The turbulent life of Britain’s Princess Diana ended tragically early Sunday in a car crash in Paris that also killed her companion, millionaire film producer Dodi Fayed.
Reports said the car overturned in a tunnel along the Seine River while Diana was being pursued by tabloid photographers. Several photographers, or paparazzi, were held for questioning after the crash, police said.
It had not previously been announced that Diana, 36, was in Paris. She and Fayed, 42, had been in the south of France earlier in the week and dined Saturday night at the Ritz, which is owned by Fayed’s father, Mohamad Al Fayed, owner of Harrods department store.
The driver of the car, a Ritz security guard, also was killed. Diana’s bodyguard, the car’s fourth occupant, was injured.
Diana was divorced just over one year ago from Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, after a marital rift that captured world headlines for years. Charles was at Balmoral Castle in Scotland with the couple’s two children, Princes William, 15, and Harry, 12. The prince was informed of her death shortly after it was announced in Paris at 6 a.m.
Early reports said Fayed was killed and Diana was seriously injured, but French doctors said later she died at about 4 a.m. after going into cardiac arrest due to massive internal bleeding.
The BBC in London said she had suffered a concussion and serious cuts.
Buckingham Palace announced the death at around 5:20 a.m. London time, saying Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were “deeply shocked and distressed by this terrible news.”
The reading of the announcement on British radio and television was followed by the playing of the national anthem, “God Save the Queen.”
If tabloid photographers were directly responsible for Diana’s death, that will cause a national outcry in Britain. Perhaps the most photographed woman in the world, she complained constantly of being harassed by photographers. Photos of her often sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The police said the car was demolished. The impact was so great, the radiator of the Mercedes-Benz was hurled onto the knees of the front-seat passenger. The princess was in the back seat.
The site of the accident is on a high-speed road along the Seine with a divided roadway as it passes under the Place de l’Alma to the Place de la Concorde.
On Aug. 21, Diana and Fayed, whose name is Emad but who is commonly called Dodi, flew to the French Mediterranean resort of St. Tropez for their third holiday in each other’s company in five weeks.
Fayed’s father said in a recent interview that the two were simply “young people getting to know each other.”
British newspapers reported that Diana met Fayed almost 10 years ago when he and Charles played polo on opposing teams. Movies he had produced or co-produced included the 1981 Oscar-winning “Chariots of Fire,” “The World According to Garp,” “F/X,” and “Hook.”
Reportedly a multimillionaire, Fayed had homes in London, New York, Los Angeles and Switzerland, along with garages filled with luxury cars. He was divorced after a marriage that lasted eight months in 1994.
Diana was catapulted into the public eye at age 19 in 1981 when it was announced that she was engaged to Charles, the heir to the British throne and 12 years her senior.
The couple were married on July 29 that year in London in a ceremony watched by millions and billed as a “fairy-tale wedding.”
Diana soon became a mother, to William, in June 1982. But by the birth of her second son, Harry, in September 1984, her biographer Andrew Morton wrote in “Diana: Her True Story,” she already was suffering from bulimia and had attempted suicide five times.
From 1986, the first press stories began appearing of cracks in the marriage, and Morton later wrote that Charles had resumed his relationship with a married friend, Camilla Parker Bowles, at that time.
The princess of Wales was beautiful, famous and wealthy, and she won the admiration of millions but found simple happiness elusive.
In an interview published last week, she told the French newspaper Le Monde she would like to move to another country, but couldn’t because of her sons, who are in line for the British throne.
“Any sane person would have left long ago. But I cannot. I have my sons,” she said.
Diana`s association with Fayed added a sense to stability to Diana’s life.
She once said she wanted to be a sort of ambassador, “a queen of people’s hearts” and Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair said he believed should carry on her “good works” because “she earns a lot of respect and admiration.”
Recently she had been on a crusade against anti-personnel land mines, an effort that had taken her to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Angola.
She often had pleaded with the press– particularly the pack of photographers who followed her every move–to leave her alone.
A steady stream of photographs in the tabloids over the past month showed Diana and Fayed embracing, laughing and relaxing in the Mediterranean.
Lady Diana Spencer, the daughter of an earl, was 20 when she married the heir to the British throne on July 29, 1981, in a ceremony watched by millions around the globe.
The birth of her two sons seemed to complete the happiness that world expected for a golden couple
But in the early 1990s, the newspapers began reporting how much time Charles and Diana spent apart. Speculation about an unhappy marriage grew intense.
Finally, on Dec. 9, 1992, Prime Minister John Major announced to Parliament that the couple would separate.
They attempted to maintain their roles separately, but a series of retaliatory attacks in the press cast a shadow over their lives and over the monarchy.
Queen Elizabeth asked them to divorce, and after more months of wrangling, they agreed. The divorce became final Aug. 28, 1996.
Buckingham Palace said Diana was still be part of the royal family.
“The princess is the mother of a future king and is therefore in a unique position,” said a palace spokesman when the divorce was announced. She and Charles, 48, shared custody of their sons.
There was no precedent for Diana’s new role. There had never been an ex-wife of a prince of Wales.
Although effectively out of a job, she worked hard and secured her place as an international figure and humanitarian.