By 1993, Princess Diana was separated from Prince Charles and living under constant press attention. Photographers followed her almost everywhere. One of the few places where she could relax was her gym.
She trained regularly at a fitness club in west London. Exercise had become an important part of her routine, a way to manage the pressure of her public life. She trusted the place, and she trusted the people who ran it.
Then, in November 1993, the Sunday Mirror published a set of photographs of Diana working out on a gym machine. She was in her exercise clothes, unaware that anyone was taking pictures.
The photographs had been taken in secret. The gym’s owner had hidden a camera in the ceiling above the machine she used, and then sold the pictures. For Diana, it was a deep betrayal by someone she had trusted.
There was a public outcry. Many people, including others in the newspaper industry, felt the pictures had crossed a line. Diana took legal action against the newspaper group and the gym owner. The case was eventually settled out of court before it reached trial.
But the damage had been done. Just weeks later, on 3 December 1993, Diana spoke at a charity lunch in London. In front of the cameras, she announced that she would be greatly reducing her public duties.
In her speech, she asked the public to understand her decision and to give her the time and space that had been lacking in recent years. It was an extraordinary moment: the most famous woman in the world asking simply to be left alone.
She also gave up much of her official police protection. For a while, she stepped back from the spotlight she had lived in since she was 19.
The retreat did not last forever. Diana gradually returned to public life, and in 1995 she gave her famous Panorama interview. But the gym photographs remain one of the clearest examples of how far some were willing to go for a picture of her.