Like a number of pop stars in the ’80s, Bryan Adams was friendly with Princess Diana. While he insists they were never more than friends, he says their relationship was one of the highlights of his entire life.
“We had a lot of really, really good conversations, I have to tell you. In fact it’s strange and surreal to think about,” Bryan tells the U.K. paper The Times. “I really, really liked Diana, she was an amazing woman and a super-great inspiration. Meeting her was truly one of the greatest things that ever happened to me.”
In 1984, Bryan wrote a song called “Diana,” in which he seemingly pleads with the princess to leave Prince Charles and run away with him. When he eventually met Princess Diana in real life, he mentioned that song, and she told him, “I’d like to hear it again.” He sent her a copy, she invited him to tea, and that’s how they became friendly.
When asked if he tried to “save” Diana, he replies, “Uh-oh,” gets quiet and then says, “Maybe, a bit.”
“When I first went round to [Kensington Palace] she wasn’t, like, ‘I really need to talk to somebody,’ and you don’t bulldoze into someone’s life wanting to know everything in the first ten minutes,” he explains. “It was, ‘Let’s have a cup of tea.’ But later the more friendly we got the more I learnt what was really going on [in her life]. ”
He notes that he stopped performing “Diana” after her death in 1997 out “of respect to her and her boys.”
Bryan will kick off a new U.S. tour in January. He just released the Live at the Royal Albert Hall box set, which documents the three shows he performed at the legendary London venue last year.
Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.