Publish Date: Sept. 8, 1997
Cover Story: Death of a Princess
How TIME Covered the News:
“She lived a fabled life and a cautionary tale, a princess of irreducible splendor yet one who bore testimony to the commonality of loneliness and heartbreak. On the day 16 years ago that Charles, the Prince of Wales, married Lady Diana Spencer, the Archbishop of Canterbury declared, here is “the stuff of which fairy tales are made.” That fairy tale ended even before their divorce was announced, a love story that was false, it was shown, from the very beginning. Diana emerged scathed, but she had other causes to tend to–her sons, the sick, the war-ravaged, her own heart. The marriage was dead, but long live the princess.
And now she is gone.”