Why Did Princess Diana Send Burt Reynolds a Thank You Note?
Both the actor and the princess were going through very public divorces at the time.
While Princess Diana undoubtably brought a sense of glamour to the British monarchy, it seems she also gave some of her Hollywood pals the royal treatment as well. In 2015, Burt Reynolds revealed in his memoir, Enough About Me, that Princess Diana sent him a thank you note during his divorce with actress Loni Anderson in 1993 because it helped keep her name out of the headlines. At the time, she and Prince Charles were also in the process of ending their marriage.
On a recent episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Anderson appeared as a guest alongside Naomi Judd. During a Q&A segment, a viewer asked Anderson to confirm the story about Diana, to which she responded with a simple, "Yes, that's true."
The Prince and Princess of Wales were married in 1981. After more than a decade of being wed, the truth of their tumultuous relationship came to light when tapes that unearthed both Diana and Charles' extramarital relationships were made public. By the end of 1992, the couple had announced their formal separation. However, luckily for Diana, this was around the time of Reynolds and Anderson's break-up after the actor fell in love with a cocktail waitress. As a major Hollywood star, the Gunsmoke actor's personal life was also the subject of much media coverage, taking some of the heat off the princess.
In his memoir, Reynolds wrote, "Princess Diana sent me a thank-you note for keeping her off the cover of People magazine. For a long time after the divorce, the tabloids were still calling Loni and me 'cheesecake and beefcake."
