Outrage As Photo Of Princess Diana’s Fatal Car Crash Used In Euthanasia Ad

A French pro-euthanasia group have been forced to withdraw an image of Princess Diana’s fatal car crash after their advert sparked anger and revulsion.

The ad shows a picture of a mangled car in a tunnel with the caption: ‘Diana. She did not choose her death… in 2024, we should have the choice.’

It immediately provoked outrage, with friends and politicians branding it ‘vile’, ‘disgusting’, ‘repugnant’ and ‘hideous’. 

The Mail Online reports: This is cruel, callous and opportunistic,’ said her friend Rosa Monckton. ‘Diana was exploited in her life and her death is now being exploited for very base reasons.’

Baroness Monckton, who went on holiday with Diana a few weeks before she died in the car crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris in 1997, said she was ‘shocked and horrified’ by the image.

Kensington Palace insiders were left ‘speechless’ with one saying the advert ‘plumbed the very lowest depths of bad taste’.

Their sentiments were echoed by the late Queen’s former press secretary Dickie Arbiter, who said: ‘To reference what happened in 1997 is bad enough, but to mock up a picture really leaves a sour taste in the mouth. [It] is just completely off the scale of obscenity.’

The odious image was hastily withdrawn yesterday after a barrage of protest. It had been created by French pro-euthanasia group ADMD, who limply conceded that it ‘may have offended some observers’ following the powerful backlash.

Commentators noted that for all its shock value, the image – spread on social media – made little sense given the organisation’s aims. 

Leading French newspaper Le Figaro asked: ‘Should we understand that legislating on euthanasia would have spared Lady Di a tragic end?’

Another friend of Diana’s, journalist Petronella Wyatt, said: ‘This campaign ad is vile. It’s also completely irrelevant to their argument, because none of the people involved, particularly Diana, wanted to die at all.

‘It’s quite unbelievable the way poor Diana is used. It dredges up something that is terribly painful and traumatic for her children.

‘They should make a formal apology because if I was a relative of Diana I would be absolutely incensed. How can you possibly compare a tragic car accident, when somebody died in the prime of their life, to assisted dying?’