\u201cMore than 28 years after her tragic death in Paris, Diana is still a major figure in global pop culture, celebrated for her style, humanity and independence,\u201d the Grevin Museum said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Diana, Princess of Wales, wearing the black dress by Christina Stambolian. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThe gown became a statement of reclaimed self-assertion, a powerful image of determined femininity and renewed confidence,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Her waxwork is displayed among entertainment and fashion figures, far from King Charles and Queen Elizabeth, who are in a gallery for heads of state.<\/p>\n
The decision to feature the famous \u201crevenge dress\u201d is a bold choice that focuses attention on a hugely damaging episode for the British royal family.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom Charles\u2019 point of view and Buckingham Palace, they wouldn\u2019t be delighted about this entry at Grevin,\u201d Bertrand Deckers, a royal expert who appears regularly on French television, told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u2018Wronged and wounded\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019d clearly prefer that we forgot about all this and never spoke of it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
But Diana\u2019s image as a \u201cwronged and wounded woman\u201d had helped cement her enduring popularity, he said.<\/p>\n
The wax effigy of Britain’s late Princess Diana at the Musee Grevin in Paris. Photo \/ Sebastien Dupuy, AFP<\/p>\n
The date chosen for the unveiling \u2013 November 20 \u2013 was another \u201csly reference\u201d, the museum said in its statement.<\/p>\n
It is the 30th anniversary of a bombshell and still hugely controversial interview Diana gave to the BBC in which she said \u201cthere were three of us in this marriage, so it was a little bit crowded\u201d.<\/p>\n
That was a reference to Charles\u2019 mistress Camilla Parker Bowles, whom he has since married.<\/p>\n
Diana also admitted to her own affair, with James Hewitt, but the interview led the BBC to apologise in 2021 over the \u201cdeceptive\u201d way in which it had been secured.<\/p>\n
The high-pressure waxwork commission \u2013 which will be highly scrutinised by defenders of Diana\u2019s memory \u2013 was handed to Paris-based sculptor Laurent Mallamaci.<\/p>\n
The Grevin Museum had been in contact with Diana at the end of her life but abandoned the idea of making a figure of her after her death, a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Deckers, whose recent book is about Princess Catherine, said French people remained fascinated by the British royals despite having famously beheaded their own monarch after the 1789 Revolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost as if they consider the Windsors as their royal family, even though it would have been more logical to adopt the Grimaldis in Monaco,\u201d Deckers, who is Belgian, told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMore than 28 years after her tragic death in Paris, Diana is still a major figure in global…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1443,62784,74,83172,9861,8668,25262,28167,156,97785,78,3586,111,139,69,6943,4940,28821,3109,4764,97784,2737,97786,15142,97783,39170],"class_list":["post-145492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-about","tag-affair","tag-after","tag-attraction","tag-charles","tag-diana","tag-dress","tag-enters","tag-entertainment","tag-grevin","tag-in","tag-museum","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paris","tag-prince","tag-princess","tag-public","tag-revelations","tag-revenge","tag-star","tag-thenhusband","tag-unveiled","tag-waxwork","tag-wore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}