Princess Diana Would Trick Her Staff with "Fake Vomit," Former Royal Hairdresser Reveals
Hairstylist Richard Dalton said the late royal had "a wonderful sense of humor."
Princess Diana was known for her compassion, style and groundbreaking charity work, but those close to her reveal another side of the royal that the public didn't always see: her mischievous sense of humor.
On Sept. 26, Princess Diana's former hairdresser, Richard Dalton, shared some anecdotes from his time styling the People's Princess with Fox News—and one of his favorite memories involved plastic puke.
According to Dalton—who first met Diana when she was 17—the princess had a particular fondness for practical jokes. One of her favorite gags? Sneaking gag items into unsuspecting victims' briefcases.
"She would always keep fake vomit and she would put it into the private secretary's briefcase, and dog poop down the corridor..." the hair guru told Fox News.
Dalton, who described Diana as having a "wonderful sense of humor," said the "sweet, charming" princess hired him to do her hair full-time after he previously worked with her sisters.
He recently released a book about his experiences in conjunction with Renae Plant, founder of The Princess Diana Museum, and the duo discussed their project, It's All About the Hair—My Decade With Diana, with Fox News.
Plant shared that there are "tiny little moments throughout the book that have never been told before," noting that she "really loved all the funny parts of it, because [Diana] was really wickedly funny."
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"She would tell dirty jokes," the Diana expert told Fox News.
Dalton also revealed another hilarious moment surrounding her famously teased hair, sharing that King Charles (then the Prince of Wales) had "banned all aerosol hairsprays" due to his passion for environmental issues.
The hairstylist shared, "I got to the palace and I said to the princess, 'You know that there's a hole in the ozone,' and she said, 'Really? What does it look like?' and I said, 'It's about the size of your dressing room and it goes straight up because that's the Elnett hairspray.'"
He told Fox News that they "had a laugh about it," with Plant noting that the pair "kept using" L'Oréal's iconic Elnett spray despite Charles's protests.
Another sweet detail Dalton told the outlet was that Prince William would love getting his hair cut because it meant he'd get "extra television" time and he'd try to get extra cuts even when he didn't need them.
At the end of the day, Plant said Princess Diana had to "internalize it and deal with it" when it came to negative media coverage, so perhaps her jokes were a way of coping with the pressures of royal life—fake vomit and all.
Kristin Contino is Marie Claire's Senior Royal and Celebrity editor. She's been covering royalty since 2018—including major moments such as the Platinum Jubilee, Queen Elizabeth II’s death and King Charles III's coronation—and places a particular focus on the British Royal Family's style and what it means.
Prior to working at Marie Claire, she wrote about celebrity and royal fashion at Page Six Style and covered royalty from around the world as chief reporter at Royal Central.
Kristin is also the published author of two novels, “The Legacy of Us” and “A House Full of Windsor.”
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