princess diana yacht 1997

What Really Happened During Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed’s Vacation?

The Crown depicts her jaunts on Mohamed Al-Fayed’s yacht, the Jonikal, where her romance with Dodi kicked off.

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Diana was invited by Mohamed, a friend and businessman, to vacation in Saint-Tropez with her sons in July 1997. The Harrods owner would also goad his own son to join, too. The invitation came at a good time, after a few rough blows for Diana: Prince Charles was throwing a lavish birthday party for Camilla Parker Bowles at Highgrove, the house he and Diana once shared. And she had just broken up with surgeon Hasnat Khan, due to the media frenzy around their relationship. It was the month before William and Harry would be at Balmoral with their father and the rest of the royals, who no longer accepted her. So off she went, straight to the $20 million yacht that Fayed bought just before the trip to impress her—Tina Brown writes in The Diana Chronicles .

Prince Harry has looked back fondly at that trip, mostly because of the quality time they spent with their mom. “Actually, we’d been with Mummy weeks earlier when she first met him [Dodi], in St. Tropez,” he writes in her memoir Spare , per Today . “We were having a grand time, just the three of us, staying at some old gent’s villa.

“There was much laughter, horseplay, the norm whenever Mummy and Willy and I were together, though even more so on that holiday. Everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven. The weather was sublime, the food was tasty, Mummy was smiling.”

But the cameras followed her, like they always did. The Crown depicts photographers sailing out toward the Jonikal to snap images of the princess sunbathing and swimming in her one-piece. It also shows her approaching the boats filled with paparazzi to forge a deal: She’ll pose for them for a few shots if they’ll leave her and her kids alone.

Part of this is true. The New York Times reported in 1997 that Diana was quite cooperative with the press, at least during the first trip in July: “Three times, on separate occasions, she went out to the sea front and jumped off a small pier into the water, with photographers around her. Then, after leaving for 10 days with Mr. Fayed on the boat trip during which the photographs of the embracing couple were taken, she returned.”

“It was clear enough to all of us that she wanted to show the British establishment she was free,” Frederic Garcia, who photographed Diana on the trip, told the paper at the time. But her and the Al-Fayeds’ exasperation with the media grew after helicopters flew over the boat, according to the NYT .

Perhaps her openness to being photographed was her response to Camilla’s birthday party. “She just wanted to make the people at Balmoral as angry as possible,” her friend, art collector Lord Palumbo, told Brown. Now it wasn’t just a revenge dress; it was a revenge photo shoot with revenge swimsuits on a revenge vacation.

Brown even writes that the biggest photos from the trip, of the princess kissing a shirtless Dodi on the boat, “were the direct result of tips from Diana herself.” After they were published, she called photographer Jason Fraser, who “was in cahoots” with Mario Brenna, who shot the images, to ask why the pictures were so grainy. But she wasn’t the only one working with the press. Mohamed also had a publicist tip gossip columns on her and Dodi’s whereabouts and frame their getaway as a sensational romance, according to Brown.

Meanwhile, Dodi was juggling this burgeoning love story with another one. He was already engaged when he first joined Diana on the boat at his father’s behest in July. His fiancée was Kelly Fisher , an American actress and model, and their wedding was scheduled for the following month, on August 9, 1997. He had even left Fisher in Paris to board the Jonikal in St. Tropez. She joined later but, just as it’s shown in The Crown , she was relegated to a different Al-Fayed boat, where Dodi would visit her at night, Brown writes. Fisher soon caught on. In August, she sued Dodi for breach of contract, and was represented by high-profile lawyer Gloria Allred. But she withdrew the suit after his death.

In Spare , Harry remembered thinking Dodi was “cheeky” but overall was content with the relationship: “As long as Mummy’s happy, I told Willy, who said, he felt the same.” But Brown reported in her 2007 book that Prince William grew concerned. He told friends it was weird that they were on vacation with what seemed like a “substitute family.” When photos of Diana and Dodi on the boat were published, William complained to her that the boys at school would mock him for it.

After doing significant charity work in Bosnia with land mine victims, Diana reconvened with Dodi on the Jonikal in August. “The fact that she came back for a second visit so soon really shows her loneliness more than it does a passion for Dodi,” Dominick Dunne reported for Vanity Fair in 2008. But the privacy—or whatever amount of it that they had—might have appealed to her. “A splendid yacht. A helicopter. A private plane. Guards to keep the paparazzi at bay. She probably knew that she was being used by a social climber for his and his son’s advancement in London society, but in high society it was a fair deal. Each benefited.”

Dodi and Diana’s romance would be short-lived, but he showered her with gifts during their six-week relationship, including a pearl bracelet and diamond wristwatch, according to Vanity Fair . With him, the princess felt “so taken care of,” her confidant Lady Elsa Bowker told Brown. And on top of that, he was a “sympathetic, unthreatening listener,” wrote Tom Bower, author of Mohamed Al-Fayed’s unauthorized biography.

But their relationship probably wasn’t going to be a lasting one. According to Brown, Diana suspected Dodi might propose to her, but told a friend that the ring would go “firmly on the fourth finger of my right hand,” meaning she would not have accepted. Her sister Sarah McCorquodale later testified, “I just did not think the relationship had much longer to go.”

It’s been believed that the romance was even orchestrated by Mohamed himself. According to Bower, the older Al-Fayed would check in on Dodi and Diana during the trip (which is also portrayed in The Crown this season). McCorquodale also told the court that Diana “thought the boat was being bugged by Mr Al-Fayed Senior.”

On that second trip in August, Diana and Dodi were photographed together in the South of France and Sardinia, before heading to Paris for their tragic final days. There, they would be chased by cameras again for the last time.

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Party Yacht Where Princess Diana Spent Her Final Vacation Sinks in France

By Kase Wickman

One more artifact from the late Princess Diana’s life is no more: The Cujo , the superyacht where she and boyfriend Dodi Fayed spent many sunny days, including their final summer vacation before they both died in a car crash in August 1997, has sunk in the French Riviera, according to French authorities .

Seven passengers were rescued from the boat on the afternoon of July 29 after it struck an unidentified object off Beaulieu-sur-Mer and struck a leak that would prove to be the end of its voyages. By the time the Antibes Nautical Brigade, part of the French military’s Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes, responded to the distress call about 45 minutes later, all seven passengers had been evacuated to a life raft and the ship had started sinking.

The yacht was 20 meters long, and originally launched in 1972. According to BOAT International , Austrian Jon von Neumann, who introduced the Porsche brand to the United States, originally commissioned the boat and asked that it be built to break speed records.

After Neumann, the Cujo was owned by the family of Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi , before coming into Fayed’s care, according to the New York Post . In addition to Diana, Fayed hosted celebrities like Brooke Shields, Bruce Willis , and Clint Eastwood on the yacht in the late ‘90s. According to the Robb Report, later owner Simon Kidston sold the boat to “a young member of a prominent Italian business family” in 2021.

Paparazzi swarmed Diana and Fayed’s summer 1997 adventures onboard the Cujo and the Jonikal , another yacht on which the couple spent time sailing in St. Tropez, including just days before their death. They were hot gossip, with Diana having finalized her divorce from then-prince Charles less than a year before. At the tail end of season five of The Crown on Netflix, Diana is invited to vacation asea with Fayed with her children, Prince Harry and Prince William , a trip that did happen in real life.

Harry recounted the July 1997 jaunt in his memoir, Spare . “Everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven,” he wrote. 

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The Famous Superyacht on Which Dodi Fayed Courted Princess Diana in the Summer of 1997 Sinks to the Bottom of the Mediterranean Sea

If you were around that summer 26 years ago, you remember this vessel well from the hordes of photos taken of it with the Princess of Wales aboard.

Last August 31 was the 25-year anniversary of the deaths of Princess Diana , Dodi Fayed, and Henri Paul, who passed away as a result of a Parisian car accident in the early morning hours of that day in 1997. (Diana’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was severely injured but survived the crash.) The summer of 1997 will come to the forefront once more in the forthcoming season six of Netflix’s The Crown , due to debut later this year, and we will no doubt see scenes of Diana and Dodi from their final summer together aboard the superyacht Cujo—a vessel that has made headlines this week.

The Cujo sinking on July 29, 2023

In an unexpected twist to the story, 26 years after Diana and Dodi enjoyed its comforts, Cujo sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea on July 29, with seven passengers aboard. (All seven are safe and unharmed, thankfully.) People reports that the yacht—of which thousands upon thousands of paparazzi photos were taken in the summer of 1997, as the press tried to figure out the relationship between Diana and Dodi—was “sinking due to a leak” after it allegedly hit an unidentified object on the French Riviera, according to an officer. “The skipper of the Cujo issued a Mayday,” an officer said, per The Independent . “Rescue boats were sent from Antibes and, after making sure everyone was safe, gendarmes detected a significant water leak at the level of the starboard front hull. Her owner had activated the pumps and kept the engines running, but this didn’t stop the boat sinking.”

Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes, a branch of the French military, released a statement addressing the incident on its Facebook page, where it was disclosed that the Antibes Nautical Brigade first responded to a distress call at 12:30 p.m. local time for a yacht located 35 kilometers off the coast of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France, People reports. “When they arrived at the scene 45 minutes later, the ship was already sinking, and the cabins had begun to flood,” the outlet writes. “The seven passengers were already transferred to a life raft and examined for injuries before being taken back to shore.”

Princess Diana that final summer aboard Fayed's boat

After first meeting at a polo match in 1986—in which Dodi was playing against Diana’s then-husband, Prince Charles —Diana and Dodi reconnected romantically over a decade later after Dodi’s father, Mohamed al Fayed, invited the princess and her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry , to vacation at their villa in St. Tropez, France. Diana and Dodi developed a connection aboard the 20-meter superyacht, as the world watched and wondered through paparazzi photos taken of them at the time. Dodi himself owned the Cujo and had spent around £1 million refitting the boat “and wooed Diana on board, as the world’s media looked on,” The Independent reports.

Princess Diana and Prince Harry on the Fayed boat

Princess Diana waves at bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, who would be the sole survivor in the crash that took her life not long after this photo was taken

We’ll never know what would have come from the seemingly budding romance, as the two were killed riding side by side together through a tunnel in Paris—Dodi instantly in the tunnel, and Diana later at the hospital. The car in which they were riding was traveling at 121 mph in order to escape the aforementioned paparazzi chasing them on motorcycles—trailing them this time on land rather than, as they had all summer, at sea. The chase, plus driver Paul’s intoxication, led to the triple fatal crash and the end to any happiness Diana and Dodi might have shared together—the beginnings of which are now resting at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

Cujo—frequently moored off St. Tropez—saw other celebrity guests including Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis. After Dodi’s death, Cujo fell into disrepair and was decommissioned two years later in 1999. It spent years in storage before being restored by new owners.

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of  Podcast Royal , a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts  I’d Rather Be Reading , which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more. 

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Inside The Yacht Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed Toured the Mediterranean On

The princess and her paramour vacationed on the yacht shortly before their tragic deaths in 1997.

Just a month before their passing, Diana and Dodi—joined for part of the trip by her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry—traveled the South of France aboard a superyacht. Then named the Jonikal (it has subsequently been called the Sokar , and the Bash ), the yacht was owned by Dodi's father, former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed , when Diana traveled on it. Following the 1997 car crash that led to the couple's deaths, Mohamed attempted to sell the yacht on a number of occasions before ultimately parting with it in 2014.

In 2022, it was announced that the 208-foot yacht, which saw the beloved royal's last vacation, would be going up for sale. According to Boat International , the vessel sold in June of 2023 following a €9 million refit.

The ship, which was first launched in 1990, reportedly has nine staterooms to hold up to 12 guests with amenities including a jacuzzi, swim platform, sun deck, formal dining room, a bar, and office space. Though the ultimate sale price for the vessel has not been revealed, the asking price was reportedly €15,500,000.

Lauren Hubbard is a freelance writer and Town & Country contributor who covers beauty, shopping, entertainment, travel, home decor, wine, and cocktails.

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The Harrowing Symbolism Behind the Famous Diving Board Photo of Princess Diana

By Elise Taylor

On October 9, Netflix announced the first half of the sixth season of The Crown on Twitter by sharing a single image: Elizabeth Debicki, sitting on a diving board in a turquoise swimsuit, with her back to the camera as she stares out into the sea. With over 2.6 million views, it’s a visual that resonated with many—and not just because of the Netflix marketing department’s graphic design skills.

There are tens of thousands of photos of Princess Diana in existence. A handful of them, including the royal in front of the Taj Mahal and wearing the little black “revenge dress,” are considered iconic. There is, however, perhaps only one of those legendary images that could be considered harrowing.

On August 24, 1997—a week before her tragic death in Paris—paparazzi captured Princess Diana sitting on the diving board upon Mohamed Al Fayed’s private yacht “Jonikal” off the coast of Portofino. What was intended to be a private vacation quickly turned into a media circus after the British tabloids published her kissing Fayed’s son, Dodi, on board. Bids for those photos went up to £500,000. Although Diana always had a de-facto bounty on her head, it was now at an eye-watering and dangerous sum—especially as rumors that the Princess was pregnant, or engaged, began to swirl.

As a result, paparazzi swarmed her the entire trip, desperate to capture the Princess and her new love interest. One of those photos? Diana, solo, on a diving board. Even far off shore, she could be tracked down by a camera lens—and, therefore, never alone.

The Crown's Elizabeth Debicki in the poster for the show’s final season. 

Once she arrived in Paris, an accessible and busy metropolis, this clamor to take her photograph reached a fever pitch. On August 31, while being chased by paparazzi on motorbikes, the car Diana was being driven in by an intoxicated driver crashed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. According to witness testimony, paparazzi continued to take photos as the couple lay dying.

Over two decades after her death, the haunting photo of her on the diving board is still seared into our consciousness: a symbol of  Diana’s glamor, her isolation, and the relentless pursuit of her likeliness. It was used for the 2013 poster of the biopic Diana, starring Naomi Watts, and inspired SZA’s cover art for her album SOS. “I just loved how isolated she felt, and that was what I wanted to convey the most,” the musician told Hot 97 . Now, Peter Morgan and The Crown are just the latest to have harnessed its emotional power.

While it’s unclear how much the photo will play a role in the upcoming season, the show will cover Diana’s final days—bringing the tragic story of the final weeks of Diana’s life front and center once again.

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Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed’s Former Yacht Sinks Off the Coast of France

By Katherine McLaughlin

Before their untimely deaths in the late summer of 1997, Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed spent a few brief paparazzi-festered weeks aboard Cujo, a 65-foot, military-style superyacht. As Robb Report described it, the boat was once the most famous in the world thanks to her high-profile passengers. Now, a little over a quarter of a century later, the infamous boat has sunk off the coast of France, reports The Independent .  

The boat sank quickly after the distress call was made. 

According to a Facebook post from the Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes, a division of the French military, passengers issued a distress call around 12:30 local time on July 29. A little under an hour later, a rescue boat arrived, finding the vessel’s bow already partially submerged. “The cabins of the yacht were already flooded, and only a few suitcases located in the kitchen and on the deck could be retrieved by the gendarmes,” reads the statement. The seven passengers who were on board had already evacuated and were safely on a nearby lifeboat. Rescuers and passengers then quickly left the area, as the boat sank 2,500 feet to the ocean’s floor. The cause of the accident was not shared; however, according to Boat International , sources claimed that the ship hit an unknown object floating near the center of the hull. 

Cujo was already halfway underwater when rescuers arrived. 

The impressive yacht was originally launched in 1972, commissioned by its first owner John von Neumann. According to Robb Report, Von Neumann hired Italian shipyard Baglietto to build him a boat that was “faster than any other motoryacht on the water.” During its maiden voyage, Cujo had largely achieved this goal thanks to its twin 54-liter V-18 turbo diesel engines, which provided 2,700 horsepower and allowed it to easily hit 46 miles per hour. Von Neumann eventually sold the boat to arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who later passed the boat to Dodi Fayed, his nephew. 

At one point, the vessel was among the fastest in the world. 

Though Princess Diana was among the most notable guests onboard—largely fueled by vicious tabloid coverage—other high-profile passengers hosted by Fayed included Clint Eastwood, Tony Curtis, Bruce Willis, and Brooke Shields. In addition to jaunts on Cujo, the sensationalized couple also spent time on superyacht Jonikal , which most recently sold in June of 2023. Following the passing of Di and Fayed, Cujo fell into disrepair and decommissioned in 1999. After many years in storage, Fayed’s cousin Moody Al-Fayed purchased the vessel and brought it back to life. He later sold the boat to Simon Kidston, a British car collector and restorer and the last-reported owner of the vessel. 

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A Timeline of Princess Diana's Last Summer

Here's a look back at how the Princess of Wales spent her final weeks before she died in August 1997.

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Following reports of Diana's relationships with Hasnat Khan and Dodi Al-Fayed, this media buzz reached new heights during the summer of 1997. From her charity work to a Mediterranean getaway with her new friend Dodi, here's how the "People's Princess" spent her final weeks.

May 22, 1997

In May, Diana visited Lahore to help raise money for a cancer clinic set up by her close friend and Pakistani cricket star Imran Khan. At the time of the trip, there was speculation surrounding the princess' on-and-off romance with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan. Three years after her death, Imran said that his private conversations with the Princess during this visit left him in no doubt of her feelings for the doctor. "She had been involved with him for two years and she had wanted to marry him," Imran said in the television documentary Diana: Her Last Love . "It was clear that she was very deeply in love with Dr. Hasnat and I just don't think she could have got over it that quickly."

RELATED: 8 Things to Know About Hasnat Khan, Princess Diana's "Mr. Wonderful"

June 3, 1997

Diana was always passionate about dance, and after her divorce, the English National Ballet was the only non-humanitarian charity she chose to dedicate her time to. Her support and presence at fundraising galas helped to raise thousands of pounds for the company, and in June 1997, the princess met with members of the cast of Swan Lake at Royal Albert Hal l in London. She wore a turquoise Jacques Azagury dress to the event, which went on to become one of her most famous looks .

RELATED: 24 Photos That Show What Princess Diana Was Like Before Royal Life

June 18, 1997

At what would be their last meeting, Diana and Mother Teresa walked hand-in-hand through the streets of the Bronx in New York City. Reports at the time said Mother Teresa, who was in seriously poor health, blessed the princess during her 40-minute visit, which followed Diana's meeting at the White House with Hillary Clinton. On September 5 that same year, 87-year-old Mother Teresa died in Kolkata, India .

RELATED: A Look Back at Princess Diana's Life and Legacy

June 22, 1997

Later in June, Diana returned to New York to attend a gala party and launch an auction of some of her most iconic dresses with Christie's. The New York Times reported that the sale of 79 cocktail and evening dresses belonging to the princess brought in $3.25 million for the charities she supported. The sought-after designs included Victor Edelstein's ink blue velvet gown that Diana wore when she danced at the White House with John Travolta. It sold for $222,500.

June 30, 1997

Diana graced the July cover of Vanity Fair magazine only a month before her tragic death. The issue focused on how the she was coping with the divorce and attempting to rebuild her life after Prince Charles . The photographs taken by Mario Testino turned out to be the last official portraits taken of the princess. " Photographing Diana, Princess of Wales for Vanity Fair in 1997 was one of the most memorable days of my career," Testino has said .

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July 1, 1997

On her 36th birthday, the Princess attended the 100th anniversary celebration of the Tate Gallery in London. Dressed in a black gown by Jacques Azagury , she was the guest of honor at the celebrity-filled event. According to author Tina Brown, the special day was a memorable one for the princess. "She received 90 bouquets of flowers, and Harry gathered a group of classmates to sing 'Happy Birthday' to her over the telephone," Brown wrote in The Diana Chronicles . RELATED: 25 Princess Diana Quotes That Honor the "People's Princess"

July 17, 1997

In July 1997, Diana was seen on holiday in St. Tropez in the South of France. According to The Daily Express , the princess was visiting Dodi Al-Fayed, the son of Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed. During the trip, she stayed in the family's 30-bedroom villa, Castle St. Therese, with her sons, William and Harry. She is said to have grown close to Dodi here, and she stayed in the villa several times throughout the summer before the pair died in Paris.

July 22, 1997

After her holiday, Princess Diana joined celebrities including Elton John and Naomi Campbell at a memorial service in Milan for her friend fashion designer Gianni Versace . The Italian brand was a go-to label for the princess, who wore the label's glamorous gowns for many of her public appearances.

August 10, 1997

In August, Diana traveled to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, where she continued to draw attention to the fight against landmines during a three-day visit. At the time, the BBC described the trip as "entirely private." She visited the homes of landmine victims and met with local disability groups and rehabilitation specialists. Prior to her departure, the British tabloids were full of speculation about Diana's friendship with Dodi.

Late August 1997

At the end of the summer, it was reported that Diana was on a cruise of the Mediterranean on Dodi's luxury yacht. They traveled from the South of France to Sardinia before flying to Paris on Saturday, August 30.

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August 30–31, 1997

Following their time in Sardinia, Diana and Dodi traveled to Paris together. After a dinner at the Ritz Hotel that evening, they left in a limousine and were pursued by photographers on motorbikes. The chase led to tragedy in an underpass in the French capital. In the early hours of Sunday morning, Diana, Dodi, and their chauffeur Henri Paul were killed when their car crashed in Pont de l'Alma tunnel.

September 6, 1997

Six days after her death, Diana was laid to rest at her family estate in Althorp , England. Her funeral at Westminster Abbey was watched or listened to by an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide, and around 1 million people lined the streets of London to pay their last respects. Outside her home at Kensington Palace, a carpet of floral tributes stretched out into Kensington Gardens. Two decades later, a memorial garden opened at the princess' former home , where her son William, the Duke of Cambridge; his wife, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge; and their children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, now live.

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Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed's iconic love boat is now at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea

• The yacht on which Princess Diana holidayed with Dodi Fayed is now at the bottom of the sea, per The Times .
• The boat, named Cujo, sank after it collided with an unidentified object off the French Riviera.
• Cujo has changed hands multiple times in recent years and was most recently owned by a wealthy Italian family.

The yacht where Princess Diana spent part of her last summer with Dodi Fayed has sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

The boat, named Cujo, sank on July 29 after colliding with an unidentified object off Beaulieu-sur-Mer on the French Riviera, The Times reported.

The Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes uploaded a statement onto their Facebook page confirming that they responded to a distress call from a boat that was in trouble about 35 kilometers, or 22 miles, off the coast.

By the time the coast guards arrived at the scene, the yacht was already partially submerged.

"The distressed yacht is already starting to sink from the front and the 7 shipwrecked are just next to it in a life raft," the statement said. "The cabins of the yacht are already flooded, only a few suitcases located in the kitchen and on the deck can be retrieved."

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The Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes added that they would remain in the area to monitor pollution because the yacht sank with almost 7,000 liters of diesel in its tanks.

When Insider reached out to the Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes for direct confirmation of the boat's identity, the organization told Insider "to search via Google."

Cujo made international headlines in 1997 when Princess Diana was photographed onboard with its then-owner Fayed, per Robb Report .

That summer, Princess Diana was also photographed onboard another yacht owned by Fayed's father, the Jonikal — which was subsequently renamed Sokar, per The Times.

Mere weeks later, the two of them died in a car crash in Paris while trying to escape the paparazzi.

Following their deaths, Cujo fell into disrepair and was decommissioned in 1999, per Robb Report. After a few years in storage, Fayed's cousin, Moody Al-Fayed, spent over $1 million restoring the boat before he sold it to a British car collector Simon Kidston for €160,000, or $175,400.

Kidston subsequently sold the boat to its current owner in 2021, he told Robb Report.

"A young member of a prominent Italian business family—he's 30 years old—had seen Cujoin Lavagna, fallen in love with her and asked if she was for sale," Kidston told Robb Report.

Watch: The rise and fall of the cruise industry

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Here Are The Real Photos Of Diana On Vacation That Inspired Those Scenes In The Crown

The Princess of Wales did indeed have a little chat with paparazzi on a boat.

The sixth and final season of The Crown got off to an emotional start by depicting Princess Diana’s final weeks before her death in August 1997. At the time, Princess Diana was newly dating Dodi Fayed, son of Harrod’s owner Mohamed Al-Fayed and famously spent time on Al-Fayed’s yacht in the south of France that summer with 12-year-old Prince Harry and 15-year-old Prince William. She was being constantly followed by the paparazzi, and is seen confronting photographers in The Crown in an effort to get them to leave her sons alone so they could enjoy their holiday. Which, according to photos taken of the princess at the time, appears to be at least somewhat based on a real event.

Season 6, Part 1 of The Crown saw Princess Diana (played by Elizabeth Debicki) vacationing off the coast of Saint-Tropez with her sons, Prince Harry and Prince William (played by Fflyn Edwards and Rufus Kampa, respectively), on Al-Fayed’s yacht. If The Crown is to be believed, Prince William in particular was struggling to have a good time on his holiday because of the constant presence of the paparazzi. And so, Princess Diana decided to throw on a swimsuit and jet over to the photographers to pose for some shots in an effort to get them to leave.

The Crown’s version...

“Enjoying your holiday?” a member of the paparazzi asks Princess Diana in The Crown when she is seen approaching them on a boat, and she replies. “Yes, we’re having a lovely time, apart from one little thing, you lot. Seriously, how long are we going to have the pleasure of your company? The attention is starting to freak out the boys.”

She offered the paparazzi a “surprise” if they would leave her sons alone as they snapped photos of her. And while we don’t know if the real Princess Diana offered them a surprise, she absolutely did confront them that summer.

How it looked in real life...

A year after Princess Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris, journalist and biographer Sally Bedell Smith wrote about the royal’s relationship with the paparazzi for Vanity Fair — in particular, that fateful summer in the south of France. “On a holiday in July 1997 with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and his family in Saint-Tropez,” Bedell Smith wrote at the time, “she first eluded paparazzi by crawling along a balcony and hiding behind a towel, then surprised a contingent of British tabloid reporters and photographers ... by addressing them from her motorboat in a fetching leopard-print bathing suit. ‘You will have a big surprise coming soon, the next thing I do,’ she teased, and implied that she was thinking of living abroad.”

This wasn’t the only moment that the Netflix series recreated from Princess Diana’s holiday that last summer. Princess Diana was also seen in a super colorful swim suit, hanging out on the beach with her sons. A scene The Crown pulled off perfectly.

In real life, most of the photos from that moment were taken with Princess Diana spending time with her sons on the yacht, even wrapping her son Prince Harry up in a big hug while wearing the iconic swimsuit.

Princess Diana was also photographed sitting on the diving board of Al-Fayed’s yacht, all alone in a bright blue bathing suit. Looking, some might say, quite lonely.

Like the series showed, Princess Diana in 1997 was also seen wearing a bright blue one-piece swimsuit, staring off into space.

While The Crown has certainly done an impeccable job of recreating real-life photos of moments from the lives of royals, it’s important to remember that these are dramatized and fictionalized versions of real events. No matter how spot-on they might look to us.

This article was originally published on November 20, 2023

‘The Crown’: The Story Behind That Princess Diana Yacht Photo

I t’s telling that the lead image in the promotion of the final series of The Crown, a show ostensibly about Queen Elizabeth II and her ascendent line of heirs, is not of HRH. Instead, it’s an iconic shot of the person who's really at the centre of the Netflix show's sixth season: the late Princess Diana.

The photo in question has become embedded in popular culture since it was taken on Diana’s last holiday before her death. The ex-royal sits, pensively, on the diving board of a superyacht, looking out to sea in a turquoise swimsuit. But what is the true story behind one of the most famous images of the Princess Of Wales?

The backstory

In July 1997, Diana was on a Mediterranean holiday with her boyfriend at the time, Dodi Al Fayed, son of the then-Harrods’ boss, the late Mohammed Al Fayed. Diana and Dodi – and the Princes William and Harry – all spent time together in Castle St. Therese, Al Fayed’s 30-bedroom villa in St. Tropez in the South of France.

But Diana was called to Milan on 22 July, where she attended the funeral of her friend Gianni Versace, who was murdered by a fan on the steps of his Miami home on 15 July.

The author and friend of Diana, Tina Brown, later wrote: “The murder of the flamboyant fashion star Gianni Versace... while Diana was on Al Fayed's yacht, was a meteor shower in the exploding sky of her final summer.”

With the weight of the death of her friend still on her mind, in early August, Diana travelled alone to Sarajevo to publicise the fight against landmines in the country. Here, she came face to face with some horrific tales of mutilation of the people, and spent time working with rehabilitation groups of survivors.

By early August, after an emotionally turbulent few weeks, Diana was back on holiday with Dodi, this time on his yacht, known as Jonikal.

But on 10 August, pictures of Diana and Dodi kissing in Sardinia were published in the Sunday Mirror , and all hell broke loose; especially when it was claimed Diana could possibly be engaged, or even pregnant. In the trailer for series six, Imelda Staunton’s Queen is shown the front-page splash and told: “Interest in the princess’ private life is unlikely to die down any time soon”, and it’s likely that in real life Diana would have received a stern phone call from the palace.

From this point onwards, it only intensified the swarms of paparazzi clamouring for pictures of the pair on holiday. Video footage from the trip shows dinghies filled with men with long-lens pictures surrounding the yacht, desperate to catch another money-spinning shot of the couple together – with figures going as high as £1 million a photo.

On 24 August, Diana, dressed in just the teal swimsuit, took a walk out to the diving board of the yacht and sat down on it. She would have had a lot to process from the past few weeks.

She would also have known the press were desperate for pictures of her and Dodi together – perhaps she told him to stay below deck to protect him while she gave photographers a shot to appease them.

But according to one paparazzo in the documentary Sex & Power , the romance was just for show: “No-one knows this, so it’s ­actually quite interesting. [The crew member] said, ‘They don’t share the same bedroom, he calls her ma’am, is ­incredibly deferential and respectful. But as soon as she goes outside to wave to the paps, she’s bending over and kissing him and hugging him’... The truth [of their romance] is the opposite.”

Was this then another posed shot designed to reset the narrative, or was it simply a candid picture of the troubled princess in genuine thought? Whatever the case may be, the photo's melancholy pull is still being felt.

The first half of The Crown series 6 streams on Netflix from November 16.

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A crew member describes the royal's days aboard a yacht in the Mediterranean just before her tragic death on August 31, 1997.

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By the summer of 1997, Princess Diana was embracing a new phase of her life. In the wake of her divorce from Prince Charles the previous year, the 36-year-old royal began the season by selling off 79 gowns from her famed wardrobe with a high-profile auction at Christie’s in Manhattan, with the proceeds benefiting several charities important to her, including the AIDS Crisis Trust. That moment of transition illustrated a metamorphosis from “Shy Di” of the Eighties to that of a self-assured woman embracing an identity outside The Firm.

Comfort level aside, Diana was acutely aware of her star power throughout her public life. The princess used her world-famous image for photo ops both championing philanthropic causes and tacitly addressing personal matters (think: the little black “Revenge” dress by Christina Stambolian she wore at the moment the Prince of Wales publicly admitted marital infidelity with Camilla Parker Bowles). By July of her last summer, Diana was dating Egyptian playboy Dodi Al Fayed — son of Harrods’ then-owner, the controversial Mohamed Al Fayed — causing tabloid photographers to swarm the couple at every opportunity, including a seaside holiday in St. Tropez with her young sons, Princes William and Harry.

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A summer of charitable visits to places like Bosnia and Angola in support of land mine victims and New York City to meet with Mother Teresa was punctuated by leisurely weeks in the Mediterranean Sea with Al Fayed. All of that came to a tragic end on August 31 when the couple’s chauffeur-driven Mercedes fatally collided with a pillar in a Parisian tunnel while being chased by a swarm of paparazzi.

In the weeks leading up to the tragedy, Diana enjoyed days of rare seclusion aboard Mohamed Al-Fayed’s 200-foot yacht, Jonikal. Joined only by staff members, Diana and Dodi cruised through the Mediterranean along the Italian Riviera undetected by scrutinizing photographers until the paparazzi finally discovered Diana on the waning days of her holiday.

Now a charter broker with Ocean Independence, Debbie Gribble was at the time a young stewardess tending to the princess on the Jonikal and she recalls the excitement that came with providing an exclusive getaway for one of the most famous women in the world.

“I felt very privileged to be in this secret environment,” explains the New Zealand native by phone from her Auckland office. “We anchored in beautiful secluded bays of Sardinia where the water is so turquoise and clear. Anytime Diana was in view in public the media was there. In this case, when she was not in view [to the public], there was no media.”

In private, Diana’s activities were purposely limited. According to Gribble, there were “barbecues on the beach, walks ashore and dinner,” but the princess largely enjoyed swimming in the sparkling waters around the mega-yacht and sunning herself in a number of one-piece swimsuits. “She was incredibly casual and traveled light,” Gribble continues. “She had only a small amount of baggage and everything was very compact — there were bathing suits everyday. She was obviously very experienced at traveling and would literally come to breakfast in her bathing suit ready for the day to just swim. There was not one dress [in her luggage].”

Instead, Diana brought aboard the nine-cabin vessel a modest collection of shorts, Capri pants, silk tops and “sport skirts” in a range of understated tones from beige and pastels to black and white. “She actually told me she didn’t like shopping,” recounts Gribble of a conversation with the style icon. “[Diana and Dodi] had come back [to the ship] after a walk around the shops in Sardinia with a pile of cashmere sweaters that Dodi had bought for her. She wasn’t interested in shopping on her holiday, that’s for sure. All she wanted to do was enjoy the boat and go swimming and sunbathing.”

As she enjoyed those rare moments of complete privacy, Gribble describes Diana’s demeanor aboard the Jonikal as “relaxed, fun and light,” noting her shift when faced with re-entering the public eye. “She was a totally different person [in public and private],” she adds. “I didn’t get the sense that she was on edge at any time. I got the sense she was just enjoying this freedom, being in the moment and actually living.”

The now 47-year-old adds, “There were jet skis and things like that, but she was more interested in just jumping off the side [of the yacht], swimming around the boat, sunbathing and not doing a lot else.”

Aboard the custom-built Italian yacht, Diana was relishing in the opportunity to dress casually throughout the day, emerging each morning from her cabin with “flat and straight” hair and “just a little bit of lip gloss and mascara — never with full makeup.”

Chef-prepared meals were met with the same level of refined informality. Each morning Diana would bypass a pyramid of fresh fruit arranged by staffers and instead have simply a cup of black coffee. Lunches, usually served on an upper deck, were “light salads and Mediterranean style pastas and fish.” For most of their time on the yacht, Diana and Dodi dined alone, although friends of Al Fayed’s joined the couple a few times on board toward the end of the summer.

“They would have a three-course meal for dinner and there was always lots of caviar and Champagne,” says Gribble. “I know it sounds cliché, but it was actually caviar and Champagne. They had beautiful white wines and the main course was always something like lobster-stuffed pasta and lots of seafood.”

Photographers would eventually disrupt Diana’s idyll, closing in on the princess by boat and helicopter. Images of her on holiday — among the last taken of her — were splashed across newsstands throughout the world. “When those famous photos of her on the yacht came out in the papers everything changed,” notes Gribble. “That feeling of freedom was gone and suddenly she was back in a gilded floating cage. You could see the magic was just dwindling day by day.”

As it became apparent the days of quiet relaxation had passed, Diana expressed eagerness about returning to a normalized schedule in London, which included reuniting with Harry and William — then aged 12 and 15, respectively — and resuming her workout routine. “She mentioned looking forward to getting back,” says Gribble. “She wanted to see her boys and she liked to go to the gym — that was a big thing she mentioned a few times to me. She also missed eating at more of a British time, which is at 6 or 7 o’clock as opposed to 10 o’clock in the Mediterranean. She really was living a totally different lifestyle than what she was used to.”

Diana was already planning for several upcoming events that fall with scheduled fittings for evening dresses she would never have the opportunity to wear in public.

“Her style had changed,” Valentino told WWD just after her death. The designer was working with Diana at the time on a “pale green dress” for an AIDS event with the Red Cross that was scheduled for September. “She was more aware of herself as a woman — and she was a beautiful woman with a beautiful body. She had escaped the rules of the princess and the clothes a princess was supposed to wear and wanted clothes that were right for the new woman she had become.”

Giorgio Armani had also been working with the princess on a gown for an upcoming engagement, noting her streamlined, pared-down approach to dress that was reflective of the changes in her life. “She seemed to have found that style of her own, strictly controlling any temptation to overdo things, and favoring clean, modern lines that set off her great face and figure in a very up-to-date way.”

The designer added, “That’s what I was trying to emphasize with the dress I just did for her. It’s worth noting that she chose the design herself, the simplest one in the group of sketches I sent her.”

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• Entertainment

How One Photo Immortalized Princess Diana’s Loneliness

O f the many photos of Diana, Princess of Wales , one image has become iconic for capturing the unnerving loneliness she experienced during her life. The photo shows Diana in a candid moment alone, sitting on the end of a diving board.

It's a picture that helped define the essence of the People's Princess—a glamorous outsider, the patron saint of isolation, a public figure who struggled to protect her personal life. It should come as no surprise that when Netflix announced Season 6 of The Crown , the first installment of which debuted on Nov. 16, the streamer shared the news by recreating the famed image of the princess, reimagining it with actor Elizabeth Debicki: Her back is to the camera, her chin protectively tucked into her shoulder in Diana's signature habit, her loneliness in full view even as so much as her is obscured.

Read more: 25 Years After Princess Diana's Death, She's Still Shaping the Royal Family

The Crown is hardly the first to pay homage to the photo—from the promotional poster for the 2013 Naomi Watts-fronted film Diana to the invitation to the Off-White Spring/Summer 2018 fashion show , which was inspired by Princess Diana, the diving board photo has been reproduced, reappropriated, and referenced, looming large in the collective imagination, a tangible visual for the melancholy of Diana's life. Most recently, the musical artist SZA recreated the photo for the album artwork for her album, SOS , a decision she said she was drawn to because of "isolated" the princess appeared.

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"Originally I was supposed to be on top of a shipping barge, but in the references that I pulled for that, I pulled the Diana reference,” SZA said in an interview with Hot 97 . “Because I just loved how isolated she felt, and that was what I wanted to convey the most.”

SZA confirms theory that Princess Diana inspired her ‘SOS’ album cover. pic.twitter.com/61biLn7JXm — Pop Base (@PopBase) December 7, 2022

The image would be striking for its composition alone. Diana, clad in a turquoise one-piece bathing suit, perches, almost precariously, on the edge of the diving board of Mohamed al-Fayed 's private yacht, with seemingly nothing but sea surrounding her. That the photo is a long shot taken by a paparazzo, six days ahead of her death, in the throes of a media maelstrom that had erupted after tabloid pictures were published of her kissing al-Fayed's son, Dodi, reads in retrospect like ominous foreshadowing.

Read more : How Princess Diana Changed Lives by Discussing Her Mental Health

And while there's no shortage of photos that illustrate how alone the princess often felt in royal life— her awkward Balmoral engagement photo with an aloof Charles , the shot of her wearing her black sheep sweater to a polo match , the infamous picture of her solo visit to the Taj Mahal —the image of Diana sitting solo on the diving board has become one of the most iconic images because it highlights the bittersweet isolation of Diana's life—a woman who could never be alone, but was no stranger to being lonely.

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Write to Cady Lang at [email protected]

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This Old Photo of Princess Diana Is Going Viral—and the Reason Is Particularly Poignant

It's sort of staggering to realize we're approaching the 25th anniversary of Princess Diana's death on August 31, 1997. That may be the reason it caught us off guard when our social media feeds were suddenly populated with a striking—and poignant—image of Diana, snapped exactly one week before she passed away, following a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris.

The image shows Diana, sitting on a diving board attached to the edge of Mohamed Al Fayed's private yacht called the 'Jonikal' while on vacation with her new beau, Dodi Al Fayed, in the South of France.

Her feet are dangling over the edge as a lone seagull swoops overhead—the only sign of life around the Princess of Wales as she sits solo, taking in the view.

For royal watchers, many compared the image to another iconic shot where Diana was pictured looking contemplative and seated alone. In 1992, mere months before she and Prince Charles were to formally announce their separation, the pair traveled to India on a royal tour. But while Charles was away at another meeting, Diana appeared in front of the Taj Mahal—an eternal monument of a husband's love—all by herself.

Back to the Jonikal: What stands out about that shot, beyond the context of what was to come in a week's time, is Diana's serenity. She appears to have a look of inner calm. In those final days, had Diana, a woman tortured by the tabloids and pictured here in a rare moment of solitude—ironically, caught by a camera—found her bliss?

A picture is worth a thousand words, of course, and we'll never know what Diana was thinking out there on the diving board. What we do know is that she was fresh off a visit from her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, and approaching the one-year anniversary of her divorce from Prince Charles.

But that's what makes one of the final photos of the Princess of Wales so breathtaking and, ultimately, haunting. A brand-new future was before her and we—the royal voyeurs—can't help but feel contemplative as we stare at this shot. "What could have been?," we will forever wonder.

For more about the royals,  listen to the Royally Obsessed podcast  with co-hosts Rachel Bowie and Roberta Fiorito. Subscribe now or follow us on Instagram  @royallyobsessedpodcast .

The Trailer for HBO's "The Princess," a Doc About Princess Diana's Public Life, Just Dropped (& It's Giving Us Chills)

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Luxury Yacht Used By Princess Diana In 1997 To Go Up For Sale

The 63 metre superyacht is now about to go up for sale again.

Image Credit: Getty Images

The luxury yacht that Princess Diana spent her final holiday in 1997 on is about to go up for sale. At the time Diana holidayed in St Tropez on it, the superyacht was named  Jonikal . It has since been bought and sold a few times and is currently known as  Bash . Its most recent owner bought it in June last year, but now reportedly wants to upgrade to a bigger boat.

The yacht was owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed, who tried to sell the superyacht various times after his son Dodi (Diana’s partner at the time) and the Princess of Wales were killed in a car accident in Paris in 1997.

Al-Fayed, who used to own Fulham FC and Harrods, eventually sold the 63-metre vessel in 2014. It has changed hands a couple of times since then, going by such names as Sokar and Bash .

The yacht was most recently owned by a rich businessman called Bassim Haidar, who purchased the superyacht last year and now reportedly wants to trade it in for a bigger vessel.

House & Garden UK reports that the boat is currently being refitted “with plans to launch it for sale next month.” The luxury yacht was designed by navel architect Vincenzo Ruggiero in the 1980s, and was first launched in 1990. It reportedly has nine staterooms capable of accommodating up to 18 guests and 26 crew.

The yacht also has a jacuzzi, a swim platform, a sun deck, a formal dining room, a bar, and office space. Though there is no official asking price yet for this September’s imminent sale, it was previously listed for $10,000,000 (and it last sold for around $14 million).

RELATED: What It Costs To Moor A Superyacht At The Monaco Grand Prix

The yacht will be listed for sale through  Seawood Yachts  next month, with director John Wood telling House & Garden : “She is in the yard being refitted, and will be launched for sale in September.”

Princess Diana holidayed on the yacht in July 1997 in St Tropez, cruising in the Mediterranean for about four weeks. It was during this time the iconic shot of her sitting on a diving board was taken. Prince William and Prince Harry joined Princess Diana for part of the trip – before she continued on to Paris with her partner at the time Dodi Al-Fayed.

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Elizabeth Debicki Recreates Princess Diana's 1997 French Riviera Trip for 'The Crown'

The series continues to film season 6 as it prepares to return to Netflix with season 5.

As filming continues on season 6 of The Crown , Elizabeth Debicki was spotted in costume as Diana on her 1997 summer trip to the French Riviera. The Australian actress was even seen wearing an animal print swimsuit nearly identical to the one worn by the late princess . 

The now famous leopard-print swimsuit by Jantzen was originally worn by Diana when she went on a summer boat trip with Dodi al-Fayed. The two were photographed off the coast of Saint-Tropez, France, in July 1997 just one month before both were killed in a tragic car accident in Paris. 

Debicki's latest twinning look should not be confused with another water-filled holiday that saw Diana wearing another, similar animal print swimsuit. That suit, which came complete with a matching sarong, was likely made by Gottex, which was a brand available at the popular luxury department store, Harrods, at the time. 

That trip, which is featured in season 5, saw Diana on holiday with her kids, Princes William and Harry, and other members of her family as they visited Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands in April 1990. 

The looks, however, are just two of many that Debicki and the series have recreated as The Crown moves into the '90s era of the royal family and focuses on the fallout surrounding Diana's marriage and subsequent divorce from Prince Charles. 

"That's the amazing thing about playing these people at this time, because in the journey of The Crown so far out of all the seasons, this is the most visual content we have of the royal family," Debicki said of portraying Diana in the upcoming episodes. "In the ‘90s, everything had started to be filmed and also it was the birth of the 24-hour news cycle so there's just this incredible amount of content that we have access to."

She added, "Diana was the most photographed person in the world at that time. As an actor, you open the portal and this huge tsunami of information comes at you. I happily swam around in it."

In addition to Debicki as Diana, season 5, which premieres on Nov. 9, also stars Dominic West as Charles and Khalid Abdalla as Dodi. 

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Princess Diana Once Vacationed on This 209-Foot Superyacht. Now It’s Available for Charter.

The revamped 209-footer will set you back roughly $278,000 a week., rachel cormack.

Digital Editor

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A palatial superyacht that hosted Princess Diana in the ‘90s is ready to welcome the next generation of blue bloods.

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The revamp was managed by marine engineering and management company Capax . In addition to a new bridge, Bash received fresh wiring, plumbing, and bulkheads. The team also fitted a new air-conditioning system and an integrated AV/IT system.

Bash’s layout and decor were updated by Bobic Yacht Interiors . The Slovenian designers reportedly created “a luxurious and elegant feel” throughout the living quarters. The yacht can sleep up to 12 guests across six sophisticated staterooms, including a main deck owner’s suite with a walk-in wardrobe, a private lounge, and an office.

Other interior highlights include a beauty salon and massage area, a high-tech gym, and a spacious main salon. Outside, meanwhile, there are multiple alfresco areas for soirees with members of the upper crust and a Jacuzzi for soaking at sea.

“Getting to this point took a lot of hard work and required a lot of skill, but it was worth the effort,” Capax CEO Teo Petricevic said in a statement .

Bash is available for charter in the Mediterranean starting at $278,000 (€260,000) per week, plus expenses.

Click here to see all the photos of Bash.

Rachel Cormack is a digital editor at Robb Report. She cut her teeth writing for HuffPost, Concrete Playground, and several other online publications in Australia, before moving to New York at the…

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• Cruises/Yacht Charter
• Mediterranean
• Princess Diana

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