Just in time for Halloween, doubtlessly spurring sales of costumes created in her image, we have supposed new "revelations" about Princess Die, I mean, Di's death – the butler claims she predicted her own car crash.
I was in Rome when Diana died, on my first and so far only trip to Europe. When I heard about her death, from a stranger, I was having a most sublime pranzo – OK, lunch of linguini al dente and tossed with shrimp, zucchini and Parmigiano – in an outdoor cafe near Piazza Navona.
It was shocking, her sudden death. It nearly ruined my meal. Such exquisite youth and beauty, truncated so prematurely. How had she become enmeshed in such mutual matrimonial hellishness? And how could Prince Charles even dare to utter his desire aloud of wanting to be reborn as his horse-faced inamorata Lady Camilla's tampon?
This all eluded me, as did the global gossip industry's enshrining her as the consummate victim.
Meanwhile, in death – sad, so sad – Diana attained fallen goddess stature to weepy millions the world over, but I was a dry-eyed skeptic, rather than her fan or devotee or acolyte. As best I could, I ignored the lugubrious circus of grief that sprung up around her.
And yet when whispers of a conspiracy arose, I was intrigued. My old buddy Rod Nordland of Newsweek had done some compelling investigative journalism about the car crash, which persuaded me there most likely was another agenda afoot, possibly targeting her eminently wealthy if "unsuitable" playboy lover, a plot perhaps generated by some government intelligence renegades somewhere, or the Royals themselves.
Now we learn, through her butler's astounding disclosure: 10 months before she died, Princess Diana purportedly entrusted the butler with her "visionary" note predicting her own death, for safekeeping.
How do we know this? It's in his, um, pardon the expression, new book, which doubtlessly received a megabucks advance big enough to choke a ... horse-faced mistress.
All this time he kept this alleged "information" to himself under his own widdle hat? And now it's conveniently leaked, during the book's serialization in a Fleet Street scandal sheet? Hmm. What a ... coincidence.
Hey, I admire psychic revelation as much as the next person. Just ask "Sforza Destino" – I've been his client for more than a decade. But on this one about Diana, I'm not quite convinced. These days, seems like some folks might do almost anything to peddle and promote their pecuniary donkeys in the publishing marketplace.
Which, speaking of the publishing marketplace, brings me to a deeply personal confession of my own: In childhood, I actually fantasized that my family – these economically indeterminate, horribly unglamorous, highly neurasthenic New York Jews transplanted to a modest Cape Cod bungalow near the north Jersey shore – physically resembled the British Royal Family.
Somehow, Princess Anne fell by the wayside, but, in my mind, Prince Philip looked like my father, Queen Elizabeth my mother, Prince Charles my brother, the Queen Mother my beloved Bubby. And I was, of course, Princess Margaret, she of the dramatic string of dodgy romances on the luxurious isle of Mustique.
Explains a lot, doesn't it. Especially since my once-and-future therapist's a Brit.
There's more, I promise. While I'm too close to this scintillating material to be objective, the most fawning members of my inner circle insists it'll make a fabulous book and are encouraging me to seek publication!
Any takers?