Jamie Lee Curtis hits out at Princess Diana's 'sham contract of a marriage' to Charles
The actress paid tribute to Princess Diana on the anniversary of her death
Jamie Lee Curtis recently paid a moving tribute to Princess Diana on the 28th anniversary of her death. She described the late royal’s decision to leave her marriage to King Charles as a powerful act of courage.
In a heartfelt Instagram post shared on August 31, the Hollywood actress recalled a moment she missed out on missing Diana in 1997, just two months before her tragic death.
She reflected on how the then-Princess of Wales had learned to live “mindfully” by shedding what the actress called a “[bleep] sham contract of a marriage”.
“She really loved the world,” Jamie Lee wrote. “And she did love well.”
Jamie Lee Curtis pays tribute to Princess Diana on death anniversary
The actress recalled filming Fierce Creatures, the follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda, when Diana and her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, were scheduled to visit the set.
During a break, Jamie Lee hopped in a golf cart to return to her dressing room to use the restroom. However, she heard shortly after that the royal had arrived.
“By the time I got back, she was walking away,” the actress remembered. “I wasn’t going to chase her to tell her how much I admired her.”
Instead, the Freaky Friday star wrote Diana a letter the next day explaining the situation and expressing her admiration. To her surprise, she received a warm note back from Kensington Palace almost immediately.
Diana thanked her for writing, joked about “nature calling” being a shared experience, and said she hoped to meet Jamie Lee in the future.
But that moment never came. Two months later, the princess was gone.
‘She got out of that sham of a marriage’
After hearing the news of Diana’s fatal car crash in Paris, Jamie Lee said she turned off the TV.
Instead, the actress reached for a book on meditation that asked two simple but profound questions: “Did I learn to live wisely? Did I love well?”
“I immediately thought about Princess Diana,” Jamie Lee wrote on Instagram. “And her learning to live wisely.”
The Oscar winner praised Diana for publicly speaking about her personal struggles, showing empathy to marginalized communities – such as when she walked through an Angolan minefield or touched a young man living with HIV – and choosing to exit an emotionally stifling royal marriage.
“She got out of that [bleep] sham contract of a marriage,” Jamie Lee continued. “I certainly thought that she had learned to live wisely.”
The post was accompanied by a poignant photo of Diana greeting William and Harry with outstretched arms, which Jamie Lee said captured a type of maternal love “a royal person never had” shown before.
“I’m still moved by her and her grace and courage. I’m also comforted in knowing that she lived a mindful wise, loving life,” she concluded.
She got out of that sham contract of a marriage.
Fans flooded the comment section with tributes of their own, praising Jamie Lee’s story and Diana’s legacy.
“Beautiful tribute,” one fan gushed. “Diana was truly one to admire and one to learn from. We will forever miss her.”
“She was truly a gem in this world,” another agreed. “What a role model still, 28 years after her passing.”
Diana’s brother takes flowers to her burial site
Elsewhere, Diana’s brother Earl Charles Spencer also paid tribute on the anniversary of her death last weekend, sharing a photo of a handpicked bouquet of white and pink roses laid at her gravesite on the family’s Althorp estate.
“Always an impossible day,” he wrote.
28 years after her death, the world continues to remember Princess Diana not just as a royal figure, but as a woman who broke tradition, and, as Jamie Lee Curtis put it, “learned to live wisely”.
Read more: Reason Prince Philip ‘exploded at question about William and Harry over Princess Diana’s funeral’
Royal Insider contacted reps for Buckingham Palace for comment.
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