mohamed al fayed yacht jonikal

What Really Happened During Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed’s Vacation?

The Crown depicts her jaunts on Mohamed Al-Fayed’s yacht, the Jonikal, where her romance with Dodi kicked off.

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Diana was invited by Mohamed, a friend and businessman, to vacation in Saint-Tropez with her sons in July 1997. The Harrods owner would also goad his own son to join, too. The invitation came at a good time, after a few rough blows for Diana: Prince Charles was throwing a lavish birthday party for Camilla Parker Bowles at Highgrove, the house he and Diana once shared. And she had just broken up with surgeon Hasnat Khan, due to the media frenzy around their relationship. It was the month before William and Harry would be at Balmoral with their father and the rest of the royals, who no longer accepted her. So off she went, straight to the $20 million yacht that Fayed bought just before the trip to impress her—Tina Brown writes in The Diana Chronicles .

Prince Harry has looked back fondly at that trip, mostly because of the quality time they spent with their mom. “Actually, we’d been with Mummy weeks earlier when she first met him [Dodi], in St. Tropez,” he writes in her memoir Spare , per Today . “We were having a grand time, just the three of us, staying at some old gent’s villa.

“There was much laughter, horseplay, the norm whenever Mummy and Willy and I were together, though even more so on that holiday. Everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven. The weather was sublime, the food was tasty, Mummy was smiling.”

But the cameras followed her, like they always did. The Crown depicts photographers sailing out toward the Jonikal to snap images of the princess sunbathing and swimming in her one-piece. It also shows her approaching the boats filled with paparazzi to forge a deal: She’ll pose for them for a few shots if they’ll leave her and her kids alone.

Part of this is true. The New York Times reported in 1997 that Diana was quite cooperative with the press, at least during the first trip in July: “Three times, on separate occasions, she went out to the sea front and jumped off a small pier into the water, with photographers around her. Then, after leaving for 10 days with Mr. Fayed on the boat trip during which the photographs of the embracing couple were taken, she returned.”

“It was clear enough to all of us that she wanted to show the British establishment she was free,” Frederic Garcia, who photographed Diana on the trip, told the paper at the time. But her and the Al-Fayeds’ exasperation with the media grew after helicopters flew over the boat, according to the NYT .

Perhaps her openness to being photographed was her response to Camilla’s birthday party. “She just wanted to make the people at Balmoral as angry as possible,” her friend, art collector Lord Palumbo, told Brown. Now it wasn’t just a revenge dress; it was a revenge photo shoot with revenge swimsuits on a revenge vacation.

Brown even writes that the biggest photos from the trip, of the princess kissing a shirtless Dodi on the boat, “were the direct result of tips from Diana herself.” After they were published, she called photographer Jason Fraser, who “was in cahoots” with Mario Brenna, who shot the images, to ask why the pictures were so grainy. But she wasn’t the only one working with the press. Mohamed also had a publicist tip gossip columns on her and Dodi’s whereabouts and frame their getaway as a sensational romance, according to Brown.

Meanwhile, Dodi was juggling this burgeoning love story with another one. He was already engaged when he first joined Diana on the boat at his father’s behest in July. His fiancée was Kelly Fisher , an American actress and model, and their wedding was scheduled for the following month, on August 9, 1997. He had even left Fisher in Paris to board the Jonikal in St. Tropez. She joined later but, just as it’s shown in The Crown , she was relegated to a different Al-Fayed boat, where Dodi would visit her at night, Brown writes. Fisher soon caught on. In August, she sued Dodi for breach of contract, and was represented by high-profile lawyer Gloria Allred. But she withdrew the suit after his death.

In Spare , Harry remembered thinking Dodi was “cheeky” but overall was content with the relationship: “As long as Mummy’s happy, I told Willy, who said, he felt the same.” But Brown reported in her 2007 book that Prince William grew concerned. He told friends it was weird that they were on vacation with what seemed like a “substitute family.” When photos of Diana and Dodi on the boat were published, William complained to her that the boys at school would mock him for it.

After doing significant charity work in Bosnia with land mine victims, Diana reconvened with Dodi on the Jonikal in August. “The fact that she came back for a second visit so soon really shows her loneliness more than it does a passion for Dodi,” Dominick Dunne reported for Vanity Fair in 2008. But the privacy—or whatever amount of it that they had—might have appealed to her. “A splendid yacht. A helicopter. A private plane. Guards to keep the paparazzi at bay. She probably knew that she was being used by a social climber for his and his son’s advancement in London society, but in high society it was a fair deal. Each benefited.”

Dodi and Diana’s romance would be short-lived, but he showered her with gifts during their six-week relationship, including a pearl bracelet and diamond wristwatch, according to Vanity Fair . With him, the princess felt “so taken care of,” her confidant Lady Elsa Bowker told Brown. And on top of that, he was a “sympathetic, unthreatening listener,” wrote Tom Bower, author of Mohamed Al-Fayed’s unauthorized biography.

But their relationship probably wasn’t going to be a lasting one. According to Brown, Diana suspected Dodi might propose to her, but told a friend that the ring would go “firmly on the fourth finger of my right hand,” meaning she would not have accepted. Her sister Sarah McCorquodale later testified, “I just did not think the relationship had much longer to go.”

It’s been believed that the romance was even orchestrated by Mohamed himself. According to Bower, the older Al-Fayed would check in on Dodi and Diana during the trip (which is also portrayed in The Crown this season). McCorquodale also told the court that Diana “thought the boat was being bugged by Mr Al-Fayed Senior.”

On that second trip in August, Diana and Dodi were photographed together in the South of France and Sardinia, before heading to Paris for their tragic final days. There, they would be chased by cameras again for the last time.

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The Crown: Five insights into the yachts featured in series six

On 16 November, the first volume of series six of The Crown was released on Netflix. Not only has it stirred up controversy regarding its depiction of recent historical events, but the series has also sparked the public's interest in the infamous yachts associated with the royal family's timeline.

The final instalment of The Crown features two ladies and two yachts, all of which are indelibly linked to Dodi Al-Fayed. It captures the simmering romance between Princess Diana and Dodi – a film producer and son of billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed – as well as Dodi's fiancée, Kelly Fisher. In the drama, the Princess of Wales is whisked away to the former Harrods owner's villa (and superyacht) in the south of France, where she enjoys a summer on the continent with sons Prince William and Prince Harry in 1997.

The series shows the group on what was Mohamed Al-Fayed's yacht, the 63.8-metre Codecasa which was known as Jonikal (later Bash, now Isabell Princess of the Seas ) . Understandably, with the People's Princess aboard, the yacht was heavily photographed by the paparazzi – leading to the creation of that iconic Princess Diana yacht photo. The camera also pans to a smaller yacht we can assume is the 20-metre Baglietto Cujo , a yacht the Al-Fayed's spent a lot of time on and which sadly sank earlier this year.

Wondering what happened to Jonikal ? If the series was filmed on the original boat? Where the set location was? BOAT answers all your yacht-related questions surrounding the latest series.

That Princess Diana yacht picture

There are many iconic images of Princess Diana – not least the shot of her in the "revenge dress" – but up there are the images of her sporting a range of low-backed swimsuits from her summer in St. Tropez. Perhaps the most memorable is Princess Diana sitting on the diving board of Jonikal. The series recreates the moment her photo was captured, legs swaying above the oscillating sea, toes pointed ballerina-esque. It also draws on her plea to the paparazzi to give her boys some privacy as she meets them mid-sea on her tender, stealing the show in her leopard-print swimsuit.

The whereabouts of Jonikal today

The yacht carries great significance knowing Dodi and Princess Diana were pictured there just weeks before their fatal car accident. It belonged to Dodi's father and, during the series, Princess Diana and Dodi are portrayed sharing intimate moments on board: her, looking up from the piano she is playing, doe-eyed; him, opening up about his engagement and the struggles with his father. There is also the scene where they have an ice cube fight between decks; the scene where Dodi's siblings and Princess Diana's children jump off the diving board; where the pair share what would've been an intimate kiss, had the photographer on his motor yacht not snapped it.

It was successful telecoms entrepreneur Bassim Haidar who later bought the yacht in 2021. The fact that it’s the former Jonikal is a source of pride for Haidar, who told BOAT : "I really loved Lady Diana. Whenever anyone comes on board I always show them where the famous picture was taken." The yacht was sold in August this year.

The yacht the series was filmed on, Titania 

The Crown was not filmed on Isabell Princess of the Seas (ex- Jonikal ), but rather on the 72-metre Lurssen superyacht Titania . The yacht, which was delivered in 2006, is owned by British businessman John Caudwell. Back in 2021, Caudwell commented on the news via his social media accounts, stating that he "cannot confirm or deny any filming secrets" but hinted that viewers should "keep your eyes peeled towards the end of season five and start of season six."

The refit in 2012 amped up her charter facilities – adding a second owner’s cabin on the upper deck, a gym on the sundeck and an extension to the stern to accommodate a beach club (which can be spotted in the series) with a full water park that floats off the stern.

The other yacht (and the other woman)

Jonikal is not the only yacht to have featured in The Crown series six, filmed in Mallorca. At one point, the camera also pans to another yacht the Al-Fayed's spent a lot of time on, the 20-metre Cujo. The drama shows Dodi's fiancée at the time, Fisher, getting escorted by tender past the yacht Dodi and Princess Diana are on ( Jonikal ), and instead shuttled away to what Fisher refers to as "the smaller yacht". 

In August this year, the real-life Cujo sunk around 35 kilometres off the coast of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France.

Other yachts featured in the series

Christina O had 122-metre shoes to fill in season five, playing Alexander – the converted cruise ship where Princess Diana and Charles celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary . Delivered in 1965 by German shipyard Lubecker Flender Werke , the superyacht hosted the royals and their sons princes William and Harry a year before the couple separated.

A replica of the Royal Yacht Britannia also starred in the fifth Netflix series. Britannia was used as Queen Elizabeth II’s royal yacht from 1954 to 1997, hosting up to 250 guests at a time while being operated by 21 officers and 250 crew from the Royal Navy. It was decommissioned as a cost-cutting measure by the UK government in 1997.

The second part of The Crown will premiere on Netflix from 14 December.

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See Inside the Superyacht Princess Diana Shared With Dodi Fayed

By Katherine McLaughlin

Since her untimely death in August of 1997, Princess Diana’s last summer spent with Dodi Al-Fayed has been described in various ways: a passionate love affair, a fake publicity stunt, a temporary fling, a rouse to infuriate another suiter, or the beginning of a lifelong commitment. Although the stories change, the setting remains: a summer tour through the Mediterranean aboard a multi-million dollar superyacht. Later this year, nearly 25 years to the day, the 208-foot vessel will launch for sale again. 

The yacht is full of glossy and dark wood paneling. 

Originally named Jonikal , then Sokar , and most recently Bash , the luxury vessel was first owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed, former owner of Harrods and father of Dodi Al-Fayed. During the fateful summer, Al-Fayed hosted Princess Di and her two sons aboard the Jonikal . After the couple’s tragic death, Mohamed Al-Fayed attempted to sell the yacht numerous times before it was finally bought in 2014. It was most recently purchased by Bassim Haidar in June of 2021, who is selling it just over a year later as he reportedly has plans to upgrade to a larger vessel. “She is in the yard being refitted, and will be launched for sale in September,” said John Wood, director at Seawood Yachts. 

Coffered ceilings add a dramatic, yet timeless feel. 

Bash , as the yacht is currently named, was designed by navel architect Vincenzo Ruggiero in the 1980s and built by the superyacht building firm Codecasa before launching in 1990. The vessel can hold up to 18 people across nine staterooms in addition to rooms for 26 crew members. Among many notable features, Bash includes a jacuzzi, swim platform, sun deck, a formal dining room, main saloon, a bar, and office space. Full of dark wood paneling and coffered ceilings, the interiors are reminiscent of the Arts and Crafts style of the early 1900s. 

The vessel includes nine staterooms in addition to plenty of space for the crew. 

Powered by Wärtsilä engines, the yacht has a cruising speed of 15 knots and top speeds of 20 knots. Even though an exact price hasn’t been advertised just yet, the last time the boat was sold, it was listed for $10,000,000. 

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The Harrowing Symbolism Behind the Famous Diving Board Photo of Princess Diana

By Elise Taylor

On October 9, Netflix announced the first half of the sixth season of The Crown on Twitter by sharing a single image: Elizabeth Debicki, sitting on a diving board in a turquoise swimsuit, with her back to the camera as she stares out into the sea. With over 2.6 million views, it’s a visual that resonated with many—and not just because of the Netflix marketing department’s graphic design skills.

There are tens of thousands of photos of Princess Diana in existence. A handful of them, including the royal in front of the Taj Mahal and wearing the little black “revenge dress,” are considered iconic. There is, however, perhaps only one of those legendary images that could be considered harrowing.

On August 24, 1997—a week before her tragic death in Paris—paparazzi captured Princess Diana sitting on the diving board upon Mohamed Al Fayed’s private yacht “Jonikal” off the coast of Portofino. What was intended to be a private vacation quickly turned into a media circus after the British tabloids published her kissing Fayed’s son, Dodi, on board. Bids for those photos went up to £500,000. Although Diana always had a de-facto bounty on her head, it was now at an eye-watering and dangerous sum—especially as rumors that the Princess was pregnant, or engaged, began to swirl.

As a result, paparazzi swarmed her the entire trip, desperate to capture the Princess and her new love interest. One of those photos? Diana, solo, on a diving board. Even far off shore, she could be tracked down by a camera lens—and, therefore, never alone.

The Crown's Elizabeth Debicki in the poster for the show’s final season. 

Once she arrived in Paris, an accessible and busy metropolis, this clamor to take her photograph reached a fever pitch. On August 31, while being chased by paparazzi on motorbikes, the car Diana was being driven in by an intoxicated driver crashed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. According to witness testimony, paparazzi continued to take photos as the couple lay dying.

Over two decades after her death, the haunting photo of her on the diving board is still seared into our consciousness: a symbol of  Diana’s glamor, her isolation, and the relentless pursuit of her likeliness. It was used for the 2013 poster of the biopic Diana, starring Naomi Watts, and inspired SZA’s cover art for her album SOS. “I just loved how isolated she felt, and that was what I wanted to convey the most,” the musician told Hot 97 . Now, Peter Morgan and The Crown are just the latest to have harnessed its emotional power.

While it’s unclear how much the photo will play a role in the upcoming season, the show will cover Diana’s final days—bringing the tragic story of the final weeks of Diana’s life front and center once again.

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The Super-Yacht Featured in The Crown Is Available to Book

You and 11 guests can charter the “ titania ,” which was used for filming iconic scenes featuring dodi and diana in the hit netflix show..

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Make your Crown vacation fantasies a reality by booking the super-yacht featured in the hit Netflix show.

Courtesy of Burgess

Those watching the sixth and final season of Netflix’s The Crown are familiar with scenes featuring the late Princess Diana (played by Elizabeth Debicki this season) and her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed (played by Khalid Abdalla) onboard the Al-Fayed family’s extremely luxurious yacht.

If it’s got you dreaming of sitting on the end of a diving board above the Mediterranean Sea in a turquoise bathing suit, well, we have good news for you: You can charter the yacht for a cool $615,000 per week during the off-season.

There may have been some tense moments between Diana and Dodi on the yacht, but that doesn’t take away from its splendor.

The 239-foot super-yacht featured in the show this season is called Titania and it’s listed for charter with luxury boat charter company Burgess , which refers to itself as the “go-to yacht brokerage for television and film.” According to Burgess, Titania was used as a stand-in for Mohamed Al-Fayed’s Codecasa super-yacht Bash (then named Jonikal ). The yacht famously hosted the princess, her two sons William and Harry (played by Rufus Kampa and Fflyn Edwards), and her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed on a trip to St. Tropez in 1997, a week before she and Dodi died in Paris. Their time on the yacht, and some of the iconic paparazzi photos of it, are recreated in part one of season six.

While some of the decor was designed to align more with the 1990s time frame of the show, the Titania super-yacht still exudes the same opulence.

“When it came to scenes of Diana and Dodi on the yacht, they did indeed film those moments on a boat on the Mediterranean,” writes Lucy Ford in an article for Netflix’s companion website for fans, Tudum. She quotes Debicki as saying, “It was a very big, fancy boat. It was enormous and kind of outrageous and exactly what the story needed. That was pretty extraordinary, to be on a big boat like that with bedrooms the size of people’s apartments. We never really took that for granted.”

Production designer Martin Childs told Tudum, “The whole schedule was based around the availability of the biggest yacht.”

The Titania , which is that biggest yacht, was built by luxury yacht company Lürssen in 2006 and has undergone two major makeovers since then. It was originally designed by naval architect Espen Øino, and boasts a light and airy interior with dark wood trim and blue and white textiles, as well as plenty of large windows and outdoor space. The yacht has seven cabins, including two owner’s suites, and sleeps up to 12 guests. Each cabin has a spacious en suite marble bathroom.

And while the Titania is a contemporary vessel, with modern furnishings and finishes, according to Tudum, the team had to “’90s-ify” the yacht’s interiors for filming. This involved adding “bulky lamps, varnished teak wood, and particular shades of turquoise and cream,” reports Ford. “The yacht obviously exists as a contemporary yacht,” Alison Harvey, the Crown’s head set decorator told Tudum. “We just had to bring in more ’90s fabric and more ’90s-flavor pictures and paintings and make it a little less on point in terms of proper super-yacht decor today.”

Among the many showstoppers onboard the Titania is a pool with a swim-up bar with ocean views.

The Titania includes a sea-level beach club, a pool and Jacuzzi with a swim-up bar, a sauna, a state-of-the-art fitness center with a personal trainer, a massage room with an onboard masseuse, a beauty salon with a beautician, and a sky lounge with a drop-down cinema. A 21-person crew attends to guests’ every need.

Also included in the weekly charter, which ranges from $615,000 to $715,000 per week, are two boat tenders, two Jet Skis, two sailing dinghies, two Seabobs, two stand-up paddleboards, two kayaks, an e-Foil, surfboards, snorkeling and diving gear, water skis, and inflatable aquatic slides and jumping pads.

The super yacht Princess Diana shared with Dodi Fayed is up for sale – see inside

By Katherine McLaughlin

Since her untimely death in August of 1997, Princess Diana ’s last summer spent with Dodi Al-Fayed has been described in various ways: a passionate love affair, a fake publicity stunt, a temporary fling, a rouse to infuriate another suitor, or the beginning of a lifelong commitment. Although the stories change, the setting remains: a summer tour through the Mediterranean aboard a multi-million dollar super yacht. Later this year, nearly 25 years to the day, the 208-foot vessel will launch for sale again. 

The yacht is full of glossy and dark wood paneling. 

Originally named Jonikal , then Sokar , and most recently Bash , the luxury vessel was first owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed, former owner of Harrods and father of Dodi Al-Fayed. During the fateful summer, Al-Fayed hosted Princess Di and her two sons aboard the Jonikal . After the couple’s tragic death, Mohamed Al-Fayed attempted to sell the yacht numerous times before it was finally bought in 2014. It was most recently purchased by Bassim Haidar in June of 2021, who is selling it just over a year later as he reportedly has plans to upgrade to a larger vessel. “She is in the yard being refitted, and will be launched for sale in September,” said John Wood, director at Seawood Yachts. 

May we suggest: Inside Althorp, Princess Diana's childhood home

Coffered ceilings add a dramatic, yet timeless feel. 

Bash , as the yacht is currently named, was designed by navel architect Vincenzo Ruggiero in the 1980s and built by the superyacht building firm Codecasa before launching in 1990. The vessel can hold up to 18 people across nine staterooms in addition to rooms for 26 crew members. Among many notable features, Bash includes a jacuzzi, swim platform, sun deck, a formal dining room, main saloon, a bar, and office space. Full of dark wood paneling and coffered ceilings, the interiors are reminiscent of the Arts and Crafts style of the early 1900s. 

May we suggest: Examining Princess Diana's interiors style

The vessel includes nine staterooms in addition to plenty of space for the crew. 

Powered by Wärtsilä engines, the yacht has a cruising speed of 15 knots and top speeds of 20 knots. Even though an exact price hasn’t been advertised just yet, the last time the boat was sold, it was listed for $10,000,000. 

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The Luxurious Yacht (Made in Italy) for Lady Diana’s Last Vacation

In the summer of 1997, photos of Diana and Dodi on holiday traveled around the world, sparking controversy back at Buckingham Palace. We take a closer look at the unforgettable yacht where the Princess of Wales spent her last vacation

It was on the morning of August 31, 1997, when the BBC woke the world to shocking news: Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales , was the victim of a car accident in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel of Paris, together with her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed, when their car, driven by Henri Paul, crashed against the tunnel’s thirteenth pillar.

It was a pre-social era, when communication didn’t spread as fast as it does today, and yet Lady Diana’s story was broadcast immediately across every media channel imaginable. Diana, a timeless style icon admired worldwide for her gentle demeanor, was spending a relaxing vacation with Dodi aboard the Jonikal luxury yacht that summer, twenty-five years ago . Every photo of them was quickly picked up and published in magazines around the globe: the title of the Sunday Mirror’s first page on Sunday, August 10, 1997, read “The Kiss,” capturing the couple’s intimate moment aboard the yacht. But perhaps even more iconic was the August 24, 1997 photograph of Diana on the walkway of the Jonikal luxury yacht in the waters of Portofino.

The pictures of Diana in her swimsuit, who at 36 was as glamorous as ever, were a far cry from those of the young Princess aboard the Britannia royal yacht during her honeymoon with Prince Charles in 1981. The two yachts are also very different: the HMY Britannia was a 126-meter yacht belonging to the British Royal Family, while Jonikal was a 65-meter luxury yacht belonging to the Al-Fayed family and built by the Italian Codecasa shipyard.

After the couple’s tragic accident, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi’s father, attempted to sell the yacht numerous times before it was purchased in 2014. The luxury yacht, originally named Jonikal by the Al-Fayed family, then Sokar and, more recently, Bash, can host up to 18 guests in 9 cabins and 26 crew members. The Jonikal yacht was launched in 1989, sailing at a cruising speed of 15 knots and reaching a top speed of 20 knots.

Among its many noteworthy features, the luxury yacht includes a Jacuzzi, sun deck, formal dining room, main lounge, bar and office. Interiors unfold with dark wood paneling and coffered ceilings contrasting with white to dilate the space. The design is meticulous, curated down to the last detail: for example, all countertops have anti-roll edges, following the best nautical tradition. Beyond the dark wood, the color palette used for interiors unfurls in delicate tones of light blue and beige.

The yacht was last purchased in June 2021 for the sum of $10,000,000 and appears to be for sale once more, although the current price hasn’t been disclosed.

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• Entertainment

How One Photo Immortalized Princess Diana’s Loneliness

O f the many photos of Diana, Princess of Wales , one image has become iconic for capturing the unnerving loneliness she experienced during her life. The photo shows Diana in a candid moment alone, sitting on the end of a diving board.

It's a picture that helped define the essence of the People's Princess—a glamorous outsider, the patron saint of isolation, a public figure who struggled to protect her personal life. It should come as no surprise that when Netflix announced Season 6 of The Crown , the first installment of which debuted on Nov. 16, the streamer shared the news by recreating the famed image of the princess, reimagining it with actor Elizabeth Debicki: Her back is to the camera, her chin protectively tucked into her shoulder in Diana's signature habit, her loneliness in full view even as so much as her is obscured.

Read more: 25 Years After Princess Diana's Death, She's Still Shaping the Royal Family

The Crown is hardly the first to pay homage to the photo—from the promotional poster for the 2013 Naomi Watts-fronted film Diana to the invitation to the Off-White Spring/Summer 2018 fashion show , which was inspired by Princess Diana, the diving board photo has been reproduced, reappropriated, and referenced, looming large in the collective imagination, a tangible visual for the melancholy of Diana's life. Most recently, the musical artist SZA recreated the photo for the album artwork for her album, SOS , a decision she said she was drawn to because of "isolated" the princess appeared.

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"Originally I was supposed to be on top of a shipping barge, but in the references that I pulled for that, I pulled the Diana reference,” SZA said in an interview with Hot 97 . “Because I just loved how isolated she felt, and that was what I wanted to convey the most.”

SZA confirms theory that Princess Diana inspired her ‘SOS’ album cover. pic.twitter.com/61biLn7JXm — Pop Base (@PopBase) December 7, 2022

The image would be striking for its composition alone. Diana, clad in a turquoise one-piece bathing suit, perches, almost precariously, on the edge of the diving board of Mohamed al-Fayed 's private yacht, with seemingly nothing but sea surrounding her. That the photo is a long shot taken by a paparazzo, six days ahead of her death, in the throes of a media maelstrom that had erupted after tabloid pictures were published of her kissing al-Fayed's son, Dodi, reads in retrospect like ominous foreshadowing.

Read more : How Princess Diana Changed Lives by Discussing Her Mental Health

And while there's no shortage of photos that illustrate how alone the princess often felt in royal life— her awkward Balmoral engagement photo with an aloof Charles , the shot of her wearing her black sheep sweater to a polo match , the infamous picture of her solo visit to the Taj Mahal —the image of Diana sitting solo on the diving board has become one of the most iconic images because it highlights the bittersweet isolation of Diana's life—a woman who could never be alone, but was no stranger to being lonely.

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Iconic charter yacht BASH gets a brand new makeover

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By Steph Loseby   30 May 2023

Following an extensive 18-month refit at Adria Docks Shipyard in Trogir, Croatia , the 63m (209ft) superyacht BASH has been restored to her former glory after a fire incident on the yacht’s bridge deck.

Previously known as Jonikal, the yacht once belonged to Egyptian businessman and former Harrods owner, Mohamed Al-Fayed, and became renowned for the iconic shot of Diana alone with her thoughts at the end of the diving board taken in Portofino , Italy just 6 days before her untimely death on 31 August 1997. 

Originally delivered by the Italian yard Codecasa in 1990, the yacht is now in turn-key condition ready to embark on a successful season around the glistening waters of the Mediterranean this summer. 

BASH’S refit began when the yacht was towed to the shipyard from Rijeka in 2021 and has been managed by the marine engineering and management company Capax, who were also responsible for the installation of the motor yacht ’s new bridge system.

The project included refurbishments across nearly every part of the yacht with new wiring, plumbing and the installation of entirely new penetrations of a bulkheads and bridge deck. The team also fitted new air conditioning and an integrated AV/IT onboard system.

The superyacht now boasts a brand new interior layout and beautiful decor designed by Slovenian designers Bobic Yacht Interiors, who created a luxurious and elegant feel onboard. 

Getting to this point took a lot of hard work and required a lot of skill, but it was worth the effort. Our warmest thanks go to all those who contributed to the refit of the motor yacht BASH Teo Petricevic, CEO , Capax Ltd

Onboard highlights include her beauty salon and massage area, sweeping sundeck and spacious main salon, perfect for social gatherings entertaining and relaxing onboard. Not only this, the yacht is also home to multiple alfresco dining areas, well-equipped gym set-up and a jacuzzi, providing guests with a true taste of the superyacht lifestyle. 

The yacht can accommodate up to 12 guests across six sophisticated staterooms, including a main deck master suite with a walk-in wardrobe, a private lounge and office.

Thinking of booking a Mediterranean yacht charter?

The Mediterranean has long been one of the most popular summer destinations for yacht charters , and for good reason. 

Whether you’re celebrity spotting in the South of France or enjoying the outstanding cruising areas in Greece , a Mediterranean yacht charter provides endless possibilities to explore sun-kissed beaches and soak up the superyacht lifestyle. 

To find out more about chartering in the region, see our Mediterranean yacht charter guide for more information. For some inspiration, check out our selection of itineraries and in-depth articles written by experts with extensive knowledge of the region.

If you’d like to learn more about chartering superyacht BASH, please contact a recommended yacht charter broker .

Additional yachts available to charter in the Mediterranean

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97m Feadship 2017 / 2022

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Parent item expand the sub menu, lululemon is showing signs of slowing down — has it strayed too far, marco bizzarri embraces new career phase, victoria beckham takes trip to spain for debut mango collection, princess diana’s final summer.

A crew member describes the royal's days aboard a yacht in the Mediterranean just before her tragic death on August 31, 1997.

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By the summer of 1997, Princess Diana was embracing a new phase of her life. In the wake of her divorce from Prince Charles the previous year, the 36-year-old royal began the season by selling off 79 gowns from her famed wardrobe with a high-profile auction at Christie’s in Manhattan, with the proceeds benefiting several charities important to her, including the AIDS Crisis Trust. That moment of transition illustrated a metamorphosis from “Shy Di” of the Eighties to that of a self-assured woman embracing an identity outside The Firm.

Comfort level aside, Diana was acutely aware of her star power throughout her public life. The princess used her world-famous image for photo ops both championing philanthropic causes and tacitly addressing personal matters (think: the little black “Revenge” dress by Christina Stambolian she wore at the moment the Prince of Wales publicly admitted marital infidelity with Camilla Parker Bowles). By July of her last summer, Diana was dating Egyptian playboy Dodi Al Fayed — son of Harrods’ then-owner, the controversial Mohamed Al Fayed — causing tabloid photographers to swarm the couple at every opportunity, including a seaside holiday in St. Tropez with her young sons, Princes William and Harry.

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A summer of charitable visits to places like Bosnia and Angola in support of land mine victims and New York City to meet with Mother Teresa was punctuated by leisurely weeks in the Mediterranean Sea with Al Fayed. All of that came to a tragic end on August 31 when the couple’s chauffeur-driven Mercedes fatally collided with a pillar in a Parisian tunnel while being chased by a swarm of paparazzi.

In the weeks leading up to the tragedy, Diana enjoyed days of rare seclusion aboard Mohamed Al-Fayed’s 200-foot yacht, Jonikal. Joined only by staff members, Diana and Dodi cruised through the Mediterranean along the Italian Riviera undetected by scrutinizing photographers until the paparazzi finally discovered Diana on the waning days of her holiday.

Now a charter broker with Ocean Independence, Debbie Gribble was at the time a young stewardess tending to the princess on the Jonikal and she recalls the excitement that came with providing an exclusive getaway for one of the most famous women in the world.

“I felt very privileged to be in this secret environment,” explains the New Zealand native by phone from her Auckland office. “We anchored in beautiful secluded bays of Sardinia where the water is so turquoise and clear. Anytime Diana was in view in public the media was there. In this case, when she was not in view [to the public], there was no media.”

In private, Diana’s activities were purposely limited. According to Gribble, there were “barbecues on the beach, walks ashore and dinner,” but the princess largely enjoyed swimming in the sparkling waters around the mega-yacht and sunning herself in a number of one-piece swimsuits. “She was incredibly casual and traveled light,” Gribble continues. “She had only a small amount of baggage and everything was very compact — there were bathing suits everyday. She was obviously very experienced at traveling and would literally come to breakfast in her bathing suit ready for the day to just swim. There was not one dress [in her luggage].”

Instead, Diana brought aboard the nine-cabin vessel a modest collection of shorts, Capri pants, silk tops and “sport skirts” in a range of understated tones from beige and pastels to black and white. “She actually told me she didn’t like shopping,” recounts Gribble of a conversation with the style icon. “[Diana and Dodi] had come back [to the ship] after a walk around the shops in Sardinia with a pile of cashmere sweaters that Dodi had bought for her. She wasn’t interested in shopping on her holiday, that’s for sure. All she wanted to do was enjoy the boat and go swimming and sunbathing.”

As she enjoyed those rare moments of complete privacy, Gribble describes Diana’s demeanor aboard the Jonikal as “relaxed, fun and light,” noting her shift when faced with re-entering the public eye. “She was a totally different person [in public and private],” she adds. “I didn’t get the sense that she was on edge at any time. I got the sense she was just enjoying this freedom, being in the moment and actually living.”

The now 47-year-old adds, “There were jet skis and things like that, but she was more interested in just jumping off the side [of the yacht], swimming around the boat, sunbathing and not doing a lot else.”

Aboard the custom-built Italian yacht, Diana was relishing in the opportunity to dress casually throughout the day, emerging each morning from her cabin with “flat and straight” hair and “just a little bit of lip gloss and mascara — never with full makeup.”

Chef-prepared meals were met with the same level of refined informality. Each morning Diana would bypass a pyramid of fresh fruit arranged by staffers and instead have simply a cup of black coffee. Lunches, usually served on an upper deck, were “light salads and Mediterranean style pastas and fish.” For most of their time on the yacht, Diana and Dodi dined alone, although friends of Al Fayed’s joined the couple a few times on board toward the end of the summer.

“They would have a three-course meal for dinner and there was always lots of caviar and Champagne,” says Gribble. “I know it sounds cliché, but it was actually caviar and Champagne. They had beautiful white wines and the main course was always something like lobster-stuffed pasta and lots of seafood.”

Photographers would eventually disrupt Diana’s idyll, closing in on the princess by boat and helicopter. Images of her on holiday — among the last taken of her — were splashed across newsstands throughout the world. “When those famous photos of her on the yacht came out in the papers everything changed,” notes Gribble. “That feeling of freedom was gone and suddenly she was back in a gilded floating cage. You could see the magic was just dwindling day by day.”

As it became apparent the days of quiet relaxation had passed, Diana expressed eagerness about returning to a normalized schedule in London, which included reuniting with Harry and William — then aged 12 and 15, respectively — and resuming her workout routine. “She mentioned looking forward to getting back,” says Gribble. “She wanted to see her boys and she liked to go to the gym — that was a big thing she mentioned a few times to me. She also missed eating at more of a British time, which is at 6 or 7 o’clock as opposed to 10 o’clock in the Mediterranean. She really was living a totally different lifestyle than what she was used to.”

Diana was already planning for several upcoming events that fall with scheduled fittings for evening dresses she would never have the opportunity to wear in public.

“Her style had changed,” Valentino told WWD just after her death. The designer was working with Diana at the time on a “pale green dress” for an AIDS event with the Red Cross that was scheduled for September. “She was more aware of herself as a woman — and she was a beautiful woman with a beautiful body. She had escaped the rules of the princess and the clothes a princess was supposed to wear and wanted clothes that were right for the new woman she had become.”

Giorgio Armani had also been working with the princess on a gown for an upcoming engagement, noting her streamlined, pared-down approach to dress that was reflective of the changes in her life. “She seemed to have found that style of her own, strictly controlling any temptation to overdo things, and favoring clean, modern lines that set off her great face and figure in a very up-to-date way.”

The designer added, “That’s what I was trying to emphasize with the dress I just did for her. It’s worth noting that she chose the design herself, the simplest one in the group of sketches I sent her.”

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This Old Photo of Princess Diana Is Going Viral—and the Reason Is Particularly Poignant

It's sort of staggering to realize we're approaching the 25th anniversary of Princess Diana's death on August 31, 1997. That may be the reason it caught us off guard when our social media feeds were suddenly populated with a striking—and poignant—image of Diana, snapped exactly one week before she passed away, following a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris.

The image shows Diana, sitting on a diving board attached to the edge of Mohamed Al Fayed's private yacht called the 'Jonikal' while on vacation with her new beau, Dodi Al Fayed, in the South of France.

Her feet are dangling over the edge as a lone seagull swoops overhead—the only sign of life around the Princess of Wales as she sits solo, taking in the view.

For royal watchers, many compared the image to another iconic shot where Diana was pictured looking contemplative and seated alone. In 1992, mere months before she and Prince Charles were to formally announce their separation, the pair traveled to India on a royal tour. But while Charles was away at another meeting, Diana appeared in front of the Taj Mahal—an eternal monument of a husband's love—all by herself.

Back to the Jonikal: What stands out about that shot, beyond the context of what was to come in a week's time, is Diana's serenity. She appears to have a look of inner calm. In those final days, had Diana, a woman tortured by the tabloids and pictured here in a rare moment of solitude—ironically, caught by a camera—found her bliss?

A picture is worth a thousand words, of course, and we'll never know what Diana was thinking out there on the diving board. What we do know is that she was fresh off a visit from her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, and approaching the one-year anniversary of her divorce from Prince Charles.

But that's what makes one of the final photos of the Princess of Wales so breathtaking and, ultimately, haunting. A brand-new future was before her and we—the royal voyeurs—can't help but feel contemplative as we stare at this shot. "What could have been?," we will forever wonder.

For more about the royals,  listen to the Royally Obsessed podcast  with co-hosts Rachel Bowie and Roberta Fiorito. Subscribe now or follow us on Instagram  @royallyobsessedpodcast .

The Trailer for HBO's "The Princess," a Doc About Princess Diana's Public Life, Just Dropped (& It's Giving Us Chills)

Royal family expert, a cappella alum, mom

How The Crown Recreated the Iconic Princess Diana Diving Board Photo

Spoiler alert: It wasn't actually a diving board she was sitting on.

"It's the platform you [use to] get on and off the yacht," reveals Alison Harvey, The Crown 's series set director. Or the passerelle, as it is more commonly known in the boating world.

Nevertheless, it was that haunting image, which would later send shockwaves around the world following Diana's passing, that was poignantly chosen as the main poster of the sixth and final season of The Crown . And according to the show's production team, recreating the photo took a village.

"We were very lucky to go to a real superyacht. I think if we tried to do it from scratch we would have never made that," Harvey says of remaking Mohamed Al Fayed 's 208-ft yacht, Jonikal, for the series. "We had the bones of the set that we then enhanced with more period details to make it feel more like the Fayed's world."

The result: the interior of the yacht featured a blue and yellow motif with Egyptian art, paintings, fabrics and patterns from the '90s. "Everything [was] stylized to fit the Fayed world to counteract with The Queen's world, which is a much more dreary environment," continues Harvey. "It was that old money, new money [kind of thing]."

Getting Elizabeth Debicki , who plays Diana in the series, to look exactly like the Princess of Wales in that moment also required some reimagining. "There were some restrictions in term of copyright and what we could show, what we couldn't show, and how the picture was taken," explains Harvey, "so it was slightly adapted for our purposes."

For starters, the hair and makeup department were tasked with making a wig that looked like Diana's hair post-swim. "The challenge was really this thing of realizing that iconic Diana but without being able to fall back on her very manufactured hair and makeup that we're used to seeing in the media," Cate Hall, hair & makeup designer of The Crown , explains. "Obviously [Elizabeth's wearing] a wig, but it's about if you look at the shading, the color, the tone and the way it's sitting. Most of our efforts go into any which way we can into making [wigs] look natural and I think it does look natural and lived in."

Then the costume department had to recreate the turquoise bathing suit to look identical to the one Diana wore in real life. "We didn't get the [actual] designer to do it," says Sidonie Roberts, The Crown 's co-costume designer, "so it was our version of it."

While "it was relatively simple" to do so, "the question with us with Elizabeth was what does she feel comfortable in? Because '90s to 2000s swimwear is pretty high on the thigh," says Roberts. "That I think was our first fitting with her, so it was getting a balance between the actual shape and also what Elizabeth, as an actress would feel comfortable, being quite exposed, in this scene. But in terms of color, we just went similarly as the other one because it is a moment in itself and we wanted to keep that iconic moment as it was."

In the days that followed that photo, Princess Diana and Dodi traveled to Paris, where they died in car crash on August 31 . Diana was 36 and Dodi 42. The first part of The Crown, which is available to stream on Netflix now , follows the weeks leading up to and after their death. The rest of the season is set to hit the streaming platform Thursday, December 14.

Sophie Dweck is the associate shopping editor for Town & Country, where she covers beauty, fashion, home and décor, and more. 

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Two Ladies, Two Yachts, and a Billionaire

By Dominick Dunne

On the night she died, Diana was traveling from a Fayed hotel to a Fayed apartment in a Fayed car with a Fayed driver, sitting next to Fayed’s son and behind a Fayed bodyguard. —Martyn Gregory, in his book Diana: The Last Days.

The day that Mohamed Al Fayed, 75, took the stand at the inquest into the deaths of the Princess of Wales and his son, Dodi Al Fayed, was certainly the high point of the proceedings at the Royal Courts of Justice, in London. It pains me that I had to return to New York and missed what the Daily Mail stated was “one of the most extraordinary performances ever seen in a British courtroom.” Al Fayed is a mesmerizing figure, very much aware that he is the big name in the proceedings, as his accusations of conspiracy at a very high level have been the center of this $20 million inquest. British law requires that the government investigate any unnatural and indeterminate death of a British citizen abroad, but it was Al Fayed who fought for the inquest to be held before a jury, and it was Al Fayed who first circulated the notion that the royal family had orchestrated Diana and Dodi’s fatal crash. In the five months that the inquest has gone on, Al Fayed has acquired the imperious attitude of an international celebrity. In terms of character, not financial acumen, he is a modern version of one of literature’s greatest characters, Augustus Melmotte, the foreign financial tycoon who crashed London society in the 1870s in Anthony Trollope’s novel The Way We Live Now.

The diarist abroad: Dominick Dunne in a London taxi. Photograph by Jason Bell.

Mohamed Al Fayed’s big day had finally come. He was the center of attention after 10 years of ugly accusations that the royal family, particularly Prince Philip, had been behind the plot to murder Diana and Dodi. An English friend of mine who was in the courtroom called to tell me, “It was like being at the theater when he was on the stand. There were times when you could have heard a pin drop, and other times the entire courtroom would erupt in roars of laughter.”

I saw Al Fayed almost every day in the courtroom when I was there. Sometimes he nodded a greeting. People back off to look at him. Four guards constantly surrounded him, although not in the courtroom. A lot of attention has been paid to the expensively curious clothes he wears. Except for his hired staff and lawyers, no one approaches him. He has the look of a man who knows that he is disliked and doesn’t care.

The day that Al Fayed took the stand, there was a media stampede. Both the courtroom and the overflow media room were packed. His testimony shocked and enraged the British public and made headlines in the British newspapers. Al Fayed claimed that Prince Philip was a Nazi racist, and called him “Frankenstein.” He also claimed that Prince Charles had conspired with his father and his “Dracula family” to murder Diana so that he could marry “crocodile” Camilla Parker Bowles. He called the deaths “slaughter, not murder.” He had a massive list of people who were in on the conspiracy, including the British ambassador to France and Sir Robert Fellowes, Princess Diana’s brother-in-law, who had been the Queen’s private secretary and subsequently became Lord Fellowes. Al Fayed claimed that Fellowes was at the British Embassy in Paris on the night of the accident, overseeing the wicked plot. (In fact, Fellowes testified that on the night of the crash he was at his country house in Norfolk with his wife, Lady Jane Fellowes, who is Princess Diana’s sister.) Al Fayed ungraciously described his son’s former fiancée, Kelly Fisher, as a “hooker” and “gold digger.”

The more I hear and read and think about Diana’s and Dodi’s deaths in the Pont d’Alma tunnel, in Paris, on August 31, 1997, in what is possibly the world’s most famous car crash, the more I doubt the truth of their great romance. If it was anything at all, it was a flirt, a fling, “just one of those things,” as Cole Porter once wrote. Like the conspiracy theory surrounding their deaths, their romance, too, was orchestrated by Mohamed Al Fayed. The shrine to the eternal love of Dodi and Diana, in Harrods, the most famous of English department stores, owned by Al Fayed, is a popular tourist attraction. People line up to look at it. They speak in whispers, as if they were in church, instead of next to the Egyptian escalator in the basement of the store. The shrine, which is tacky but curiously touching, consists of a fountain, two large portraits—one of Dodi and one of Diana—and floor-lamp-size candles, the scent of lilies in the air. Under a glass pyramid is a crystal glass from which one of them had drunk champagne in the Imperial Suite of the Ritz Hotel just before they died, and the so-called engagement ring, which Dodi had bought that afternoon at the jewelry shop down the street from the Ritz. Diana never wore it. They had been romantically involved with each other for less than a month.

All was not as it seemed in the love department of the famous Dodi-Diana romance. Several friends of Diana’s told me she was downhearted after the breakup of her romance with Hasnat Khan, the Pakistani surgeon, with whom she was still in love. They say Khan ended his serious relationship with Diana because, as a respected doctor, he could not stand the publicity that overwhelmed her life. (He told the inquest that Diana had broken up with him after she became involved with Dodi.) What is rarely mentioned, although it is well known, is the existence of a beautiful American model named Kelly Fisher, who wore on her left hand an enormous and very expensive engagement ring. She says her fiancé had bought her a mansion in Malibu, where they would live after their marriage. She had tentatively set the date of August 9, 1997, for the wedding, nearly a month off. Her fiancé was Dodi Al Fayed. The two were in Paris together on July 14, when Dodi was summoned by his father to join Princess Diana on the Jonikal, the yacht Mohamed Al Fayed had reportedly purchased for $20 million the day after the Princess accepted his invitation for a sailing trip with her sons, William and Harry. Kelly was left behind in Paris, though a few days later she was flown to St. Tropez and transported to another Al Fayed yacht. There she languished during the day while waiting for evening visits from Dodi.

Diana returned to the Jonikal in August. The fact that she came back for a second visit so soon really shows her loneliness more than it does a passion for Dodi. Her two sons were at Balmoral, one of the Queen’s castles, with their father, Prince Charles, and their grandparents the Queen and Prince Philip, as was their August habit. Diana wasn’t being invited around to the great English estates for long weekends. She had become too famous. It was too difficult to have her stay. Strangers gathered at the gates to get a glimpse of her. Helicopters hovered. She really had no place to go. The Jonikal invitations were perfect. A splendid yacht. A helicopter. A private plane. Guards to keep the paparazzi at bay. She probably knew that she was being used by a social climber for his and his son’s advancement in London society, but in high society it was a fair deal. Each benefited. However, I think it is safe to say that Diana didn’t know that Kelly Fisher was on another family yacht, waiting for furtive visits from Dodi, with whom she had been in a relationship for nearly a year. Diana had already played that scene in her marriage to Prince Charles. The guards assigned to Dodi and Diana by Mohamed Al Fayed must have known about Kelly. Two different ladies on two different yachts were being romanced by the same billionaire’s son. The shrine to the eternal love of Diana and Dodi, on view at Harrods, doesn’t have quite the same impact once you hear about Kelly’s role in the story. It’s still tacky, but it’s no longer touching. It’s calculated. What Al Fayed has created is a shrine to himself: “Look at how I have suffered” is the message.

It’s a pretty-well-known fact that Dodi’s father ran Dodi’s life. Kelly thought Dodi’s demanding father was taking up his son’s time. It amazes me how long it took her to catch on that her fiancé was having an affair. On August 10, 1997, the paparazzi snapshot that became known as “The Kiss” appeared in the Sunday Mirror. The picture left no doubt that Dodi and Diana were romantically involved. Kelly was toast. She must have known that she was no match for the Princess of Wales, and she hotfooted it back to Hollywood, where she immediately hired the well-known Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred to file a breach-of-contract suit against Dodi. I called Gloria, whom I have known over the years through a multitude of cases. She described to me her press conference with Kelly to announce the lawsuit, which she called a tale of romance and betrayal. Gloria has written a soon-to-be-released book about her cases, entitled Fight Back and Win , which includes Kelly’s lawsuit. As Allred writes, Kelly was standing there next to her, but she was too overcome with sadness and tears to speak: “Ms. Fisher is emotionally devastated and traumatized by Mr. Fayed’s mistreatment of her. She is unable to speak to the press today because she breaks down in tears whenever she begins to relive what she has personally suffered.” There’s no question that they thought they had the case of the year, and that the sympathy and spotlight would shift to Kelly as the wronged woman. “We think the Princess should know what has happened with Ms. Fisher and how she and her family have suffered and are suffering.”

Kelly even offered to meet with the Princess of Wales to tell her what Dodi was really like. The Princess did not reply to the invitation. And then, days later, the lovers were killed in the Alma tunnel. Kelly did the proper thing and withdrew her breach-of-contract lawsuit.

Jack Martin, a great Hollywood character, a former gossip columnist, and now a recluse, who knows every Hollywood secret of the last 40 years, was a great friend and traveling companion of Dodi Al Fayed, who always wanted company on trips in his private jet. It was through Jack that I originally met Dodi, back in the 70s, in Los Angeles. Dodi loved taking movie stars to Hollywood parties and premieres and being photographed with them. He once said to Jack, “When do you think I’ll go out with a girl so famous I’ll get my picture on the cover of People ?” Jack said to me recently, “Well, he got his wish. A little late, though.”

It is public knowledge that Mohamed Al Fayed feels he has been snubbed by the Establishment in being denied the British citizenship he so craves. The wound festers within him. Certainly he knew that Diana’s visit to his yacht would enrage Prince Philip. As deeply as he hates the Prince, Al Fayed is obsessed with the royal family. When he bought Harrods, it had been serving them for decades, but when Prince Philip withdrew his royal warrant from the store, it was another public snub. Al Fayed responded by banning the Prince from the store. A further curiosity is that Al Fayed took a 50-year lease on the Villa Windsor, outside of Paris—the beautiful but bad-luck mansion where the former King Edward VIII of England, who had become the Duke of Windsor, lived with his twice-divorced American wife, Wallis Simpson, who had become the Duchess of Windsor, and for whom he had given up his throne. The Duchess was particularly disliked by the royal family. She had turned the former King into a mere socialite. It was widely rumored that they sometimes took money to dine at the homes of nouveau riche Americans with social ambitions.

The Duchess had a 10-year death at the Villa Windsor, lying in a semiconscious state on Porthault sheets, with few visitors. For years, as she lay dying, her hair was set and combed out by the famous hairdresser Alexandre of Paris. He did Elizabeth Taylor’s hair on a film I produced in 1973 in Italy, and he once described to me the pathetic scene of the comatose Duchess in the Villa Windsor. This is where Dodi took Diana on the afternoon of the day they were to die. They had left the Jonikal earlier that day, their holiday over, and flown on an Al Fayed private plane from Sardinia to Paris. The Villa Windsor seems to me an odd place to visit first upon arriving in Paris. I have always felt there was a subliminal meaning, part of Al Fayed’s game plan, that Dodi was taking Diana to see the house where they would live and raise their child after they were married. Although the autopsy and testimony from several of her closest women friends have proven that Diana was not pregnant, Al Fayed insists that she was and that she had told him so on the telephone from Paris shortly before she died. Reuben Murrell, the villa’s security chief, told the inquest that the Princess seemed flustered and had no curiosity about the house. She did not even go through the rooms. She’d probably heard all the bad-luck Windsor stories during her marriage to Prince Charles. She probably knew she was never going to live there. She was in and out of the socially historic villa in 28 minutes. But it became a scene in the romantic story that Al Fayed was directing and producing. It has been printed that an Italian interior designer was called in to change one of the guest rooms into a nursery.

I was very moved by the testimony of the only survivor of the crash, one of the two guards Al Fayed had provided for Dodi and Diana. At the time of the crash, he was known as Trevor Rees-Jones. Afterward, because of the constant publicity, he dropped the Jones and is now known simply as Trevor Rees. He has the face of a man who has been in a terrible accident, but the rest of his body is fit and in good shape. He’s like a gentle tough guy. He says he has no memory of the incident in the Alma tunnel. He was very close with his partner, Kes Wingfield, who did not get into the car that night. Both Rees and Wingfield, who were on the Jonikal and aware of the enormous paparazzi interest in the romantic story, asked Al Fayed several times for more guards. It is part of this tragedy that Al Fayed, who was himself usually surrounded by four guards, did not honor their requests.

I hated watching Rees being bullied on the stand by Michael Mansfield, Al Fayed’s lawyer, indicating inadequacies in the performance of his duties, as no one was wearing a seat belt in the Mercedes. I think it would have been difficult for someone in his position to say to the most famous woman in the world, “Listen, Princess, I’m telling you for the last time, put on your seat belt.”

Rees left the employ of Al Fayed a few months after the accident, as did Wingfield. Rees testified he felt he was being pressured to give a version of the story he claims not to remember—that a bright light flashed in front of Henri Paul, the driver, temporarily blinding him, which caused the accident. Wingfield also testified that he felt pressured by Al Fayed to support the conspiracy theory.

In the intervening years, after a long recovery, Rees started a new life. He remarried and has a three-year-old daughter. Despite the offers he received from tabloid papers and television shows, he never profited from the tragedy in the way others have. It is interesting to me that he has continued to work in personal protection. He is often in Iraq, where he guards nonmilitary notables visiting the country.

In stark contrast to the earnest Trevor Rees stands Paul Burrell, Princess Diana’s butler, who took the stand on January 14. There was a time when I would have written that he was a decent sort of chap, as they say in England, but that time has long passed. I attended his trial, at the Old Bailey, for the theft of many of Princess Diana’s possessions, in 2002. I had lunch with him one day in the canteen. At that time, he had the demeanor of a servant. His love for the Princess seemed to be very true to me. Two of Diana’s friends whom I talked with at the time thought he was just too divine, too wonderful, so loyal. But everybody’s opinion of Burrell changed. It became immediately apparent, after the Queen came to his rescue and his trial for theft was canceled, that Paul Burrell was in it for the bucks. Within days after that trial ended, his story came out in the Daily Mirror, which paid him a great deal of money. The grand folk dumped him quick. He had ulterior motives. The Princess’s death became his key to success. He wrote books about her. He gave lectures about her. He claimed to have known her secrets. His relationship with Diana’s mother and sisters was poisonous. He went into the Diana business. He designs household items, such as furniture and china, and has recently started designing linens and “royal” jewelry. He appears on television. He has become a C-list celebrity. I find this impossible to believe, but I read in the Daily Mail that the humble butler is worth $30 million and has left England and moved to Florida.

His life took a big backward step after his appearance at the inquest. He took a terrible drubbing from Mansfield, who humiliated him. He was mocked and laughed at. People didn’t feel sorry for him. He broke the news to the court that Princess Diana’s mother, Frances Shand Kydd, had called her a whore during their last telephone call, two months before the crash. And then, damn fool that he is, he met in a New York hotel room with a representative of a firm interested in selling his line of wares. Several glasses of champagne were drunk, and a jolly camaraderie grew between Burrell and his prospective financial backer. Burrell didn’t have any idea that the representative from the firm was actually a reporter from the scandalous British tabloid The Sun, acting the part, and doing it very well, all under the eye of a hidden camera. You can see on the videotape that Burrell didn’t know he was being filmed and recorded. He confided to his new friend that he had lied at the inquest when he was on the stand two weeks earlier. He says, “Do you honestly think I am going to sit there in a court of law and tip out my guts and tell them? … I didn’t tell the whole truth.… I was very naughty.”

I don’t think “naughty” is the appropriate word for lying under oath in a court of law. If he returns to England it’s possible a little hard time on charges of perjury is in store for the multi-millionaire butler, who doesn’t have many people rooting for him. A contemptuous Al Fayed, when he was on the stand, held up that day’s copy of The Sun with the photographs of Burrell, but Ian Burnett, a lawyer for the inquest, ordered him not to read from it. Lord Justice Scott Baker, who is heading the inquest, ordered a copy of the tape of Burrell’s tipsy confession. Subsequently, he ordered Burrell to return from Florida, although he does not have the power to force him. As of this writing, Burrell has refused. I have heard that people involved in his business encouraged him to appear in court, as it would be good for his Princess Diana trade. A friend of mine, who was extremely close to the Princess, told me that Burrell does know several things that would bring great embarrassment to very important people if he were to speak out.

The judge has ruled the inquest can last no longer than six months. I wonder, after this parade of characters both good and bad from Diana’s life is over, if the mystery surrounding her death will be put to rest. And what will happen to Mohamed Al Fayed, who gave such an operatic performance on the witness stand? When the 11-person jury begins to deliberate, they will have four possible verdicts to ponder: (a) accidental death, which the Establishment and the police believe to be true, as do I; (b) unlawful killing, which is what Al Fayed believes to be true; (c) open verdict, which means that the jury has heard everything but still has insufficient evidence to decide, which is, in effect, a hung jury; or (d) narrative verdict, which is simply a definitive narrative account of the circumstances in which Diana and Dodi died. Watching Mansfield on cross-examination is like watching Laurence Olivier. He bewitches a courtroom with charm, wit, and a deadly sting. Fortunately, he does not have to prove the outrageous conspiracy claims that Al Fayed has charged. He has only to create a reasonable doubt. If that happens, the beat will go on.

Dominick Dunne is a best-selling author and special correspondent for Vanity Fair. His diary is a mainstay of the magazine.

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‘The Crown’: Behind the Photo of an Embrace That Changed Princess Diana’s Life

In the show, Mohamed al-Fayed sends the photographer Mario Brenna to capture shots of Diana and al-Fayed’s son, Dodi, on vacation. The portrayal is inaccurate, Brenna says.

By Alex Marshall

Reporting from London

It’s summer 1997, and Princess Diana is flirting with Dodi Fayed, a globe-trotting playboy, on the Jonikal, a yacht floating on sparkling Mediterranean waters.

Diana, teasingly, says that she likes men who have lips that are “just the right temperature.”

“Are mine the right temperature?” Dodi replies.

“I don’t know,” Diana says: “Need to check.” Then, the couple kiss, blissfully unaware that just a few meters away, Mario Brenna, a slick Italian photographer, is on a boat, with a long-lens camera trained on the couple.

A few days later, Brenna’s shots of the princess and her new beau are on the front pages of newspapers worldwide.

This is a central scene in the sixth and final season of Netflix’s royal drama “The Crown” — the first batch of episodes premiered on Thursday — and a moment that signaled the start of a tabloid frenzy around the couple that many blame for their deaths on Aug. 31, 1997, in a car crash in Paris as they were chased by photographers.

Yet the depiction is far from accurate, according to Brenna, speaking in what he said was his first interview with an English-language newspaper.

For a start, “The Crown” has Mohamed al-Fayed — Dodi’s father, and a retail and hotel tycoon who died this year — appearing to hire Brenna to take the shots, in an effort to push Diana and Dodi’s relationship into the public eye, and cajole the pair to marry.

In an email, Annie Sulzberger, the head of research for the show — she is also the sister of The Times’s publisher, A.G. Sulzberger — said that “there are a few theories about how Brenna managed to find the Jonikal moored somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea,” but the one the team found most credible was that one of al-Fayed’s employees leaked the boat’s location to Brenna.

But Brenna said the idea that al-Fayed hired him was “absurd and completely invented,” and that no one leaked information about the yacht’s whereabouts to him. Every summer at that time, he was in Sardinia so he could take paparazzi shots of famous people, he said, and coming across Diana and Dodi was simply a “great stroke of luck.”

On Aug. 1, 1997, Brenna said he approached Diana’s yacht on a fast moving inflatable boat after mistaking a blonde woman making a telephone call on its upper deck for an old acquaintance. As he got closer, he was stunned to realize it was the princess.

Bruno Malka, Brenna’s agent at the time who helped sell the images to Paris Match magazine, said in an email that he thought Brenna was familiar with the yacht, “without knowing it was Diana and Dodi” onboard that day. Brenna was successful, Malka added, because he had spent so many years working in the region.

After spotting the couple, Brenna said he spent the next few days stalking the boat, including climbing a cliff to get a better view. From that elevated position, about 400 meters away from Diana, he took several photos of Diana and Dodi in an embrace. The shots were almost blurred, Brenna said, because the heat haze meant he struggled to get the pair in focus.

Still, he knew immediately he’d secured “a historic photo.” He’d also captured an image that “solved my personal and family problems,” he said, at a time when he had recently divorced and so “was not swimming in wealth.”

He unloaded the rolls of film from the camera, then buried them to make sure they didn’t get exposed to the sun as he tried to take more images, and also as he feared a competitor might have seen him at work and try to steal his camera and so obtain the images every other photographer in the Mediterranean had been hoping to get first.

On Aug. 10, the Sunday Mirror, a British tabloid, splashed Brenna’s image on its front page . “The Kiss,” the headline read. Soon, Brenna said, he was selling the pictures worldwide. In the following six-to-eight months, he said, he made about 1.7 million pounds, or $2.1 million, from his photos of the couple.

Brenna’s pictures — and the prices news outlets paid for them — sparked a frenzy. In 2013, Jason Fraser, a British photographer who helped Brenna sell his images, told The Daily Mail that after they were published, over 2,000 photographers arrived in the Mediterranean hoping to get their own snaps of Diana and Dodi. “I felt the whole thing was spinning out of control,” Fraser said. Weeks later, the couple died.

In “The Crown,” Brenna (portrayed by Enzo Cilenti) explains his methods to camera. To capture celebrities misbehaving, the fictional Brenna says, you have to take risks. Paparazzi also have to act like “hunters … killers.”

Brenna said in the email interview that he did not share this opinion of his work (“I do not identify with the term ‘killer,’”) and that he was never contacted by anyone from “The Crown” to learn about his experiences (Netflix did not respond to a request for comment).

After Diana and Dodi’s death, al-Fayed sued Fraser, the British photographer, for taking photos of Diana and Dodi on a boat, saying it was an invasion of privacy. Brenna said he did not face any such action, adding his images were legal as they “were taken outdoors, in a public place.” And he regretted the privacy crackdown that happened since, with governments and stars trying to stop the paparazzi from taking photos: “There is still the right to report,” he said.

Today, Brenna lives near Lake Como, in Italy, where he said he’s photographed celebrities including George Clooney, Miley Cyrus and Beyoncé, even as the dawn of social media had impacted his profession significantly, including its financial rewards.

Brenna said he and his family enjoyed the success of the photos throughout August 1997. But then, Diana died. When he heard the news, Brenna said, he “couldn’t believe it” and cried, not least because he had two children himself and so could understand what her death would mean for Diana’s boys. He made a decision “not to speak or disclose anything about the incident until William and Harry reached adulthood.”

The mere thought that his images “could have contributed to fueling the hunt for Diana and Dodi obviously saddens me,” Brenna said. But he did not think his work added significantly to the furor around the princess.

“If it hadn’t been me,” he added, “someone else would certainly have captured those images.”

Alex Marshall is a European culture reporter, based in London. More about Alex Marshall