Joh Bailey opens up on working with Princess Di: “Very laid back”
Iconic Sydney hairdresser Joh Bailey has opened up about working with Princess Diana, admitting he believed the offer to work with her was nothing short of a “prank”.
In 1995, Joh Bailey received the offer of a lifetime from Buckingham Palace to work with the Princess of Wales during her visit to Australia in 1996.
The Australian man prepared the royal’s hair while she was in Sydney in 1996, for her daytime and evening engagements.
Bailey told him that the palace informed him of “one stipulation.”
“If it got out beforehand then I wouldn't be able to do it, so I wasn't allowed to tell anyone,” he said.
"She was the most famous woman in the world and the most glamorous.
"And I'm a real royalist, so it was like all my dreams coming true at once. My favourite person on the planet.
"It would be akin to doing Meghan Markle, I suppose, today… that level of fame. Everybody loved Diana."
Diana came to Sydney in November 1996 to open the new Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, just a few months after her divorce from Prince Charles had been finalised.
Bailey revealed he’d had a “protocol meeting” with Diana's lady-in-waiting, saying he was to address the royal firstly as "Diana, Princess of Wales" then later as "Princess", "the Princess" or "Ma'am".
"[They said] 'Her name is Diana, Princess of Wales, don't ever call her Princess Diana or Lady Diana, that's not her name',” he said.
"I thought, 'Oh my God, the pressure is on, what if I say Lady Di'?
"As it turns out, had I done it she would not have cared less."
While he was told the initial introduction would be "quite formal”, the experience was anything but the moment he entered the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Double Bay (now the InterContinental).
"I'd been told all this stuff would happen,” he said.
“There’d be this formal meeting and it never happened, which rattled me even further and I thought, 'Do I just say hello?’
"Then I said to her, 'I'm Joh Bailey and I think I know who you are' and she sort of laughed and I did this awkward, wobbly half-bow-half curtsy, the most ridiculous thing, and she laughed and said 'Get up, stop that'.
"And from then on, she was the nicest, most natural person that I had ever met – beautiful."
What surprised Bailey most was the freedom he had while working with Princess Diana, even being told by the royal: "You just do whatever you like".
"I wasn't expecting that at all," he said.
While many would provide "look books and story boards, 'this is the outfit, this is the jewellery', that sort of thing, but there was none of that".
"She was actually very laid-back. There was no airs and graces with her, there was no royalty, it was like meeting a nice girl from down the street."
Bailey explained the royal was unbelievably laidback, and even surprised him with her casual demeanour.
"While I was blow-drying her hair at the dining room table, she put her foot up and painted her toenails herself," he says.
"She just got out a bottle of nail polish and painted her toenails at the table, it was so cool."
Diana would later step out onto the Sydney street’s in a one-shoulder blue satin Versace gown, her aquamarine cocktail ring and statement pearl necklace and diamond earrings.
The ring is now worn by the Duchess of Sussex while the Duchess of Cambridge has the other extravagant jewels in her possession.
Bailey admitted he felt "unbelievably pressured" to get everything perfect for the night.
"That was the one when all eyes were going to be on her."
He says his royal client never complained however, and kept her cool demeanour.
"She was always happy with it, with her hair, she never said 'let's change this' or 'do that' or anything. She just sat there and had it done and said 'thank you'."
Bailey said the press were relentless, and every waking hour would be spent chasing after the royal.
He said it was like being "in lockdown… just from the press".
"They were all in trees and on top of buildings, the hotel had crowds in front of it wanting to get a glimpse of her coming in or out," he said.
"She was on the fifth floor, and if you looked outside her window all you could see were cameras with those great big long lenses, literally in trees on the top of people's apartment buildings, hanging out of windows. Hundreds of them. I've never seen anything like it.
"The curtains were drawn the whole time she was there. It was quite sad, I suppose."
During Di’s visit to Sydney, the princess attended several events at St Vincent's Hospital, the Sacred Heart Hospice, the Convention Centre and The Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute.
Bailey said he believes that despite the endless love and adoration that the royal "felt lonely".
"A couple of times, say I went [to the hotel in the morning] and the car wasn't picking her up until midday, she would say, 'Can you just hang out for a little while, I am a bit lonely, or bored, and just have a chat?'."
Bailey said it was "just her and I in the room".
"One day she said, 'Do you want a cup of tea?' and she got up, found the teabag and put the kettle on, jiggled the thing herself and handed it to me, she was very normal."
He revealed that Diana spoke openly “about everything, really".
"Her children, she spoke about them a lot, she spoke about the Queen, about the divorce, she spoke about everything that was happening at the time, very nonchalant, not guarded, she just talked."
The Princess of Wales mentioned her eldest, William, and even told Bailey that she missed them, in a motherly way.
Bailey was one of many who fell under Diana's spell and remembers clearly her "natural beauty".
"Her skin was absolutely beautiful, she was tall, elegant, broad-shouldered. She had the most beautiful fingernails and teeth and eyes I have ever seen – everything bright, shiny, immaculate."
He admitted he even kept a memento from their time together – a lock of Diana's hair.
"The front fringe of her hair was a bit long and I said, 'I'm just going to take this off' and then collected it – it's in a little sealed plastic bag in a safe."
He described her hair as "very thick and very heavy hair, beautiful".
"She had highlights and a perm, believe it or not. [It was a] very '90s thing to do, or '80s even, to perm it then blow it straight so it would give it that extra body."
Bailey revealed he was even lucky enough to be asked by Diana if they would like a photo together, a generous offer he couldn’t refuse.
"I was a bit scared to ask but she [offered]. And then she said to me, I don't know whether she meant it or not, 'If you're ever in London, look me up at Kensington Palace and maybe come over and have a cup of tea'."
Sadly, Bailey never had the opportunity to take the royal up on that offer, as she tragically died in a car crash nine months later.
The Australian hairdresser has gone on to do the hair of Sarah, the Duchess of York, and Zara Tindall.
He said the experience with Diana “was exhilarating, the whole thing.
“Definitely the highlight of my career."
Images: Getty