Princess Diana reportedly had one regret after her wedding in 1981: She didn’t like her hairstyle. In a new book, It’s All About the Hair — My Decade With Diana, Princess Diana’s former hairdresser Richard Dalton shares some of his favorite memories of Diana. Although Richard was styling Diana’s hair prior to her wedding, he didn’t style it on her wedding day. Instead, his colleague, Kevin Shanley, did. But Richard says that Diana was not a big fan of the way her hair looked.
In his book, Richard called Diana’s wedding day hairstyle “a disaster” and claimed that Princess Diana agreed, per People.
Diana reportedly spoke to Richard about how much she disliked the hairstyle. “Diana did express to me that she wished she could do the wedding over again to ‘get the hair right,'” Richard told People.
During her life in the public eye, Princess Diana became a fashion icon https://t.co/7vHNu7QpDc #Diana20 pic.twitter.com/XDC9raEBNg
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Princess Diana's life was shaped by the media and the pressures of being part of the royal family https://t.co/7vHNu7QpDc #Diana20 pic.twitter.com/FKMlRr5lcj
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While she had some regrets related to her hair, she reportedly did not talk about any other regrets while getting her hair done. “She never mentioned any other regrets while I did her hair,” Richard told the outlet.
Although Richard worked as Diana’s hairdresser for a long time, he refrained from sharing information about Diana publicly for many years because he wanted to “protect her,” he told the outlet.
He decided to write his book alongside his friend Renae Plant, curator of The Princess Diana Museum. “I am 76 years old, [the] same age as [King] Charles, and I wanted to document my real story,” he told People. “[It’s] not a hairdresser’s job to kiss and tell. Now I feel comfortable — 27 years have passed, and nothing in my book is detrimental to Diana’s character. Just wonderful memories.”
One of the “wonderful memories” involved seeing Diana become a mother. He has fond memories of cutting Prince William’s and Prince Harry’s hair when they were children (he was also responsible for their first haircuts).
“She absolutely loved and adored her boys, and she also craved affection. Her boys gave her that,” Richard wrote in the book, per People.
He recalled cutting William and Harry’s hair “up until they were 10 and 7.”
“They were so sweet, the boys,” Richard recalled, per People. He remembers how William “would get terribly excited” each time he saw him.
“He’d run and get the little white chair and would put it on top of the square coffee table. They would sit in the chair and watch television while I cut their hair,” Richard explained.
As her hairdresser, Richard was there to witness some of the lower points in Diana’s life as well. In the book, he described seeing Diana at her best and at her worst.
“Some days she would be happy, some days quiet, some days talkative and some days sad,” he wrote. “I experienced all of these with Diana.”