Background to the last words of Diana, Princess of Wales
Lady Diana Frances Mountbatten Windsor was a media icon, a patron of numerous charities and the world's most photographed woman. She married Charles, Prince of Wales in 1981.
The close attention to their marriage by the tabloid newspapers highlighted the growing gulf between them and, by 1994, the public knowledge of Charles' long-standing relationship with Mrs. Parker Bowles and Diana's own infidelities made divorce inevitable.
She was killed, with her lover Dodi Al Fayed, in a car crash Paris in 1997. Her dying words "My God. What's happened?" were echoed by many conspiracy theorists for years after the accident. The exhaustive inquests into the circumstances of the death, held in London in 2004 and 2007, unambiguously attributed the accident to grossly negligent driving by the car's driver Henri Paul and to the paparazzi, who were pursuing the car on motorcycles.
Her death and funeral brought about a period of intense popular interest, bordering on a form of national obsession, and an ongoing debate about the role of the monarchy.
See also:
The dying words of King Charles II.
The dying words of King George V.