By Kori Rumore
Princess Diana receives a flower from an admirer in Evanston on June 4, 1996, after leaving the home of Henry Bienen, the president of Northwestern University.
Princess Diana on a yacht in Portofino, Italy, one week before she passed in 1997
...It was this combination of academics, philanthropy and friendship that paved the way for Princess Diana’s first and only visit to Chicago on June 4-6, 1996 — one month before she and Prince Charles agreed on terms for a divorce, and just 15 months before her death....
...Q: Did you have any idea how big it would be, (click here) how widely broadcast her visit would be when you agreed to it?
A: No, not really. I hadn’t really paid, frankly, that much attention to her. Of course I knew who she was. I knew she was a worldwide celebrity. The first inkling I got was she came from the plane and she came to meet me on campus. We were walking around and the lines behind the rope lines were literally five and six (people) deep and I was floored.
That was the beginning of the visit. And then I really understood how huge the media attention would be and that this was a very bid deal. But no, initially, I was very surprised....
...Q: Did you have any idea how big it would be, (click here) how widely broadcast her visit would be when you agreed to it?
A: No, not really. I hadn’t really paid, frankly, that much attention to her. Of course I knew who she was. I knew she was a worldwide celebrity. The first inkling I got was she came from the plane and she came to meet me on campus. We were walking around and the lines behind the rope lines were literally five and six (people) deep and I was floored.
That was the beginning of the visit. And then I really understood how huge the media attention would be and that this was a very bid deal. But no, initially, I was very surprised....
She is so missed. Any photo, any moment has become a treasure.
This shot of Princess Diana (click here) sitting on the diving board of the private yacht "Jonikal," owned by her boyfriend, Mohammed Al Fayed, is from the final holiday she ever took. In the summer of 1997, Diana was trying to reinvent herself, to remove herself from the public eye and become a person again.
In late July she traveled to Saint Tropez in the South of France where she spent time on Fayed's yacht and the Fayed family's 30-bedroom villa, Castle St. Therese, with her sons, William and Harry. It's clear from this photo that even when she was alone she was never really alone.
Photographers were constantly hounding her, even when she was in the middle of the ocean. There was nowhere she could go where she was safe.
