A Look Back At Princess Diana's Heartbreaking Funeral

The royal family was criticized for seeming slow to publicly acknowledge the death of Princess Diana. Queen Elizabeth reportedly insisted that the family stay at Balmoral Castle, where they were already spending part of the summer holiday. The public felt that the queen and the rest of the family were too cold in their lack of a response, prompting newspaper headlines decrying the family and accusing them of not caring (via Reader's Digest).

Queen Elizabeth also waited five days before flying the Union Jack flag at half-staff at Buckingham Palace. This was a big deal once the flag was flown, because the Union Jack typically does not fly at Buckingham Palace if the monarch is not home, but it seemed too long for a lot of people. Ultimately, Queen Elizabeth and the family came back to London, and on September 5, the queen gave a live broadcast address for the first time in 50 years.

In her statement, the queen noted in part her admiration for Diana as a mother. As she said, "She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness. I admired and respected her — for her energy and commitment to others, and especially for her devotion to her two boys" (via The Washington Post).

In a move that was seen as appropriate at the time but in retrospect some consider potentially harmful, Prince William and Prince Harry, who were both underage at the time of their mother's death, walked behind their mother's coffin alongside their father, King Charles, and their uncle, Charles Spencer. Harry in particular has spoken out in recent years about the impact that walking behind his mother's coffin had on him, especially as he was only 12 years old and still struggling to process the loss of his mother in the first place. 

In June 2017, Harry opened up to Newsweek about the experience. As he put it, "My mother had just died, and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television. I don't think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don't think it would happen today."

Harry has also admitted that the day of his mother's funeral and her untimely passing, in general, had a serious impact on the rest of his life. As he told the outlet, he began to try to understand himself in his mid-20s after getting "very close" to a total breakdown. He explained, "My mother died when I was very young. I didn't want to be in the position I was in, but I eventually ... decided to use my role for good."

While the fashion choices of the royal family weren't front and center at Princess Diana's funeral, there was a fair bit of attention paid to the suit that King Charles wore, most notably because it was blue and not the standard black more commonly associated with funerals. The attention was compounded by the fact that Prince William, Prince Harry, and Diana's brother all wore black suits, and Showbiz Cheatsheet has noted that some people believed Charles' choice of suit color was disrespectful.

The truth of the matter is a lot more sincere than some might have thought. Richard Eden, an editor for the Daily Mail, explained to Palace Confidential that Charles wore the suit because it's what Diana would have preferred. As Eden said, "If you look at Prince Charles at her funeral, he didn't wear black, he wore a navy suit, and that's because Diana liked him best in navy." Eden went on to note that both Prince William and Prince Harry wore navy suits in 2021 when they unveiled a statue of their mother in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace.

The Daily Express reported that Diana even helped pick out the suit that Charles ultimately wore to her funeral, and that the future king wore the suit as a nod to the years that the two were married to one another.

Princess Diana was known and loved by people all over the world, and some of those people included celebrities who quietly attended her funeral to pay their respects. These guests included her close friends Elton John, who performed his song "Candle in the Wind" during the service, as well as George Michael. As reported by Showbiz Cheatsheet, there were a number of other singers at the funeral as well, such as Luciano Pavarotti, Mariah Carey, Sting, and Bryan Adams. 

Diana's funeral was also attended by a number of actors and Hollywood elite, including Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, and Kidman's then-husband Tom Cruise. Diana had been introduced to Cruise and Kidman when she attended the London premiere of "Far and Away" in 1992. Judy Wade wrote in "Diana: The Intimate Portrait" that Kidman was perhaps threatened by Diana: "That explains why Nicole Kidman turned down roles with Diana every time and wasn't happy that her best friend Naomi Watts accepted. Nicole continues to hold a grudge, even though she divorced Tom, and the woman who posed a threat died" (via Showbiz Cheatsheet).

Hillary Rodham Clinton also attended Diana's funeral and did so under the direction that she must avoid taking questions from the press while in the U.K. Bob Bradtke, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy, considered Clinton "the most prominent guest at the funeral" (per The Guardian).

While approximately 2,000 people attended Princess Diana's funeral at Westminster Abbey, many thousands more showed up and lined the streets of London on the day of the observance. As noted by Reader's Digest, at one point the line to sign the condolence book at St. James Palace took nearly seven hours for mourners to work their way through.

The Evening Chronicle has estimated that 3 million people may have shown up in the streets of London to honor Princess Diana. Of those, tens of thousands were believed to have lined the path toward Westminster Abbey, where the funeral service was held. The outlet also noted that there were other ways that tribute was paid to Diana, writing at the time, "Across the region shops, restaurants, and charity stores will close in respect." Additionally, mourners showed a strong desire to take Diana's favorite flower to stand outside the Abbey. The outlet claimed, "Stocks of Princess Diana's favorite flower, a white lily called Casablanca, have been wiped out as North East mourners snap them up."

In addition to those who were able to be there in person, the funeral was watched on TV by another 2.5 billion people (per History).

Some outlets have reported that when it came down to planning Princess Diana's funeral, and more specifically deciding what role Prince William and Prince Harry would have in the funeral itself, King Charles and Diana's brother Charles Spencer had a major disagreement. In his book "Battle of Brothers: The Inside Story of a Family in Tumult," author Robert Lacey claimed that Spencer believed Diana never would have wanted her sons to walk behind her coffin. Lacey wrote that a phone call between the two men "had ended with the earl slamming down the phone on his brother-in-law after Charles had made a particularly offensive comment about Diana" (via People).

The author went on to add that Spencer reportedly felt that Charles and the royal family were taking the funeral and using it for their own purposes. In the end, King Charles clearly got his way, and Harry and William joined the procession.