Theories continue to swirl nearly 30 years after her death, including the question of whether Princess Diana was pregnant when she died. Here's the answer.
Was Princess Diana Pregnant When She Died?
Updated on Apr. 24, 2025
On Aug. 30, 1997, I had just been to the movies and was getting ready for bed when the news came on announcing that Princess Diana had been in a car crash in Paris. Two hours later, after staying up late glued to the television, I found out she had died in the early hours of Aug. 31. Ironically, the movie I had seen that night was the Julia Roberts flick Conspiracy Theory, which turned out to be a prescient title for what would occur in the years, and decades, after Princess Diana’s death—the endless conspiracy theories about how she died and what was happening in her personal life at the time. At the top of the list: Was Princess Diana pregnant when she died?
This theory, which gained traction over the years, reflects her new and seemingly happy relationship with Dodi Fayed, son of an Egyptian billionaire. Fayed tragically perished with Diana in the car, which was being chased by paparazzi and driven at a high speed by a driver who had been drinking. Had Fayed proposed that night? Was Diana going to have his baby? What’s the truth—and why are we still so obsessed with finding out?
“Conspiracies are a way of keeping alive the memory of a fascinating figure that we don’t want to lose, suggesting that her story is, as yet, incomplete,” says Nicoletta Gullace, PhD, an associate professor of history at the University of New Hampshire. When the world seems uncertain, we look for an explanation to make sense of it, a pattern among the chaos.
Reader’s Digest spoke with Gullace and royal historian Marlene Koenig, author of Queen Victoria’s Descendants, to answer the question of whether Princess Diana was pregnant when she died and why this theory has gained such momentum over the years. Read on to find out.
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Who was Diana dating at the time of her death?
Diana began dating Dodi Fayed in July 1997. She had first met his father, self-made billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed, who owned Harrods department store in London and the Ritz hotel in Paris (where Dodi and Diana visited the night of their deaths). Al Fayed invited Diana to stay at his villa and yacht in Saint-Tropez, France, with her sons, princes William and Harry. Fayed came as well, and ultimately, the two began a relationship.
Princess Diana had also recently been involved with another man, British Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, but they had just broken up after a two-year relationship. According to what several of Diana’s friends told an official investigation into her death, she had wanted to marry Khan and was still in love with him.
Reportedly, her relationship with Fayed was intended to make Khan jealous. Whatever her motives, Diana did spend a lot of time with Fayed during the summer of 1997. In August, when her sons went to stay with their father, Diana’s ex-husband Prince Charles, at the Balmoral Estate in Scotland, she and Fayed stayed on the yacht in Sardinia, Italy.
Were Diana and Dodi engaged?
There are reports that Fayed was planning to give Diana a ring, but whether this would have been an engagement ring is still unclear—despite Al Fayed’s claims that his son was going to propose. CCTV does show Fayed and a Ritz hotel employee visiting a jewelry store in Paris the day he died, with the Ritz employee returning to purchase an item called the “Tell Me Yes” ring on behalf of Fayed.
Diana’s friend Rosa Monckton said in the official investigation into the deaths that “she told me she was not happy about him wanting to buy her a ring and said that she would wear it on her right hand,” instead of her left, where an engagement ring would go.
Also in the investigation, Diana’s friend Lady Annabel Goldsmith similarly said, “The last time I spoke to Diana was the Friday before she died. … I knew she was on holiday, and I asked if she was alright. She told me she was having a wonderful time. I said, ‘You are being sensible, aren’t you? You’re not doing anything silly are you, like getting married?’ and she replied, ‘Not at all. I’m being spoilt, and I’m having a wonderful time. Annabel, I need marriage like a rash on my face.’ … I do not know anything about a ring that Dodi was supposed to have given Diana. She did not speak to me about any ring at all.”
Why do people believe that Princess Diana was pregnant when she died?
As with all good conspiracy theories, the question of whether Princess Diana was pregnant when she died started with a smidgen of truth. When the paparazzi followed her on the vacation in Saint-Tropez with her sons, she urged them to leave with the promise of a “big surprise” later. “I have no idea whatsoever as to what that announcement would have been,” Monckton said during the investigation.
The Dodi Fayed and Diana pregnancy theory really started to take hold, though, with Fayed’s father. “In 2001, Al Fayed told the Daily Express that he believed Diana was pregnant at the time of her death, and in 2003, he appeared on the American TV show Primetime and asserted that Diana had phoned him on the night of her fatal car crash to tell him she was pregnant with Dodi’s baby,” Gullace says. “The fact that Dodi’s father—the billionaire owner of Harrods department store—propagated the pregnancy rumors gave them greater credibility than they might have had if they had come from a witness less close to the couple.”
Al Fayed also referenced a picture of Diana wearing her iconic leopard-print bathing suit on July 14, which supposedly shows a tiny baby bump. But this timing doesn’t work out, as she had just recently arrived in Saint-Tropez and hadn’t yet begun a relationship with Fayed.
Al Fayed’s claims led to a three-year official British investigation into Diana’s death, known as Operation Paget, which began in early 2004.
Was Princess Diana pregnant when she died?
No. The British investigation confirmed that Princess Diana was not pregnant at the time of her death, both because of forensic evidence and by witness accounts. “Operation Paget was done to diffuse and disprove conspiracy theories, especially the ones being pushed by Al Fayed, which included Diana being pregnant and murdered by MI6 agents,” says Koenig.
From the beginning, there was no evidence of pregnancy. After her body was brought back from France, explains Gullace, “the first coroner to see Diana’s body, former coroner of the queen’s household Dr. John Burton, testified that he had attended a postmortem examination of the princess’s body at Fulham mortuary in London, and her womb showed no signs of pregnancy. It seems quite unlikely that she was pregnant.” Plus, as part of Operation Paget, “blood found in the wrecked Mercedes was tested, and the Princess of Wales’s sample showed no signs of pregnancy hormones,” Gullace adds.
Witnesses close to the princess also dispute the pregnancy rumors. “Among those who testified was Diana’s good friend Rosa Monckton, who was with Diana 10 days before her death and knew Diana could not have been pregnant,” Koenig says. According to Monckton, when they were together on her boat, Diana was menstruating.
In addition, “Dodi’s masseuse also insisted that Diana was not pregnant,” Gullace says. In the Operation Paget report, Myriah Daniels, the masseuse and holistic healer who treated Diana while on Al Fayed’s yacht, said Diana told her herself that she was not pregnant—presumably in answer to a medical inquiry before a massage—and that “through the course of my work on her body, I found no indications to show that she was.”
Why do some people still doubt this?
Al Fayed was insistent that the couple were engaged and Diana was pregnant—and then he went even further. “Al Fayed claimed the royal family wanted to kill the princess because she was going to marry his Muslim son,” Gullace says. According to Al Fayed, the thought of the future king of England having a half-Muslim half-brother was not acceptable, so the pair was murdered.
“These are, of course, preposterous allegations, none of which have ever been proven,” Gullace says. “The inquest conducted into Diana’s death ruled out these claims, but the theories reemerge periodically because of public fascination with all things related to Princess Diana.”
At a certain point, conspiracy theories like these take on a life of their own, perhaps to distract from the reality of the very random way the princess died. “A simple car accident, precipitated by a high-speed chase in a vehicle chauffeured by a driver under the influence of alcohol, perhaps seems too ordinary to have ended the life of the beloved Princess of Wales,” Gullace says. Instead, “a strain of conspiratorial thinking wishes to believe that sinister forces within the British government and/or a malign power wielded by the royal family lead to Diana’s death.”
What investigations into the crash took place?
Multiple investigations have been carried out surrounding the crash, and none have found evidence of any conspiracy around Diana’s death—not that that would deter conspiracy theorists. “The ingenious theories explaining the absence of evidence have been so persistent that multiple investigations, in both France and Great Britain, have failed to allay speculation questioning the accidental nature of her death,” Gullace says. But here are the investigations that were conducted:
- Right after the crash, French officials launched an investigation, which lasted two years. It found that the accident was caused by the driver, Henri Paul, who was intoxicated and driving at a high speed.
- Following Al Fayed’s allegations, Operation Paget—conducted by the British Metropolitan Police for three years—explored an extensive list of conspiracy theories about Diana’s death. In an 800-plus-page report released in 2006, investigators found there was no credibility to any of the claims.
- An inquest in a British court followed the report, and a jury ruled in 2008 that the accident was caused by the “grossly negligent” driving of Paul and the following vehicles. Contributing factors included Paul’s intoxication and Diana not wearing a seatbelt.
- Yet another investigation was undertaken by British police in 2013 after new claims by an ex-soldier’s family that an elite British military force, Special Air Service (SAS), was involved in Diana’s death. But Scotland Yard concluded there was no evidence for such claims and declined to reopen a criminal homicide or coroner’s investigation.
Despite conspiracy theorists’ claim that there were “too many weird things about Diana being murdered, she wasn’t,” Koenig says. “She got into a car with a drunk driver and did not put on her seat belt.”
What other conspiracy theories surround Diana’s death?
In spite of the facts, the Princess Diana crash theories have gotten even wilder and more outlandish as the years go on. “People believe the discredited [pregnancy] theory for the same reason they believe in UFOs or that the CIA killed President Kennedy,” Gullace says. And the media is in no hurry to squash these theories. “The public fascination with the British royal family ensures that any publication, TV show or podcast that rehashes topics like Diana’s death will find wide engagement,” Gullace adds. “Diana remains much in the public mind.”
Gullace points out these additional crash theories:
The driver’s blood sample was switched
The blood-sample conspiracy theory is two-pronged. One theory alleges that the blood sample of driver Henri Paul showing he was intoxicated had been switched in order to scapegoat him. This theory goes further, suggesting Paul was an agent for MI6 ordered to cause the crash and kill Diana. But witnesses saw Paul drinking, and he hadn’t been planning to drive Diana and Fayed—he only did so because their plans changed. Operation Paget found no evidence of Paul working for MI6.
Diana’s blood sample was switched
And now for the second blood-sample theory: Other conspiracy theorists say Diana’s blood samples were swapped with another woman’s, and that Diana was indeed pregnant. Horrifically, some claim the reason why Diana was treated for over an hour at the scene was that she was undergoing a secret abortion so no one would find out about the pregnancy. This is also false: Medical protocol in France at the time was for victims to be treated and stabilized at the scene first, before being transported to the hospital via ambulance.
The car was tampered with
Unfortunately, Diana and Fayed weren’t wearing their seat belts—if they had been, they may have lived. Early reports of the crash indicated the sole survivor, bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, was wearing his, but Operation Paget found that none of the car’s occupants were wearing one. (Rees-Jones can’t recall the crash.) Also, the investigation noted that the vehicle had been examined, and there was nothing wrong with the seat belts.
But the role of the seat belts was ripe for conspiratorial thinking. Before her divorce, several people who knew Diana said she feared for her safety and thought she would die in a planned accident, possibly orchestrated by Prince Charles. In one instance, she even alleged that her brakes had been tampered with. But in the Operation Paget investigation, other friends disputed she felt this way, particularly in the summer of 1997, when her divorce had already been finalized for a year and she seemed happy, not fearful.
There was a second car
This one begins with truth: Eyewitnesses saw a white Fiat Uno being driven out of the tunnel, and there was white paint on the Mercedes driving Diana, indicating it had clipped the Fiat. In a recent documentary, French investigators admit being frustrated the owner of the Fiat was never found. But the conspiracy again takes a fact and runs with it: A photographer, James Andanson, had taken photos of Diana in Saint-Tropez and owned a white Fiat Uno. Furthermore, he died in a car fire in the woods in 2000, ruled as a suicide by French authorities. Conspiracy theorists think this is all very suspicious and are sure he was murdered, maybe for what he knew or because he was a French agent or a member of MI6.
After a thorough investigation, Operation Paget found nothing of the sort. Andanson’s Fiat Uno—a popular car in France at the time—was in terrible shape and had been parked in his driveway for years. A forensics team couldn’t rule out the possibility it was involved in the crash, but the same could be said for many other white Fiats. There was no evidence Andanson was in Paris that day. And he had talked about suicide in the exact same manner as it was carried out.
Diana faked her own death, or died trying
Although there is zero evidence for this, the theory—or really, fantasy—even got its hooks into a member of the royal family: Diana’s son, Prince Harry. In his autobiography, Spare, he writes that for years he engaged in “magical thinking,” believing his mother was really alive somewhere and would one day call him to join her. Eventually, he came to accept that this was not the case, and she was truly gone.
Like Prince Harry, Diana’s admirers just don’t want to let her go. “I think conspiracy theories persist because they are a way of keeping the narrative of Diana alive,” Gullace says. “They are a bit like fan fiction, continuing a story that is over but that you cannot bear to let go of.”
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Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of stories on the British royal family, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the fascinating facets of the monarchy. We regularly cover topics including the latest royal news, the history and meaning behind time-honored traditions, and the everyday quirks of everyone’s favorite family members, from Queen Elizabeth’s daily snack to Prince William’s confessions about his home life. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. For this piece on whether Princess Diana was pregnant when she died, Tina Donvito tapped her experience as a longtime journalist who covers history, travel, entertainment and the British royal family for Reader’s Digest. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Nicoletta Gullace, associate professor of history at the University of New Hampshire; email interview, April 2025
- Marlene Koenig, royal historian; email interview, April 2025
- Metropolitan Police: “The Operation Paget inquiry report into the allegation of conspiracy to murder”
- U.K. National Archives: “Coroner’s Inquest into the Deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Mr. Dodi Al Fayed”
- Vanity Fair: “Diana’s Impossible Dream”
- Vanity Fair: “Diana and the Press”
- Sky News: “Princess Diana crash investigators reveal ‘frustration’ at never tracing white Fiat Uno”
- BBC News: “Diana death police find no SAS role”
