Fayed believes her killing was ordered because the royal family did not want the mother of the future king having a child with his son. He alleges that Diana's body was embalmed to cover up evidence she was expecting a baby.
The researchers noted that Diana's body was embalmed only hours after her death, and that such an action was unusual, because a postmortem had not been done. They said it was even more unusual because Dodi Fayed's body was not embalmed as quickly.
The report resolves the lingering question of why the French authorities embalmed Diana's body so quickly using embalming fluid which made it more difficult to investigate Mr Fayed's claim that Diana was pregnant by his son at the time of her death.
According to Oprah magazine, Diana suffered from a concussion, a broken arm, a cut thigh and massive chest injuries. After a two-hour operation to save her, the doctors failed to get Diana's heart to beat properly and she never regained consciousness. She died from internal bleeding at 4:53 a.m. on August 31, 1997.
What were Princess Diana's last words? The firefighter on the scene of Princess Diana's accident revealed the last words she spoke before her death in an interview with The Independent. According to the firefighter, Xavier Gourmelon, the Princess of Wales asked: “My God, what has happened?”
People used to call her 'Shy Di' because she kept her head down when she talked to you. 'But there was nothing shy about her. She was conscious of was her height - 5 foot 10. 'She used to keep her head down when talking to people to not make them feel uncomfortable and to talk to them at their own level.
She's spotted crying at Heathrow airport upon his departure—not because she is sad, but because before he left, he had taken a phone call with Camilla Parker Bowles. “It just broke my heart,” she later recalled, according to Diana: In Her Own Words.
Additionally, Diana, Fayed and Paul were not wearing seat belts, CNN reports. Whether Rees-Jones was wearing a seatbelt remained a question. Rees-Jones told “60 Minutes” in 2000 he did not remember anything from the crash.
“She was very much a hit with the royal family—they really warmed to her,” Chernock says. “Diana worked very, very hard to ingratiate herself and to model what she thought being a princess would entail, and she did it very successfully.”
A princess in mourning: Devastated Kate fights back tears as she farewells Queen. The Princess of Wales could not hide her emotions as she arrived at Queen Elizabeth II's funeral.
The embalming procedure may not be necessary given the royal tradition of being buried in lead-lined coffins. The reason behind the tradition is it helps preserve the corpse for longer after its burial in a crypt.
Embalming is a process which has also long been used by Royals, involving preservative fluids being injected into bodies to delay decomposition.
Prince Harry said he cried once after his mother's death — at her burial. “Everyone knows where they were and what they were doing the night my mother died,” he said.
Kensington Palace
Princess Diana's body was brought back from Paris to St. James Palace in London. From there, a hearse transported her coffin to Kensington Palace—her former home—days before the funeral took place.
Princess Diana's final resting-place is in the grounds of Althorp Park, her family home. The original plan was for her to be buried in the family vault at the local church in nearby Great Brington, but this was changed by her brother, Earl Spencer.
The Queen bowed her head as a sign of respect to her late daughter-in-law, Princess Diana. As the Head of State, Her Majesty was under no obligation to bow to anyone, making the gesture even more poignant.
It's rumored that Camilla's father planted a fake Camilla-Andrew engagement notice in The Times, apparently forcing Andrew's hand. Literally. Prince Charles returned home to news of Camilla and Andrew's engagement. According to Bedell Smith, that fake engagement announcement explains why Charles didn't marry Camilla.
"It was indeed dreadfully sad, and she is a huge loss to the country," the queen wrote. "But the public reaction to her death, and the service in the Abbey, seem to have united people round the world in a rather inspiring way.
The most photographed woman of the age, Diana understood the rules of royal dressing but was not afraid of twisting them. She breached royal protocol by wearing a black ballgown, a colour worn formally by royal women only during mourning. Her outfits included androgynous gear, such as a tuxedo and a bow tie.
Initial media reports stated that Diana's car had collided with the pillar at 190 km/h (120 mph), and that the speedometer's needle had jammed at that position. It was later announced that the car's speed upon collision was 95–110 km/h (59–68 mph), about twice as fast as the speed limit of 50 km/h (31 mph).
"There's no evidence that the brakes of her car were ever tampered with, and what it's doing is trying to illustrate her fears at the time. "Diana said that she feared that her brakes might be tampered with, she said that. On the record that's known," the royal expert continued. "But as far as we know they never were."
And the slipup that started a royal wedding tradition we now love: Charles forgot to kiss Diana at the altar (oops!), so the couple made up for the miss later on the Buckingham Palace balcony, as crowds roared their approval below.
Princess Diana was tragically killed in a car accident in Paris on August 31, 1997. Shortly before her passing, the former couple began to reconcile their relationship, with Charles stopping in at her Kensington Palace residence occasionally.
The former butler stunned the packed courtroom describing Diana's mother's alleged comments as “a hate-filled personal attack on the men and their religious beliefs.” According to Burrell, as a result of that call, Diana vowed never to speak to her mother again.