The Sneaky Trick Princess Diana Reportedly Used To Make Her Lovers Jealous

It's no secret that Princess Diana had a rocky relationship with the paparazzi before her tragic death in the summer of '97. Per a Washington Post article published just days after Diana died, she had been "hounded and pursued" by Parisian photographers relentlessly during her entire trip to France with her lover Dodi Fayed before the car crash in a tunnel near the Pont de l'Alma that killed Diana, Fayed, and chauffeur Henri Paul. But according to the 2022 royal biography "The Palace Papers" by Tina Brown, as reported by the Daily Mail, Diana sometimes tipped off the paparazzi to her whereabouts in hopes that photos of her out with other men would make lovers jealous.

"Time and time again, as we have seen, Diana chose to invade her own privacy, often for the capricious reason of making the men in her life jealous," Brown wrote. According to Brown, the most notable example of Diana sneakily using the paparazzi to control the narrative in her personal life is the famous grainy photo of Diana and Fayed embracing on a yacht in the Mediterranean off the coast of Corsica taken days before their deaths. In the photograph, published by The New York Times, Fayed was bare-chested and has his arms around Diana, who was wearing a neon pink bathing suit with a floral pattern. "It was she who tipped off Italian lensman Mario Brenna — to send a taunting message to the current love of her life, Hasnat Khan," Brown added.

Even when she wasn't making supposed calls to the paparazzi, Princess Diana knew how to use highly photographed public events to send messages to the men in her life courtesy of her clothing. One of the most infamous examples involved Diana wearing her iconic "revenge dress" to a dinner at the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens in June 1994. The fitted, black, off-the-shoulder dress by designer Christina Stambolian had a low neckline, an asymmetrical hem, and a chiffon train. She paired the dress with a statement choker and definitely knew the look — which broke royal protocol — would capture the world's attention.

Diana and then-Prince Charles had been separated for nearly two years by the night of the event, June 29, 1994, but as reported by People, Charles was telling the world he had been unfaithful to Diana in an ITV documentary airing that night. So she had a reason to send a not-so-subtle message. 

"She decided that she was going to fight back, and she decided that she would choose a dress that she had previously rejected as being a little too much. And she would put that on and go out on the town," William Ivey Long, costume designer for the Broadway musical "Diana," told People of the dress. She had reportedly planned to wear Valentino and changed her mind last minute.