A theme park in the US is turning Princess Diana’s fatal car crash into a tourist attraction.
A new ‘ride’ will allow guests to ‘experience’ the crash via a 3D computer model, as if they’re travelling through the Parisian tunnel themselves. At the end of the ride, guests will get to vote in a poll on whether they believe the Royal Family was involved in the collision.
The park, in Pigeon Forge, pays tribute to US tabloid mag, The National Enquirer, and calls itself ‘The National Enquirer Live!’.
Creator Robin Turner told the Mirror:
It’s a 3D computer model, and you’re looking down on what looks just like Paris, but it’s three-dimensional.
It’s projected, and you see the buildings and everything in a 3D presentation.
And it shows the pathway as she left the Ritz hotel, and the paparazzi chasing her, and the bang-flash that we think blinded the driver and how it happened.
The ‘ride’ opens tomorrow, May 25.
It will also guide visitors through conspiracy theories that emerged after the crash, which took the Princess of Wales’ life on August 31, 1997.
Turner told The Daily Beast:
There’s no blood. There’s none of that. You see the car crash through computer animation.
You will be polled on what you believe was the cause of her death and who was behind it. We ask questions like ‘Do you think the Royals were involved?’ ‘Do you think she was pregnant?’ All we do is ask questions on what’s your opinion.
It’s definitely not in poor taste. It’s just showing the route of what happened.
For people who’ve never been to Paris, it’s just showing the topography, and the distance, and the tunnel, and that kind of stuff. It’s done very professionally.
But it doesn’t end there, as Rick Laney, head of communications for the park, insisted the attraction is only one ‘small part’ of the ‘Royal Closet’ attraction.
He told the Mirror:
It features an interactive screen where you can flip through the closets of royal family members and an activity where you can examine their family trees.
The Diana piece is only a small part.
Prince William and Harry’s mum was only 36 when the Mercedes Benz S280 she was travelling in crashed into a concrete pillar in Paris’ Pont de l’Alma tunnel.
From tomorrow, guests – including children – will be able to ‘experience’ the fatal incident for up to £20 a time.
The park will also include a tribute to the Enquirer’s famed September 1977 cover of Elvis Presley’s corpse in its open coffin.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.