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The star, 67, said that the dance happened by chance and there was no premeditation whatsoever on that head. But when it happened, he recalled that it felt like a fairytale. To make the moment more breathtaking, Princess Diana was wearing one of the most high-profile gowns at the event. The gown alone has been a source of its own news and drama, even getting the nickname Travolta dress.
John Travolta Calls His Dance Moment With The Late Princess Diana Unforgettable
John Travolta was happy to have been in attendance at the White House dinner hosted by the then-President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan. It’s certainly an unforgettable moment when he twirled around the dance floor with one of Britain’s most popular and beloved members of the Royal Family.
This week, the Battlefield Earth star took himself and listeners back to the moment when it all happened. He recalled it with a fond, lovable, zest in an interview for Esquire Magazine.
“I didn’t think they’d ask me to dance with her. I had the great privilege and honor of doing so, and I thought, ‘There must be a reason for doing this and I better give it my all,'” he revealed. “That meant to lead the dance well and make sure we had fun. That was the easy part, but just the fact of greeting Diana appropriately, being confident, and asking her to dance was a complicated task.”
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Travolta admitted that the moment with the princess who died in 1997 at the age of 36 was one of those rare real-life fairytales that he’d re-lived and happily looked back at in the years that followed.
“Think of the setting. We were at the White House. It’s midnight. The stage is like a dream. I approach her, touch her elbow, invite her to dance,” he said. “She spins around and gives me that captivating smile, just a little sad, and accepts my invitation. And there we were, dancing together as if it were a fairytale.”
“Who could ever imagine something like that would happen to them someday? I was smart enough to stamp it in my memory as a very special, magical moment.”
Princess Diana Wanted The Dance With Actor John Travolta To Happen
During an interview with Dutch television station Één, the Saturday Night Fever star revealed that he learned from Nancy Reagan that Princess Diana wished to dance with him.
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“[She] said, ‘It is her wish,’ “the actor recounted. “At midnight, I had to tap her on her shoulder, and I had to say, ‘Would you care to dance?’ She turned around and dipped her head in that Lady Diana way, and we were off for 15 minutes dancing.”
“I’ll never forget it,” he added. “I’m so honored that I was able to experience this, and I know for a fact that it was her highlight of being in the United States; it was her favorite moment. So I feel I made her life better, she made my life better, and I’m very sorry that she’s not here.”
John Travolta Would Bring Back the Night with Princess Diana if He Could
In a 2016 Good Morning America appearance, the actor and singer were asked the one thing that he would bring back from the ’80s that he’d love to bring back to the 2010s. He quickly replied that he’d love to dance with the royal again.
“Yes, I danced with Princess Diana in 1986, I believe,” he said. “That was one of the highlights of my life, so that’s probably the best moment of the ’80s.”
Diana’s Love For The Arts And Cinema
Eleri Lynn curated the 2017 exhibit Diana: Her Fashion Story at the royal’s former Kensington Palace home, and also revealed in an interview with PEOPLE that the princess had such a deep love and interest for the arts and would have chosen it for herself had life worked out differently for her.
“She was influenced by the cinema and the arts and she was also a very capable dancer — she had wanted to be a ballet dancer as a young girl,” Lynn said. “So this was really a meeting of her interest in cinema and her love of dance – to be dancing with John Travolta. The dress is a real masterpiece.”