We all know that Princess Diana quite enjoyed dabbling in a bit of rule breaking from time to time, whether in private or on a big, public stage. So it really isn't too surprising to learn that she also enjoyed partnering up with another acclaimed rule breaker: Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury.
The story goes a little like this: Princess Diana and Freddie were good friends in the 1980s. In fact, they were such good friends that they would get up to "mischief" together, like drinking champagne and rewriting episodes of The Golden Girls, adding their own more flavorful dialogue. One afternoon, Diana was spending time with Freddie, actress Cleo Rocos, and comedian Kenny Everett when she learned that the three planned to visit one of the most well-known gay clubs at the time, Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
Diana desperately wanted to join her friends, but she was also world-famous and married to the heir of the throne. Her friends were worried about how the story would play if it came out in the press, but Freddie stepped in.
He was the one credited with finally convincing the other two that it would be OK if Diana came by saying, "Go on, let the girl have some fun." So with a great sense of excitement and mischief, the group dressed Princess Diana up in men's clothing until they were sure that she would "pass for a rather eccentrically dressed gay male model."
Cleo wrote, "She did look like a beautiful young man." The foursome set out to visit the bar, with Cleo writing that they "inched through the leather throngs and thongs" so that Diana could order drinks (a glass of white wine and a few beers), and everyone waited to see if anyone would recognize her.
They were totally successful. "We were nudging each other like naughty schoolchildren. Diana and Freddie were giggling … Once the transaction was completed, we looked at one another, united in our triumphant quest. We did it!"
Not wanting to push their luck, the group stayed for only 20 minutes, but that was plenty of time to have fun.
Princess Diana liked to have fun with a lot of her friends, and there are numerous stories out there about the rules she enjoyed breaking. She famously asked her supermodel friends Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, and Claudia Schiffer to surprise William on his 13th birthday, much to his delight and embarrassment.
In a later interview, Prince William recalled the moment vividly. He said, "I was probably a 12 or 13-year-old boy who had posters of them on my wall. And I went bright red and didn't quite know what to say and sort of fumbled, and I think I pretty much fell down the stairs on the way up."
He also described the moment as "a very funny memory that's lived with me forever."
Princess Diana's former head chef, Darren McGrady, seconded the idea that Diana loved to play a good joke on someone. "The Princess loved embarrassing people in the nicest way, in a fun way, whether it was telling a dirty, risqué joke – which usually got me."
Princess Diana was also friends with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, who invited her out to their home. She ended up visiting and even brought William and Harry with her. Kurt said, "I met her with Prince Charles, it was a screening of Backdraft, a movie. They were doing a royal – a royal thing. I was in between the two, kind of interesting at the time! They weren't getting along great."
"During the evening we talked about the paparazzi and the difficulty she had going different places and stuff so I said, well, if you ever get a chance you know come over to the ranch, we've got a good long driveway and it's hard for the paparazzi to get in there so maybe you'd like to do that."
Goldie helped coordinate the trip with Diana's sister-in-law, Sarah Ferguson, since the two were friends. Kurt went on to say that "Goldie [Hawn] and Fergie [Sarah Ferguson] knew each other through a friend and they put it together, and she brought the boys and they stayed in the house."
And while they didn't wear disguises to sneak into bars (as far as we know), Diana and Sarah were also really close. Sarah once said, "It was the year we first put words to the unspeakable idea that had been nudging us in the ribs for some time: that one or both of us might leave the royal family. We burned the phone wires into the night, trading secrets and jokes that no-one else would understand."
