The Surprising Thing Princess Diana Secretly Did For Money

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Princess Diana was a senior royal and the future queen of England, so it might shock some to learn that she had a secret side hustle to make extra money. But, true to the People's Princess's nature, it wasn't for extravagant shopping trips — it was to treat her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, to some ordinary childhood experiences. Former royal butler Paul Burrell revealed what Diana was really like as a mother in his book, "A Royal Duty." Burrell recalled how she secretly made some money on the side by selling some of her most sought-after clothes to thrift stores. 

This meant Diana got instant cash in hand that she could then spend freely without the palace knowing. "Royals rarely carry hard currency," Burrell explained. "By generating cash, she could spend it as she wished without trace, and take William and Harry to the cinema or to McDonald's." The beloved royal would often hand some of it over to William and Harry to spend as they pleased as well, and the young princes were understandably fascinated by the fact that their grandmother's face adorned the notes. 

Former royal chef Darren McGrady similarly shared in an interview with Heart Bingo (via Marie Claire) that Diana once told him to cancel Harry and William's lunches because she was treating them to McDonald's. The chef was completely aghast, informing the People's Princess that he could whip up much tastier burgers than the fast food chain. "She said, 'I know that Darren, but they want the toys in the Happy Meal,'" he disclosed. They might be royals, but Harry and William were just like any other kids when it came to the simple things in life, and Diana made sure she had the means to give them to them.

Princess Diana might have had to resort to selling her clothes to get some cash to spend on her kids when she was a working royal, but that all changed once the Princess of Wales divorced King Charles III. The couple's contentious split ended in one of the biggest royal divorce settlements in history, with Charles' financial advisor at the time, Geoffrey Bignell, complaining to The Telegraph. "Princess Diana took every penny he had." The princess took her dues in cash, which required Bignell to liquidate his client's investments. 

"That's when I stopped being his personal financial adviser because he had no personal wealth left. She took him to the cleaners," he elaborated. Diana managed to get a hefty £17.5 million (about $23.4 million today) settlement out of the divorce (and a luxurious Kensington Palace apartment). In addition to this, she was also paid a hefty allowance, which was supposed to be used to pay the staff who would continue running her office. Needless to say, the beloved royal had plenty of spending money after her divorce, and without the constraints of the palace, she could finally spend it as she wished. 

While Diana walked away much richer, she reportedly never wanted her marriage to end. As former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond divulged in the documentary, "Princess Diana: In Her Own Words" (per Nine.com.au), she would rather have just been separated instead. "She didn't want the divorce. She told me, 'It's not something I want,'" Bond said. "I think she felt somehow they could continue as separated but partners and parents to the two boys, and she really did try to make it work and she wanted to make it work."

Although Princess Diana happily sold some of her clothes to thrift stores in order to obtain some off-the-books cash to spend on family outings with her children, notably, she also had some of her most iconic looks auctioned off to benefit needy charities. Mere months before her death in 1997, some of Diana's most memorable outfits were auctioned off by Christie's International in New York. The  People's Princess donated 79 cocktail dresses overall, which raked in an impressive $3.25 million. The proceeds were donated to the AIDS Crisis Trust and the Royal Marsden Hospital Cancer Fund.

When she wasn't secretly selling her clothes for a bit of extra clandestine cash or donating them to auctions for a good cause, Diana was lending them to her favorite family members. Older sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale donned some of the beloved royal's ensembles on a few occasions. Likewise, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, also raided Diana's closet several times, and was even photographed wearing some of her most memorable clothes by eagle-eyed paparazzi over the years too.