms of celebrity access. But they were never only hers to decide: the press and people set those terms too.

More so than the stylish dresses, the charitable empathy or the endearing motherhood, the nucleus of the People-Press-Princess paradox was without a doubt Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles. Her successes were enchanting, but her failures were fascinating. And sex always sells.

So the press covered it all. The time on live television when, sitting next to Diana, Charles was asked if he loved her and said, “whatever that means.” The time Diana “fell” (by her own account: threw herself) down the stairs while pregnant with William. The conspicuously few times Diana and Charles were ever seen together after Harry’s birth. The conspicuously many times Charles was reported to be with Camilla Parker Bowles during that same time.

(Sidebar: by most accounts, Camilla and Charles were and are true soulmates. Unfortunately, it was common knowledge they had slept together and “those who have been bedded cannot be wedded” as the charming royal adage goes. The two did eventually marry in 2004 and despite the fact they had carried out an affair pretty consistently since Charles and Diana’s engagement, time has been kind to the couple.)

Diana’s relationship with the press and the people grew even more complicated at this time. While love for the princess — particularly with two adorable pint-sized princes in tow — was unabated, Diana grew visibly frustrated with the length paparazzi would go, particularly for photos of her sons.

But she still needed them. And, in 1989, when she was certain news of her affairs would come out, and that the Royal family would try to take William and Harry as a result, she turned to the press to keep the people on her side. She thought offering pre-emptive answers might be enough.

To this end, Diana enlisted Andrew Morton to write a biography for which she would be his primary and secret source. She thought she was controlling her narrative, but by 1992, she and Charles had separated, amid rumors of intimate phone calls between the couple and their respective lovers.

In 1994, the Royal family arranged a documentary to rehab Charles’ public image, in which he admitted to cheating. Diana’s response — an iconic black cocktail dress and the equally famous “three of us in this marriage” interview — prompted Queen Elizabeth to order a divorce.

It was then, when the Royal family no longer had any claim to her, that Diana became the People’s Princess. In 1997, the last year of her life, she was at her most visible and beloved. She traveled to the U.S., she walked across a minefield in Angola, she dated. The world had watched her grow up and, in the year following her divorce, watched her become her best self.

That’s what makes Diana so complicated. She thrived in the spotlight. As draining and oppressive as the press could be, she was emotionally gratified by their, and the people’s, attention. She liked being a star and she was a natural one. There’s nothing wrong with that.

There’s really not much to say about her death. The trip to Paris was spontaneous. The cameras were there — before the accident, on the scene, at the hospital. Because of course they were. They were there at every moment of her life; why wouldn’t they be there for every moment of her death?

At the funeral, Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, gave a eulogy condemning the press that was applauded by the very people who bought every copy of their magazines. She was 36.

Twenty years later, it feels like we must know everything there is to know about Princess Diana. The thirst is real, to learn more and also to rehash the details, to hold and see and experience it all again. Countless documentaries, countless exhibits, countless auctions, countless exposes. Her bodyguard reveals. Her personal secretary reveals. Her speech therapist reveals.

Princess Diana’s celebrity was unprecedented. She was the most fascinating person in the world, at the dawn of point-and-shoot cameras, 24-hour coverage and broadcast news. She was the biggest star at a time when we were rewriting the terms of access to celebrity.

Now, social media is actively rewriting those terms once again, mostly by giving control back to the stars. If you share a photo first, there’s no incentive for the paparazzi to hound you for one. Then again, if and when you don’t want to share, they’ll — we’ll — come for you anyway.

We think that because we love them, because our intentions are good, we deserve to know.

When it comes to Princess Diana, to any celebrity that’s so loved, so obsessed over, so important to us as individuals and a society, we’re desperate for information. We’re desperate for answers. But does anyone remember what the question was?