US OPEN

August 31, 1997

Virginia Wade

Q. Virginia, could you talk a little bit about Diana's connection to tennis and Wimbledon?

VIRGINIA WADE: I mean, you know, she was like -- she came to Wimbledon every year, and it was like she was the life and light of the Royal Box. I mean, you know, once Diana was coming, everybody got excited and they were pleased to be there the day she was there. That's sort of how everybody rated her. I know the first time I met her in the Royal Box, we had one of these parades like we had at the beginning of this tournament. I think it was the 100th year that the ladies had played at Wimbledon. So I was paraded out as a winner. So I had, you know, quite a lot of time. She'd always talk to you just like, I mean, like you were her best friend. This is the first time, she said, "Weren't you self-conscious walking out with everybody watching you and all the rest of it?" I said, "No, that was a kick for me." But obviously what I read into it was that she was so shy, I guess she as much as said so. That she would just find it intimidating to be in a situation like that. From then on I had a real sense of her modesty and the self-consciousness that she had, self-effacing a bit, the fact that she genuinely was shy. I know some people would say she didn't look it. She did sort of look at you -- she was tall, and I think that made her a little self-conscious. She looked at you a little under her eyes. I think that was part of her shyness. I remember one time I was with a friend, walking down Sloane Street and window shopping. I guess it was just after Wimbledon sometime. I'm looking in the shoe shop, there's Diana trying on shoes. She seems to be on her own, though there was a security person walking around in front of the store. I said, "I'll go and have a look." She leaps out of her seat and says, "Hello, Virginia, how are you? " Hello to the friend. It's like, "Sit down." She was so respectful to people, whoever you were. Then I suppose the time I really spent most time with her, I mean, I met her plenty of times, was when they had the Fed Cup in Nottingham. They had a big opening ceremony. So I was sort of asked to be in a position where I would be looking after her for the day. I mean, she was so good. She talked to everybody. She talked to anybody at whatever level, as I said, very compassionate. She would talk about -- I mean, she talked about -- we were comparing the difficulties of some of the famous tennis players in the limelight, how the royalty had that sort of glare all the time. She was very honest. I mean, you know, you could tell that she registered it, she knew she had to deal with it. I mean, she was just a very, very real person who I think related awfully well. Made whoever she was speaking to feel as if they were the most important person at that moment.

VIRGINIA WADE: She played at Harbour Club. I know that Steffi played with her. It was one of the things that I sort of looked forward to doing at some stage, because I knew somebody very well who played with her, was a good friend, played with her on a regular basis. We were always going to set it up. You know, it was always one of those things that I was looking forward to doing. I guess the Harbour Club was where she had all those pictures taken of her working out when she wasn't expecting to be put on camera. I mean, she was really -- I mean, to my mind, she was just such a fantasy person as far as a princess was concerned. If you could dream up how you'd like a princess to be, it would be Diana. Yet, you know, she was compassionate and she was also very vulnerable. I think all of those things just made her that extra bit special, that extraordinary blend. I guess, she was really the most famous person in the world, woman, most famous woman in the world.

VIRGINIA WADE: I came in from dinner last night. I thought the doorman was -- a doorman told me. I was watching the match. I really wanted to watch the end of the match with Novotna and Lucic. I went out. I thought, "I'm going to go and watch that." The doorman said, "Have you heard?" I thought he was joking. I thought it was a sick joke. I mean, of course, then tennis went down. I went and watched television for the next few hours last night. I think it was NBC who had Sky from London on for hours, which was quite interesting. I mean, it just shouldn't have happened. Obviously she had to deal with paparazzi all the time, but they weren't pointing a gun at her. Obviously, somebody of the two of them, she or Dodi, lost their cool, popped their cork. I mean, I can't imagine that she would have put herself in such a life-threatening situation. I mean, the poor driver. He wasn't like a police driver. I guess if she'd been driving, she's a fast driver, she might have known what she was doing. But I suppose if there was tension and anger and somebody snapped, I guess that's what happened. I mean, I spoke to people in England today. They basically only heard the news this morning. The first thing they heard last night was maybe she had been injured. The first thing this morning was pretty gruesome. I mean, everybody was stunned, absolutely devastated.

VIRGINIA WADE: Well, I think at that stage, I think Steffi was playing. I think Steffi Graf was probably one of the people in the field whose private life had been totally spied on, if not spied on from invisible cameras, spied on from helicopters. I mean, they were taking helicopter pictures of her in her backyard in Florida. I mean, listen, being English and having been brought up as a big hope in England, there was always the English press who gave us a lot of attention. So although tennis wasn't nearly as huge in those days as it is now, I know from when I was 17 that I was always a headline. It wasn't a good headline probably, or it was a cryptic headline in the tabloid press. You know, that's small, small mini time compared with anybody today. Even if you think Tim Henman has a large amount of it, you multiply that infinitely and you see what Princess Di has every time she's surrounded by them. There have to be times, although she's used to it, she would just lose it every now and then.

VIRGINIA WADE: I had enough to know what it would be like in earnest. I mean, understood, people didn't really bother me to the extent that I'd be in a restaurant and I'd be hiding. But if I was somebody as big as Jimmy Connors or Boris Becker, Steffi, all that, I could see if you were inclined to be a little paranoid, you would just absolutely turn into your own shell to try to escape from it. But I suppose maybe we'll find out a little bit more. They weren't going to kill her last night. Somebody could have had some reason in the car and said -- I mean, anybody driving at 100 miles an hour is putting themselves into a life-threatening situation. I mean, frankly, I think what happens, because I can think of so many high-speed car crashes that have been fatal with important people in the past, near past. I mean, it just seems to me that every scene television and screen, so many high-speed car chases, and it's always the bad guy who loses (sic). It's not like that.

VIRGINIA WADE: I think so. You know, if you looked up at the Royal Box, she always looked as if she was having a good time. She felt at ease talking to the players when they were introduced, that sort of stuff. She looked interested. I mean, a lot of people who sat up there looked as if they were there because they needed to be there.

VIRGINIA WADE: I was trying to remember, because she was really -- she had a couple of people that she really wanted to meet. I haven't been able to get -- I guess I just lost a bit of that in my mind today. I sure wouldn't have wanted to play a tennis match today after that happening. If it had happened at Wimbledon, I think they would have had to cancel the day of tennis.

VIRGINIA WADE: I probably talked to her not this year at Wimbledon, for sure, but probably a year ago, two years ago. I mean, I certainly, if I saw her somewhere, I would be in a position to go and talk to her. She didn't close herself off at all.

VIRGINIA WADE: You mean this?

VIRGINIA WADE: What they had to do, was they had to keep it quiet. I mean, I was on the committee for ages. You had to keep it quiet which day she was coming. I mean, just so that -- I guess she was the biggest attention grabber. But when you say, "Was it a loss for Wimbledon?" I mean that's the other side of it. I mean, every charity, whoever has been able to get Diana, whether it's in England or it's here, Australia, wherever, I mean, who are they going to replace her with? I think everybody's lost a lot.

VIRGINIA WADE: I mean, I think the thing that is worse is when people are lining up outside when you come out in the morning or when you go in at night, if they know where you go to eat or something. I mean, I think it's -- I think the people who are the professional paparazzi, I think that's where the danger is. Also the newspapers that pay them. I mean, the French guy who got the first picture of them on the boat got paid, what, $500 million. I mean, those are scary prices. It's worth breaking their necks for that. It's worth their being on a motorbike, risking their own lives, because the reward for them is so great.

VIRGINIA WADE: I had a sense when I talked to her about things like that, and this is going back maybe four or five years, so a lot has happened since. But this is probably the most intimately I've talked to her about those things. I had a sense that she understood them, and that it was a huge problem to solve, but she was aware of it. Wasn't as if she was living in a bubble. I think she was very aware of it. I think she was trying to be a real person in the midst of that. I haven't had the opportunity to speak -- I think I wouldn't have talked to her about it. I know if you talked to any of the other Royals about that sort of thing more recently, they would just be -- there would be smoke coming out of their ears if they were talking about how everything was misinterpreted. That they were just being absolutely incensed. I think she tried to handle it. I think she probably -- I think she's a bit more vulnerable than the others, and she probably trusted people. She tried to solve it in a real way. I don't know. Apparently my sister said that the brother - I know that Charles went with the two other - I think there might be another one, but there's a brother in South Africa, and he was apparently on the radio saying that, you know, the press, the paparazzi was going to do her in in the end.

VIRGINIA WADE: For me?

VIRGINIA WADE: I mean, I'm just such a mini star. It's been a magnificent experience for me. It's been wonderful. But I'm not sure that I'd like to be president of the United States or Princess Diana. I don't think I would. I mean, I value some privacy. I just think it's tragic that they can't walk anywhere. I mean, we were just saying, there was Diana at Gianni Versace's funeral just the other day. For me, it's been wonderful because I've just been small enough. I mean, obviously at one stage I was a little bigger than I am now. You know, I think I always valued my private life. I think that people sense that. If you make it obvious that you value your private life and you don't lie to people, I think they respond in kind. I think if you try to get secretive and smart, play smart-alec, they get sort of incensed and try to get to the root of it. I think if you are clear that you value your privacy, I think in general they respect it.

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