Readying BAM meant installing metal detectors and welcoming bomb sniffing dogs. “When a princess moves, a lot of people are involved.” The co-chairs traveled to London to discuss preparations with Diana’s staff and were schooled in the ins and outs of royal protocol, which included security, what food could and could not be served, and how to approach the princess. We had every security detail in the history of mankind,” Brooks Hopkins says. (The only person who was slow to pay up, Rudin DeWoody says, was Donald Trump.) “There are a lot of preparations when you’re hosting a princess. Des Willieīrooks Hopkins and gala co-chair Beth Rudin DeWoody saw the $2,000 tickets sell out just on the word of Diana’s attendance. I said, ‘Wow, if you could only get the queen, we could really raise a lot of money.’ He said, ‘I can do better than the queen: Diana.’ I said, ‘Go for it, baby.’”Įmma Corrin as Princess Diana in the Netflix show The Crown season 4. “A guy named Brian McMaster ran ,” former BAM president Karen Brooks Hopkins recalls. At the time, the Brooklyn Academy of Music was putting together its first season of opera, and the inaugural performance would host the Welsh company for a production of Falstaff and a gala reception. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor found a safe haven there after his abdication, and more recently Meghan Markle retreated from the pressures of Windsor Palace to join friends for a 2019 baby shower at the Mark hotel.ĭiana’s visit came about because of her patronage of the Welsh Opera. After all, the city holds a special allure for royals. She wouldn’t have been alone in her affection for New York. It’s easy to imagine any number of trips for fashion shows, Broadway binges, or black tie affairs, or even to think of an entire second act for her across the pond. One wonders what would have been in store for Diana in New York City if she’d had more time. She would come back for high profile events like the CFDA awards, she eventually held the famed charity auction of her dresses at Christie’s Park Avenue headquarters, and she developed deep friendships with prominent residents like Harper’s Bazaar editor Liz Tilberis.ĭiana, Princess of Wales, attends a charity dinner at the New York Hilton, accompanied by Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger, December 12, 1995. The trip was the beginning of what would become a substantial relationship between Princess Diana and the city. New Yorkers clamored for tickets to a charity gala in order to be in her presence and were moved by images of her visiting sick children. The reality of Diana’s February 1989 visit was pretty much the same. And, alluding to Diana and Charles’s marital issues, “If they don’t want her there, we would love to have her here.” “She’s perfect!” a young man tells a news reporter. Diana’s empathy and glamour were on full display in equal measure, and Americans flocked to catch a glimpse of her. As depicted in the series, the visit was a coup. In the final episode of The Crown’s fourth season, we see young Princess Diana ( played by Emma Corrin) take on one of the highest-stakes assignments of her royal career: a packed three-day trip to New York, her first solo engagement. In honor of the 25th anniversary of Princess Diana's death, we're resurfacing this story from 2020 on her visit to New York.
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