Katie Couric Reveals What It Was Really Like Meeting Princess Diana

Katie Couric is perhaps most well-known for her former position as the long-running co-host of the "Today" show. In her career as a television journalist, she has also hosted CBS' "Evening News," worked as a global news anchor for Yahoo!, and served as host of her synonymous talk show, "Katie." In an interview with the Harvard Business Review, she delved into how she achieved success in the media industry, revealing that the key has been her authenticity as a reporter. "I was the same off-camera as I was on," she told the outlet. 

In October 2021, Couric released a memoir entitled "Going There." The book is garnering a ton of buzz — not only does it detail the ups and downs of her career and success in the media industry, but it also includes many anecdotes about celebrities. Those who have gotten their hands on a copy of the memoir learned that the journalist met Princess Diana in 1996, just a year before the beloved royal's tragic death. But what did Couric really think of the "People's Princess"?

In her memoir, "Going There," Katie Couric revealed she met Princess Diana at a luncheon for breast cancer research in June of 1996. And what Couric had to say about her interaction with Diana was both heartwarming and upsetting.

Couric wrote that she was initially taken with Diana's "glowing" beauty, per Insider. The royal spoke first to the "Today" star, complimenting her shade of lipstick, which Couric found rather touching. However, she would soon get a sense of Diana's inner turmoil after asking if the princess was "excited to go home" following her trip. Diana's response — "I would be, but I'm going home to an empty house" — came as a surprise to Couric, who came away from the exchange with a sense of "deep sadness" within the princess. In an attempt to lighten the mood, the journalist wrote in an essay for InStyle, she "playfully suggested" Diana have a "slumber party" with friends, which was allegedly received with confusion from the royal.

Princess Diana's response likely stemmed from the anguish she had been living with since marrying Prince Charles in 1981, a relationship that was mired with affairs, intense tabloid scrutiny, and Diana's experience with an eating disorder. The two divorced a few months after the breast cancer luncheon, and Diana was tragically killed in a car accident one year later.

A distraught Couric had to cover Diana's tragic death for "Today," she wrote for InStyle. "At one point, the producers had to take the cameras off me," Couric penned, "because I was so choked up and tears started to stream down my face."