What happened to Princess Diana after her divorce from Prince Charles? We answer all your questions.
Princess Diana After Divorce from Prince Charles: 9 Things She Lost
Updated on Apr. 16, 2025
It was the end of a fairy tale that had captivated royal watchers for years, but by the end, it had turned darker than any Brothers Grimm tale. After 15 years and countless tabloid headlines, the marriage of Prince Charles, now King Charles III, and Princes Diana was officially over on August 28, 1996. What happened next? The Princess Diana after divorce details have been discussed for decades, but we have tons of new info to share.
You might have heard about Diana’s reported $22.5 million cash settlement and roughly $600,000 annual stipend. But did you know that despite his vast real estate holdings Charles felt a financial pinch, at least in terms of liquidity? The divorce settlement “took all the cash Charles had,” says Chris Andersen, author of The Day Diana Died. “He essentially had to empty his pockets to pay Diana the $22.5 million.”
But the princess lost a great deal too, some for the worse, and perhaps surprisingly, some for the better. Reader’s Digest spoke with Andersen to learn the nine things Diana lost in the divorce—and how they changed her life before her death just one year later. Keep reading to learn all the details and aftermath of this acrimonious time.
Get Reader’s Digest’s Read Up newsletter for more royal news, cleaning, travel, tech and fun facts all week long.
1. Her hope to become queen
Diana and Charles had formally separated in 1992, but it was Diana’s blockbuster interview with the BBC’s Panorama—where she talked about becoming the “queen of people’s hearts” and revealed that Charles’s ongoing relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles made it feel like there were “three of us in the marriage”—that sparked the real beginning of the end.
“Diana was thrilled at the public’s overwhelmingly sympathetic reaction” when the interview aired in November 1995, Andersen says. “But when the queen wrote to both Charles and Diana commanding them to get a divorce, she was genuinely shocked. She had overplayed her hand, and with devastating consequences.”
The divorce ended any chance of her becoming queen. “Diana hid it from the public, but she deeply regretted the fact that she lost the chance to be queen,” says Andersen. “Diana later said she felt she and Charles ‘would have been the best team in the world. I could shake hands until the cows come home. And Charles could make serious speeches. But it was not to be.'”
2. Her HRH title
Under the terms of the divorce, Diana got to keep a number of her royal titles, including the Princess of Wales. But the queen pointedly stripped her of the one that mattered most: Her Royal Highness.
“That stung,” Andersen says. “Diana was going to fight to keep her HRH standing, but she changed her mind when William told her, ‘I don’t care what you’re called. You’re still Mummy.'” Prince William also promised to restore Diana’s status once he became king.
In the divorce announcement, the palace said Diana would still be “regarded as a member of the royal family,” but the loss of her HRH title would theoretically obligate Diana to curtsy to royals, including her ex-husband, ex-in-laws and even her sons. It’s hard to know if the palace intended that to be the practice, but it certainly sent that message.
Andersen says the queen was angry, but her advisors told her point-blank that “if Diana was no longer married to the future monarch, she simply was no longer royal,” Andersen adds. “Queen Elizabeth never bucked her advisors—especially not in matters of protocol.”
3. Social connections
While Princess Diana after her divorce was adored all over the world, at home she was lonely, especially when her sons were at school or with their father. Many of her former friends had drifted away, and she was on the outs with others.
“Outwardly she seemed almost deliriously happy. Privately things were very different,” Andersen says. “Her longtime lawyer and friend Lord Palumbo told me, ‘Imagine, incredible adulation during the day, then dinner on a tray in front of the television in Kensington Palace—alone.'”
This isolation was part of the reason she accepted the invitation of businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed to bring the boys with her to stay at his villa in the south of France, in July 1997. There, he introduced her to his son Dodi in the hopes that the two would hit it off romantically.
4. Royal security
While Diana continued to use Scotland Yard’s Royalty Protection Group when she was with her sons, she refused it when she was on her own, suspicious that the agents were loyal to the palace instead of her.
“She felt it was an unwarranted intrusion on her privacy,” Andersen says. Post-divorce, Princess Diana sometimes hired her own bodyguard but often relied on security teams provided by charity benefactors or friends. “She actually spent next to nothing on her own security,” Andersen says.
And though we now know the sad and ironic outcome, at the time Diana was not afraid. “She did not fear the paparazzi,” Andersen says. “She knew how to handle them. She was an absolute magician at this.”
5. Ceremonial charity commitments
One of the first things Diana did after her divorce was to slash the slate of charities she was involved in from 100 to six. “Now she was free to concentrate on the causes she was most passionate about,” Andersen says, rather than just be a name on the letterhead.
In a statement, Diana said that she made the move to allow the other charities to find a new royal patron after a “change in her status,” an allusion to the palace having stripped her of her HRH title. But the move allowed her to be a real change-maker for her chosen nonprofits, which included two hospitals as well as organizations supporting the English National Ballet, AIDS and leprosy awareness and the homeless.
6. The “men in gray suits”
Even before Charles and Diana were married, the princess had clashed with palace courtiers she called “the men in gray suits.” For years, they had told her what she could and couldn’t do and say. She was certain they spied on her, reporting back to Charles and the queen, and she suspected even worse.
“Diana always had this eerie premonition that she would be assassinated by dark forces within the British government, either in a staged car crash or a staged helicopter crash,” Andersen says.
After the divorce, the constraints were lifted. She had to clear any foreign trips (outside of personal vacations) with the palace, but Diana reveled in her newfound independence: “She seemed almost deliriously happy,” Andersen says, adding that she was “freed from the shackles of a notoriously loveless marriage and a powerful, thousand-year-old institution that was hellbent on making her bow to its will.”
7. A sense of victimhood
Once Diana got over the shock of the divorce, given that “she was essentially being cast out of the royal family in a very public fashion,” Andersen says she seized the opportunity to carve out a new life for herself.
“Diana was determined not to be seen as a victim,” Andersen adds. She focused her attention on her charity work, and on the human suffering caused by unexploded land mines. She famously walked through a minefield in Angola, a move that helped bring about an international anti-land mine treaty.
“Lady Elsa Bowker told me what Diana said when she asked if she was frightened,” Andersen recalls. Her answer? “I’m never frightened when I’m doing good. I’m never frightened.”
8. A second chance at love
Diana met Hasnat Khan in the summer of 1995, and she immediately hit it off with the British-Pakistani heart surgeon.
“She fell desperately in love with Hasnat Khan,” Andersen says. “So much so that she was seriously contemplating converting to Islam to marry him.” But the romance was doomed to fail.
“He was a very private person who couldn’t cope with the idea of being hounded by the press,” so he knew he could never marry her, Andersen says. Khan broke things off in the summer of 1997, and Diana soon began dating Dodi Fayed. “After a particularly bitter quarrel, she decided to make him jealous by dating Dodi,” Andersen says. “That didn’t mean she wasn’t fond of Dodi, as well.”
But Diana had no intention of marrying Dodi, according to Andersen: “If Hasnat Khan had called and proposed, Diana would have dropped everything and come running in an instant.”
9. Her bitterness toward Charles
Ironically, during the final year of her life, Diana was able to let go of some of the bitterness she felt toward Charles and even Camilla. “She realized that they were, for want of a better word, soulmates,” says Andersen, accepting that “Charles and Camilla were meant to be together.”
This realization helped Diana let go of a lot of emotional baggage: “It freed her up emotionally,” Andersen says. “So did cutting the ties that for 17 years had tied her to the palace.” She had control of her own life, perhaps for the first time.
“She was looking forward to what she thought would be a bright future,” Andersen recalls. “That’s what made her death at the age of 36 so heartbreaking.”
About the expert
|
Why trust us
Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of stories on the British royal family, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the fascinating facets of the monarchy. We regularly cover topics including the latest royal news, the history and meaning behind time-honored traditions, and the everyday quirks of everyone’s favorite family members, from Queen Elizabeth’s daily snack to Prince William’s confessions about his home life. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. For this piece on Princess Diana after divorce, Lauren Cahn tapped her experience as a longtime journalist who often covers knowledge, history and the British royal family for Reader’s Digest. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Christopher Andersen, author and journalist; email interview, April 6, 2024
- New York Times: “Charles and Diana Agree on Divorce Terms”
- UPI: Â “Divorce of Charles and Diana Finalized”
- UPI: “Diana Quits Role in Almost 100 Charities”
- PBS: “Diana’s 1995 BBC Interview”
