The world stood still
Where were you when you heard the news?
As with the moment in November 1963 when news broke of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, many people can recall exactly where they were or what they were doing 20 years ago when they heard Princess Diana had died.
“It was very, very strange after her death, you know, the sort of outpouring of love and emotion from so many people that had never even met her,” Prince Harry, who was just 12 when his mother died, says in the documentary Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy. “I was thinking to myself, ‘How is it that so many people that never met this woman, my mother, can be crying and showing more emotion that I actually am feeling?’ ”
Here are people’s stories of that moment:
ELIZABETH EMANUEL
“I was in bed. It was 5 in the morning, and my dad called me and said, ‘You’d better turn on the TV,’ ” says Emanuel, 64. She and her former husband, David, designed Diana’s wedding dress and many other outfits for the young princess in the 1980s.
“They didn’t announce she was dead (at first). They just said she was in a car crash.
“It was unbelievable. It was really terrible. You don’t think anybody like that would just die. She was such an iconic and wonderful person.
“She was in people’s hearts. It was like losing family. The time has gone so quickly. She is (still) such a big part of our lives.”
PHIL DAMPIER
“I got a call about 2 a.m. from a photographer to say there was something I needed to know: There had been a car crash and that Dodi (Fayed, her companion) was dead and Diana was injured,” says Dampier, a former journalist who covered Princess Diana for Britain’s Sun newspaper and whose new book, Diana: I’m Going to be Me — The People’s Princess Revealed in Her Own Words, came out in June.
“So I got up and started watching the television. By that time I had left the Sun and was working as the royal editor for an Australian magazine. For me, the strange thing was that while most people did not know what was going on in the United Kingdom, because of the late hour and the time difference in Australia and other parts of the world, they did.
“I remember calling one hardened photographer to tell him she had died, and I heard his wife shriek in the background and then burst into tears. It was quite eerie. It was about 5 a.m. Then, of course, in the morning, the enormity of it all sank in.
“There’s a whole generation of kids, anyone under 30, who don’t remember her or even know who she is. A lot of people are discovering Diana for the first time.”
CHRIS ANDERSON
Anderson, 39, an accountant from London, was in college when Diana died.
“I remember seeing it on TV,” he says. “We were all really shocked. It was one of those moments you never forget. It was disbelief. We started phoning people we knew. It wasn’t until she died that it became so apparent what a big presence she was.”
TEMI ADAMOLEKUN
“I was 18 and I was at home and my then-boyfriend called me to tell me,” says Adamolekun, 37, who was living in London when Diana died. She now lives in San Francisco and is co-founder of Radiant Workspace, a co-working space for women.
“I came to Kensington Palace to lay flowers later that evening. It was such a somber atmosphere, to see so many people so sad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many flowers in my life.”
JOHN LOUGHREY
Loughrey, 62, a huge fan who for two decades followed all things Diana, had just opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate his wife’s birthday.
Then the couple happened to turn on the news and heard there had been a terrible automobile accident in the French capital.
“We didn’t drink any of that champagne. It went back in the fridge with the cork off,” Loughrey says. “Then, when it was confirmed that Diana was dead, we just cried.
“I didn’t cry alone. The whole world cried. She was special.”