It's no secret that Prince Charles and Princess Diana's marriage was doomed from the start. His relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles aside, Charles and Diana were simply not suited for each other, and as a 20-year-old bride, Lady Diana Spencer found herself unprepared for the realities of royal life. In the new book Dianaworld: An Obsession, author Edward White dives into the lead-up to their 1981 royal wedding—and how the princess took some advice to heart 15 years later.
Ahead of Diana and Charles's July 29 nuptials, a feminist magazine called Spare Rib produced buttons reading, "Don't Do It, Di!" White wrote that the publication "expressed itself aghast and deflated by the public enthusiasm for an event that seemed to glorify a Victorian view of gender relations."
The badges sold "for twenty pence each, and they proved exceptionally popular," per the author. Spare Rib even created tea towels declaring, "You start by sinking into his arms and end up with your arms in his sink"—and mailed one to the couple as a wedding gift.
The buttons attracted plenty of attention, with White writing that Diana, perhaps, "had been listening."
In 1992, Charles and Diana separated, and their divorce was finalized in August 1996, just a year before her tragic death. That November, the newly divorced princess visited Sydney, Australia, when she encountered a reminder of her past self.
"Fifteen years later, her divorce in the bag, Diana was in the back of a car in Sydney when she spotted a wedding congregation on the steps of a nearby church," White wrote. "As the car drove past, she wound down her window and shouted at the bride, 'Don't do it!'"
While Diana was known to love a good practical joke, it seems like this time, she was shooting straight from the hip.
