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Princess Diana in Hong Kong circa 1989; Freddie Mercury performs at the Knebworth Festival in 1986.
The story is featured in the biography Dianaworld: An Obsession by Edward White.
Princess Diana once donned male drag to accompany Freddie Mercury to a famed gay bar in London, says a new biography of the princess.
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Versions of the story have circulated previously, but it’s getting renewed attention now with the release of Dianaworld: An Obsession by Edward White. The book came out Tuesday, and People has published an exclusive excerpt.
“In Diana’s mythology, furtive nocturnal activity plays an important role as moments when she secretly revealed hidden aspects of her true self,” White writes in the portion excerpted. He continues, “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.”
White cites the memoirs of actress Cleo Rocos, who wrote about a night out in the late 1980s with Diana, the bisexual Queen front man, and gay radio and TV host Kenny Everett. “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,’” White’s book says. “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.’” No one recognized Diana, and the group had one drink and moved on, according to Rocos.
“The story sounds far-fetched,” White acknowledges, but he notes that there are other stories of Diana disguising herself to enjoy nightclub visits in anonymity. “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,” he writes.
The tale of the princess’s visit to the Royal Vauxhall was also told in Desmond O’Connor’s play Royal Vauxhall, which was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2016 and toured the U.K. the following year, the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death. “This show is surprisingly moving as it explores the lives of this trio after their escape to the RVT,” a critic wrote atThe Reviews Hubin 2017. Mercury and Everett both died of AIDS complications, in 1991 and 1995, respectively and Diana in the notorious car crash in Paris in 1997.
