Princess Diana and the King of Pop formed a close bond in the late 1980s and the singer was reportedly keen to meet her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. Global superstar Michael Jackson was constantly in the public eye during the height of his fame, with photographers following his every move.
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Princess Diana, who had been thrust into the international spotlight almost overnight while dating the-then Prince Charles, was one of the few individuals who could empathise with the pressure the platinum-selling artist was experiencing. According to Matt Fiddes, Jackson’s former bodyguard, the two shared a deep connection. Speaking to podcaster James English, he revealed: “He used to talk about Diana a lot – he said that she was his ideal wife. They spent hours on the phone… she used to ring all the time and he used to ring her all the time.”
Such was the pair’s bond, that Diana’s children Prince Harry and Prince William wanted to meet the singer. But Matt claims Charles put a stop to a potential 2002 visit in London. “Prince Harry and Prince William wanted to meet Michael,” Fiddes recalled. “Obviously they knew their mum was friends with Michael Jackson she used to go to the Wembley concerts during the ‘Bad’ era and so on.” “We set it up, for Michael to meet them, but King Charles… we were told he had put a stop to it.”
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The rendezvous was scheduled to occur at the House of Lords. However, at the eleventh hour, the senior peer who had arranged the meeting informed Jackson’s team that the Prince of Wales had concerns about potential controversy surrounding the young princes meeting the star. Matt revealed: “We had a very official letter come through saying ‘Prince William and Prince Harry will not be meeting Michael Jackson’. That was hard, because we had to deliver the news to him and that’s kind of why he came to London.”
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He alleged that Jackson had been promised an honorary knighthood by “certain people in the government, and near the Royal Family,” and had hoped that meeting the royals in the House of Lords might secure it. Jackson’s disappointment came just before Martin Bashir’s Living with Michael Jackson documentary was released a film that Matt insists was “a stitch-up” and severely damaged the singer’s reputation.
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However, some Royal insiders were not deterred by the allegations made in the documentary. Prince Harry, for instance, remained a staunch Jackson fan. Matt shared: “I met him at Cheltenham racecourse. He said ‘You’ve got to introduce me to Michael, I want to find out a bit more about my mum’.”
Regrettably, both Jackson and Diana passed away prematurely, with the singer dying from an overdose of painkillers on June 25, 2009 exactly 15 years ago today.
