Before Princess Diana got engaged to Prince Charles, she shared a London flat with three close friends. This week, a plaque honouring her memory was unveiled at the building.
At the event, Virginia Clarke, Diana's roommate and friend, spoke about living with the soon-to-be princess. When it became known that Diana was dating Charles, the women were followed by hordes of paparazzi.
Princess Diana's ex-roommate on paparazzi and bombs
According to The Telegraph, Clarke revealed that the girls did received no help from the Palace. "Interestingly, none of us, including Diana, received any help," she recalled.
"I'm not sure who might have helped us, but there might have been someone — some PR or palace person, I don't know."
Concerningly, however, Virginia did claim: "The only thing I remember being told was we should look under our cars for bombs."
Lady Diana: Playing hide-and-seek with the press
The relentless paparazzi besieged the women, and they and young Lady Diana didn't know how to handle it.
But even if the women were intimidated by the press, they managed to get something positive out of it. Clarke explained: "We formed a team who together began to play this crazy game of avoiding the press."
This game also helped Diana later. But after she divorced Charles, everything looked very different.
"When she dropped her royal status, it saddened me to realize she no longer had her friends around her and the cat and mouse game became very lonely and not quite so funny," Clarke said.
And on a fateful night in 1997, tragedy struck because of this very game. After being followed by paparazzi in Paris, Diana was involved in a car accident.
She died shortly after the crash. Her death, about which there are still many myths and conspiracies, was mourned all over the world.
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