Even though Princess Diana had various nicknames throughout her life, there was one nickname she got only after she passed away. Today, when talking about Princess Diana, everybody is using the term ‘People’s Princess’.
After a tragic car accident, Princess Diana passed away on August 31, 1997, and after everybody found out, the name ‘People’s Princess’ appeared for the first time.
How Princess Diana wanted to be called
Lady Diana Spencer had various titles when she married Prince Charles in 1981, but when they divorced, she lost the right to her HRH title. Diana was allegedly upset because she lost the right to become the queen of England. In her infamous Panorama interview, Diana said: “I’d like to be a queen of people’s hearts, in people’s hearts.”
Who was the first person to refer to her as ‘People’s Princess’
When Princess Diana died, Tony Blair was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and during his public speech regarding Diana’s death, he used for the first time a nickname no one would ever forget. “You know how difficult things were for her from time to time, I’m sure we could only guess at, but the people everywhere–not just here in Britain, everywhere–they kept faith with Princess Diana, ” Blair said to reporters who appeared that day. “They liked her, they loved her, they regarded her as one of the people. She was the ‘People’s Princess.’ And that’s how she will stay, how she will remain, in our hearts and in our memories, forever.”
Why did she earn that name
Princess Diana transformed the understanding of the royal household. She made a connection with the public in a different way, which no other member of the royal family managed to do before her. She was happy to give hugs to the crowd, who were standing there just to catch a glimpse of Diana walking down the streets. When AIDS hit the world hard, she was there to comfort the AIDS patients. She also visited people with leprosy and she became the patron of The Leprosy Mission.
People also related to her own struggles and infidelity in her marriage, for which she was more than straightforward about it.
Source: Cheat Sheet
