Things That Make Me Go Hmmm: Princess Diana In Drag

Things That Make Me Go Hmmm: Princess Diana In Drag

Yer boy Hank here is going to make an admission, that as an older gay gent, there are things that pop up in my news or entertainment feeds that make me roll my eyes and go "Hmmm." Sure they're coming down the rainbow road and should speak to the queer and fabulous in me. But sometimes I don't feel so queer and fabulous about everything everyone else seems to feel queer and fabulous about. Sometimes I just think, "Really? This is what we're talking about? Sure, just for about five minutes, but that's five minutes I coulda been reading Virginia Woolf, or watching porn." So this is the first installment of an opinion? editorial? mass of spiky feelings? series I may or may not be continuing, in which I see something in the gay news and "wonder aloud" why it's something we're talking about.

Think of this as me just voicing my grumpy old Bear side, yucking others' yums, but hopefully with a bit of love and sass. Picture a Bear shaking his fist at the clouds, if that helps, and telling the cubs to "Stay off my lawn!"

So, The Advocate just reported on an ages old rumor, or legend, or tall tale, depending on how you take it, that Princess Diana at least once got done up into male drag to go out on the town with Queen frontman Freddy Mercury, along with TV and radio host Kenny Everett, who was gay. Apparently, this is a story that's gone around for decades, but is resurfacing now due to the recent publication of a new Diana biography, Dianaworld: An Obsession by Edward White.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by CrimeIsMyBag (@crimeismybag)

In the book, published April 29th, White writes of Diana's possible sojourns:

In Diana’s mythology, furtive nocturnal activity plays an important role as moments when she secretly revealed hidden aspects of her true self. And nighttime offered the possibility of reinvention and anonymous adventure; the best-known example being the alleged occasion when Diana took a trip to one of London’s most famous gay bars.

So the story, apparently, is that Diana and friends were out and about on the town in the late 1980s when she asked to be taken to a gay bar. It should be noted that in White's book, this story is culled from the memoir of actress Cleo Rocos. Thi sis White's interpretation of Rocos's account of that night:

At some point in the evening, Rocos claims, Diana persuaded them to take her to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, a place that Everett warned was ‘not for you ... full of hairy gay men. Diana was insistent, however, so Everett helped her disguise herself in male drag: ‘a camouflage army jacket, hair tucked up into a leather cap and dark aviator sunglasses. Scrutinizing her in the half-light we decided that the most famous icon of the modern world might just ... JUST, pass for a rather eccentrically dressed gay male model.’

Okay, so here's what makes me go "Hmmm." Do we really need yet another Diana biography? A quick "Diana search" on any bookseller's website will give you dozens and dozens of tomes to choose from, from her personal to her political lives, from her fashion to her charity work, from her highlights to her tragic end. What could this new book possibly hope to add to her myth, her mystique, and her truths?

Even White himself says, “The story sounds far-fetched." He goes on to explain why propelling this possible pop-culture legend has its merits: "Irrespective of its veracity, the story of Diana in drag at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern has been taken up as an illustration of her connection with the gay community and a metaphor for her own search for a family in which she felt truly accepted."

Yeah, I'm not buying it. It's more like this is just another tired and well-trodden road we've been down before, where we try to affix an icon with some sort of queer status connection. Yes, Diana was a friend of the LGBTQ+ community, that is certainly without a doubt. But do we have to grasp at rumors and hearsay to give that fact strength? If this story about Diana and Freddy is actually true, then I think "Great! She found ways to go out and let her hair down and have a laugh!" But looking up this story elsewhere finds the over-use of the word "allegedly" to describe the event more often than Diana's own name. So White's storytelling, telling someone else's story as a matter of fact, requires more veritas for this reader to be moved.

Hmmmm...

Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected]
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.