When Princess Diana Fooled the Paparazzi With Her Look Alikes During Her Exotic Ski Trips

Diana, the late Princess of Wales, was so adept at avoiding conflict with the paparazzi that, to play practical jokes on the press, she made friends with vacationing guests who bore a striking resemblance to her. Diana frequented Lech, an upscale ski resort in Austria, for five years in the 1990s. While there, she was frequently sighted strolling around town or on the slopes with a young Prince William and Prince Harry. As per Business Insider, Hannes Schneider, owner of the family-run five-star Hotel Arlberg that Diana frequented during her luxurious vacations revealed then that Diana was a fashion inspiration, "Being here for five long years, she always met the same people," Schneider said. "The ladies at that time tried to be her, same hair, same style."

Schneider claims that Diana befriended two ladies who were "same age, same size" as her and that they would look alike to trick the "Fleet Street" photographers who trailed her from the UK to Austria. "It was really good fun," Schneider said about the late princess' sense of humor. "They had big fun leaving the house at the same time." "The paparazzi in one out of three cases followed the wrong one. It was a big game," he added. According to Schneider, he became quite close to her and "was probably the person in Austria who knew her the best." 

"I had Wills and Harry on my hip at that time," he said. He claimed that the princess had once asked him whether he would serve as her "personal" security guard. "We got so close at the end, it was really a great experience."  As per Diana's trainer Jenni Rivett, the late royal hated to grab eyeballs while arriving for her gym sessions, in an exclusive with W Magazine he wrote about her paparazzi strategy, “She felt there were far more important issues to focus on in the world than her gym attire and therefore decided that wearing the famous Virgin sweatshirt to every session would be a good way to stop the media frenzy.” Diana wore the same cotton-polyester sweatshirt for her gym sessions back then. 

As per Vanity Fair, during a vacation in July 1997 in Saint-Tropez with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and his family, Diana initially avoided the photographers by hiding behind a towel and crawling along a balcony. "You will have a big surprise coming soon, the next thing I do," she teased the surprised paparazzi after pulling the impossible stunt. Over the next few months, the late royal was persistently chased by the "Fleet Street" pack. Diana was always cautious, calling her stalkers by name and returning their calls in the wee hours of the morning. "I understand all your problems, and there are no hard feelings," she told the tabloid photographers while she sobbed in private because of the intense media scrutiny.