(NewsGlobal.com)- According to an upcoming book by former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Tina Brown, Princess Diana often dined with newspaper and magazine editors to ask them for advice.
An excerpt of Brown’s book “The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor – The Truth and Turmoil” was published online last week by Vanity Fair. In the excerpt, Brown recounts attending a lunch with Princess Diana and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour just weeks before Diana’s death.
Brown writes in her book that Diana described her “loneliness and hurt” at the hands of her former husband, the Prince of Wales. Diana then switched gears to discuss her vision for leveraging her fame to promote causes she cared about.
In the excerpt, Brown also disputes the “pervasive narrative” that Princess Diana was a “victim of media manipulation,” arguing that Diana wasn’t a “foolish, duped child” or a “hapless casualty of malevolent muckrakers.”
Brown gave two examples of meetings Diana had with members of the press to control her public image, including a 1996 lunch with Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, and another lunch attended by Condé Nast editor Nicolas Coleridge that same year.
Piers Morgan said young Prince William was in attendance at the lunch as well and Morgan was given the opportunity to ask both Princess Diana and Prince William anything.
At the lunch with Coleridge, held at Condé Nast’s London headquarters, Vogue House, Coleridge expected Diana would cancel the lunch after a photograph of her sunbathing topless had hit the pages of the Daily Mirror just the day before. But Diana agreed to come so long as no press were in attendance.
Coleridge said after lunch, Diana asked for his advice as he walked her back to her car where the paparazzi waited for her. He said he called a tabloid to find out how they knew Diana was there and was told Diana herself had called on her way to Vogue House and tipped them off.
In her book, Brown described the incident as an example of “classic, authentic Diana—tricky, seductive, playing a double game.”
Read the full excerpt from Tina Brown’s book HERE.
