Lady Diana, l'ultima foto.

This is the photo of Diana in her final moments that appeared in the Italian Chi magazine and Corriere della Sera newspaper, causing an uproar among British tabloid editors-- the same ones who've spent a decade buying up stories that trash her memory, who this week alone splashed a cameraman's claims of a quickie knee-trembler with the dead Princess, and who, while she was alive, helped make her life a living Hell before she crashed and went to Heaven.

But that's just another lesson in tabloid.

The black and white image, showing the Princess being given oxygen in the Mercedes at the crash site in Paris in August 1997, accompanied an article about French crime writer Jean-Michel Caradec'h, and his new book, Lady Diana: The Criminal Investigation, about the crash which killed Diana and her lover, Dodi Fayed.

We can't see reason for the outrage, beyond the summer news slump (it's not as if another war is breaking out). If they'd dug up nude photos of Diana in a German sex book, we might understand-- but in terms of celebrity death photos, this one is rather subdued.

And respectful.


Diana looks to be at peace.

Her face is intact.

The photo would seem to offer solace to those who worried she'd been in agonizing pain.

It's also history. And evidence.

And it's been published before.

So why don't the rabble rousers investigate what really happened that night in Paris?

Or at least find out where she's really buried.

(Henri Paul wasn't Diana's first dangerous driver. See exclusive video of Diana in a limo as her motorcade runs over tabloid television producer Jimmy Sheehan and a camerawoman in New York City in 1994. Read about the wild scene-- and the mystery of Diana's grave-- in Tabloid Baby.)