After her divorce, officially, she was called Diana, Princess of Wales.

Diana was often called Princess Diana by the media and the public, but she did not possess such a title and was not personally a princess, a point Diana herself made to people who referred to her as such. Contrary to belief, being Princess of Wales does not make one a princess in one’s own right. It merely indicates that one was married to a Prince of Wales.

An iconic presence on the world stage, Diana, Princess of Wales was noted for her pioneering charity work. Yet her philanthropic endeavours were sometimes overshadowed by her difficult marriage to Prince Charles. In the 1990s she made many public revelations about the difficult marriage – her affairs and Prince Charles’ affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles.

From the time of her engagement to the Prince of Wales in 1981 until her death in a car accident in 1997, the Princess was arguably the most famous woman in the world, the pre-eminent female celebrity of her generation: a fashion icon, an image of feminine beauty, admired and emulated for her high-profile involvement in AIDS issues, and the international campaign against landmines. During her lifetime, she was often referred to as the most photographed person in the world.

Early years of Princess Diana

Diana Frances Spencer was born as the youngest daughter of Edward Spencer, Viscount Althorp, and his first wife, Frances Spencer, at Park House on the Sandringham estate. On the death of her paternal grandfather, Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, in 1975, Diana’s father became the 8th Earl Spencer, and she acquired the courtesy title of The Lady Diana Spencer and moved from her childhood home at Park House to her family’s sixteenth-century ancestral home of Althorp. A year later, Lord Spencer married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of the romance novelist Barbara Cartland, after being named as the “other party” in the Earl and Countess of Dartmouth’s divorce.

Diana was educated at Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk and at West Heath Girls’ School (later reorganized as the New School at West Heath, a special school for boys and girls) in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she was regarded as an academically below-average student, having failed all of her O-level examinations. In 1977, aged 16, she left West Heath and briefly attended Institut Alpin Videmanette, a finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland (Diana’s future husband was also dating her sister, Lady Sarah at that time). Diana was a talented amateur singer, excelled in sports and reportedly longed to be a ballerina.

Diana’s family, the Spencers, had been close to the British Royal Family for decades. Her maternal grandmother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy, was a longtime friend of, and a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

The Prince’s love life had always been the subject of press speculation, and he was linked to numerous women. Nearing his mid-thirties, he was under increasing pressure to marry. In order to gain the approval of his family and their advisors, including his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten of Burma, any potential bride had to have an aristocratic background, could not have been previously married, should be Protestant and, preferably, a virgin. Diana fulfilled all of these qualifications.

Reportedly, the Prince’s former girlfriend (and, eventually, his second wife) Camilla Parker Bowles helped him select the 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer as a potential bride, who was working as an assistant at the Young England kindergarten in Pimlico. It was at this kindergarten school that the famous iconic snap of a 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer was taken by John Minihan with the morning sun to her back, her legs in silhouette through her skirt.

Buckingham Palace announced the engagement on 24 February 1981. Mrs Parker Bowles had been dismissed by Lord Mountbatten of Burma as a potential spouse for the heir to throne some years before, reportedly due to her age (16 months the Prince’s senior), her sexual experience, and her lack of suitably aristocratic lineage.

Princess Diana’s net worth?

So…what was Princess Diana’s net worth at the time of her death? Princess Diana’s net worth was $25 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. The New York Times reported in 1996 that Princess Diana received $22.5 million in cash after she and Prince Charles divorced in August 1996 after five years of marriage. The number is less than a third of the $75 million she asked for in their divorce. The newspaper also reported that Diana’s divorce settlement included $600,000 per to maintain her office.

Before her divorce, Diana’s money would come from her marriage. As the Duke of Cornwall, Charles’ income comes from the Duchy of Cornwall, a trust that was founded by Edward III in the 14th century to keep his first-born son—Edward, the Black Prince—occupied as he waited to become king, according to Forbes. The magazine reports that the duchy, which is worth almost $1.3 billion, has a staff of 150 people, who manage more than 130,000 acres of property across southwest England. Charles also can’t sell assets belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall, however, he can earn money from them. Forbes reports that the Duchy brought in $50 million in 2020 by renting out property to retailers, farmers and residents—$30 of which went to Prince Charles and his descendants.

Charles also receives money from the Sovereign Grant, a.k.a. the Crown Estate, which brought in $700 million in 2019 and more than $475 million in profits, according to Forbes. The British royal family receives 25 percent of the Sovereign Grant, which came out to around $120 million to the royals in 2020, according to Forbes. That money is used for official expenses, such as payroll, security, travel, housekeeping, maintenance costs and IT expenses. Forbes reports that the Sovereign Grant paid Charles less than $2.5 million in 2020.