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Some of Princess Diana’s most famous outfits come from her appearances at movie premieres over the years. But was the Princess of Wales also secretly sneaking into theaters to watch the latest films with the public?
In season five, episode seven of The Crown, Diana goes to see Apollo 13 with Hasnat Khan, wearing sunglasses paired with a short brown bob wig, and munching on popcorn. In real life, we will perhaps never know if Hasnat and Princess Diana saw the movie together; however, the Princess of Wales definitely watched Apollo 13 at the film’s London premiere, where she met director Ron Howard and star Tom Hanks.
In real life, too, Princess Diana often ventured outside of her home in Kensington Palace wearing a disguise, which included wigs and sunglasses.
And, as Sarah Ellison writes in Vanity Fair, Hasnat and Princess Diana “spent much of their time together in Kensington Palace, where they could avoid the paparazzi and their cameras. When they ventured out, it was often in Hasnat’s Chelsea neighborhood, sometimes with Diana wearing a dark wig and sunglasses.”
The British Pakistani doctor was often with Princess Diana when she experienced so-called normal life. “For example,” Hasnat later recalled, “we once went to the pub together and Diana asked if she could order the drinks because she had never done so before. She really enjoyed the experience and chatted away happily to the barman.”
Stewart Pearce, a royal biographer and a friend of Princess Diana’s, has also shared that the Princess would sneak out of Kensington Palace in a disguise to meet him at the movies.
He said, “Well, we had a very confidential relationship so I didn’t spend a lot of time with her in public but when I did, she was always in disguise. In other words, she would call me and say, ‘darling Stewart, shall we go to the movies?’ And I would say ‘can you?’ and she was saying whatever, meet you on High Street Kensington.”
Pearce remembers that the Princess would wear a black trench coat, a long blonde wig, and sunglasses—and no one ever know it was her.
So while we’ll never know if Princess Diana ever snuck into a movie theater with Hasnat Kahn, it’s definitely not a far stretch from reality.
Emily Burack (she/her) is the news writer for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.
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