Former Palace Press Secretary Reveals What Happened When Princess Diana Didn’t Get “Her Way”

Dickie Arbiter met Lady Diana Spencer three days before she married Prince Charles in 1981.

The Gist

• Dickie Arbiter was a former Buckingham Palace press secretary who worked with Princess Diana “very closely” for about five years.
• While the Princess of Wales was “engaging” and “fun to be with,” Arbiter also wrote in his book On Duty with the Queen that Diana had a habit of giving people the silent treatment when she didn’t get “her way.”
• Eventually, he wrote, he learned “not to take the freezes personally.”

During her far-too-short life, Princess Diana’s hallmarks included empathy, compassion, and relatability. But, according to former Buckingham Palace press secretary Dickie Arbiter, like all of us, the Princess of Wales was “complicated,” and he described what happened to staff when the royal didn’t get “her way.”

In Arbiter’s memoir On Duty with the Queen (and via Marie Claire), Arbiter wrote that Diana didn’t like it when her vision didn’t come to pass: “I had had a chance to get to know her, and in doing so began to understand the kind of person she was,” Arbiter wrote. “In a word, she was complicated.”

Arbiter added that “she was fine” when “things were going her way,” but wrote that Diana employed the silent treatment if something happened that she wasn’t a fan of. “If anything out of the ordinary occurred—anything that conflicted with what she wanted to do, and in her way—then you were frozen out and left to stew until she decided to invite you back into the fold,” he continued.

Those “freezes” might “last days or even weeks, and no one was immune,” Arbiter wrote. Arbiter himself was once frozen out after suggesting that holding a reception for England’s football team wasn’t a good idea since they had recently lost. Diana wanted to hold the event anyway, and after telling the Princess of Wales that it wouldn’t work, Arbiter wrote he “didn’t hear from Diana again for the next two weeks.”

Eventually, he wrote, he learned “not to take the freezes personally.”

Diana was ultimately “engaging” and “fun to be with,” in his words; “a true professional—warm, approachable, and incredibly charismatic.” Of charming the public, “It was as if she’d been doing it all her life,” he added.

Arbiter first met Diana three days before she married Prince Charles on July 29, 1981; he called Diana a “brilliant parent” and an appreciative boss, per Hello!.

“I worked with Diana for about five years very closely,” Arbiter said. “I first met her over a cup of tea with her and the Prince of Wales three days before the wedding, so I pretty much knew her.”

Calling the late royal “good at her job,” Arbiter added, “Diana’s legacy is [Prince] William and [Prince Harry]. That’s it—they’re carrying on her work.”

Charles and Diana’s sons “got the best of both worlds—the high street from Diana and they got the countryside and environment from their dad,” Arbiter said. “So they’re well-rounded, well capable of doing what is required of them, and they are her legacy—they’re carrying on her work.”