Princesses from books and old Disney movies are cute, kind, and beautiful. But in real life, even princesses are not perfect. The crown and their high status don’t protect them from self-destructive thoughts about their appearance (like if someone calls them too curvy or too slim, too tall or too short). Similar complexes were even eating away at the British princess Diana, one of the most famous women on Earth who was loved by the whole world.
Bright Side dove into Diana’s biography and now we know that princesses are just like the rest of us when it comes to insecurities.
After Diana passed away, more than a million people gathered in London along the route of the funeral procession. It is believed that Diana was the most popular member of the British royal family in Great Britain.
Though the princess was an icon of style, she was also a person full of complexes at the same time. For example, when the artist Israel Zohar painted her portrait in 1990, Diana was constantly asking him to correct something about her appearance in the painting, especially when it came to her nose.
The princess’s big nose was actively discussed by the press. Diana tried to hide it with the help of a big hairdo, as well as resorting to a special pose in all of her photos. She would bend her head slightly down, turn it a bit to the side, and lift her eyes. This became her signature angle.
In addition, a slightly lowered head helped Diana cope with another complex: she was ashamed of her height (5 ft 8 in). Her insecurity about her height was fueled by the fact that her husband’s height was the same.
However, in official portraits, the princess appears to be shorter than her husband because the court photographers intentionally made Diana look shorter — she was put in front of her spouse and was told to wear flat shoes. This helped Charles look taller and more impressive than his wife.
Due to the embarrassment about her height, the princess had problems with her posture. Diana was slouched and bent her shoulders forward. According to her doctor, the situation was aggravated by the fact that she had a curvature of the spine.
Also, Diana would often keep her head down when she was talking to people so that the communication was comfortable for whoever she was speaking to and so that it didn’t seem to them that she was looking down at them.
There is another complex that tortured Diana. She considered herself fat. It was all because of an accidental phrase Prince Charles said to his young bride, having put his hand on her waist, “Oh, a bit chubby here, aren’t we?” And she took her groom’s words painfully.
That’s why this 19-year-old girl started to lose weight rapidly before her wedding day. When courtyard tailors started to sew a wedding dress for Diana, her waist was 30 inches. Before the wedding ceremony, the princess’s waist was reduced to 23 inches. One of the fashion designers recalls that Diana was so slim, you could actually see the bones in her face.
One week after the wedding, Diana started to suffer from bulimia, which lasted for about 10 years. Diana shared that there were several reasons for this nervous disorder. First and foremost, she had issues with her husband. They were supposed to be together and to portray a good relationship in public, but in fact, there was no peace and harmony between them.
Second, one of the princess’s duties was to communicate with severely ill people, which turned out to be a serious blow to her psyche. Diana didn’t seek help for her bulimia because she was ashamed of her disorder and hated herself for it.
The beautiful Diana also believed that she had a swimmer’s physique. She disliked her big shoulders. Fortunately, looks with voluminous shoulders were trendy in the ’80s. Diana skillfully used this trend, opting for outfits with shoulder pads and clothing styles that were relevant for those times. In this way, Diana’s shoulders didn’t look big and it created an impression as if the princess was just following fashion trends.
According to Carolan Brown, Diana’s personal trainer, after having given birth to 2 kids, the princess’s belly required a lot of attention and physical activity. The princess was actively engaged in sports which helped her to not only improve her body, but also her emotional condition.
Also, Carolan recalls that Diana became interested in voice-building lessons because she thought that her voice didn’t sound confident enough and sounded like a little girl’s.
This photo, where she is wearing a black dress, was taken on the day that Prince Charles declared in a TV interview that he was having an affair with another woman. Afterward, Diana started to openly speak on television about how difficult the recent past years had been for her. Prior to that, Diana hadn’t confessed in public that she had psychological problems.
Family life with Charles didn’t work out, but it was necessary for them to show a happy marriage. For many years, Diana didn’t feel support from the royal family and had a difficult relationship with her own mother. So the young princess became a hostage to depression.
But she found strength and started to gradually get rid of the insecurities and nervous tension that had continued to poison her life for many years. She fought her bulimia and started to regularly workout at the gym. She no longer had to pretend to be a loving wife in public.
Complexes about appearance and low self-confidence can happen to anyone, even to the members of the royal family. The main thing is to find enough strength to fight them.
Bright Side has given us a very valuable lesson. There will be obstacles in our lives but we need to gather ample strength to fight against them in overcoming them instead of playing a victim card.
And I could relate the hardships faced by Princess Diana while reading her biography ‘The Crown Princess’.
before I read about her "big" nose I have never noticed anything wrong with it
even someone who has it all can be unhappy with themselves, though for me she is an icon of modesty and beauty :(
She is so beautiful! But beautiful folks tend to have complexes and considering the way Diana was treated in the royal family, she had many reasons to consider herself incompetent and inferior.
