Sunday's Concert for Diana is the kind of event that the woman called the "People's Princess" would have loved to attend, an evening of fun and celebration planned by the two people who knew and loved her best — her sons.
"She would be so proud of them for having done this tribute to her, this musical tribute," her younger brother, Charles, the 9th Earl of Spencer, told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer in a live interview. "She would have loved to have been there and would have been so proud of her boys for doing this. This is very much her sort of event."
On Aug. 31, it will be 10 years since Diana's tragic death. There will be solemn memorials then, but Sunday, July 1, would have been her 46th birthday, and her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, planned a concert in her honor and memory.
"The concert is a perfect opportunity for people to celebrate her life," William had told Lauer in an interview broadcast earlier this month on TODAY. The concert will be broadcast by NBC beginning 8 p.m. ET.
Diana would be proud of her sons in other ways as well, Spencer told Lauer as the two strolled the gardens of Kensington Palace, a royal residence in London.
"They've grown up into such fine young guys," he said. "I like the way they lead their lives. I think they've done incredibly well given the circumstances."
Spencer was thrust into the spotlight at his sister's funeral. He delivered her eulogy, which a British newspaper recently named one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century. It generated controversy for some of its pointed comments about the royal family, particularly when he described her as "a very British girl who transcended nationality. Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic."
Diana wanted her sons to grow up to be as "normal" as possible and to share her concern for those who need help the most. The magic of which her brother spoke made her beloved around the world, but it also made her pursued by the British press.
"It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this — a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age," Spencer had said during his eulogy.
"The media here is insatiable," he told Lauer. "We have a tabloid culture here that is daily newspapers — it's not the things you pick up in the supermarket. They would like nothing more than to bring these boys down if they can. I think [William and Harry] have done incredibly well."
He saw what his sister went through firsthand.
"When Diana was just about to get engaged to Prince Charles, she came to visit me at school, and she was being pursued by 10 cars and motorcyclists," he recalled. "In fact, the last time she came to stay with me just before she died, we had to give up our trip because were were being pursued at such a high pace by paparazzi."
Loss of a sister
To most, it doesn't seem possible that it has been 10 years since the car in which Diana and her companion, Dodi al-Fayed, were riding in crashed in a Paris tunnel while fleeing paparazzi, killing them and their driver, who was intoxicated. Her sons, though, had told Lauer that the time for them has gone by incredibly slowly, with not a day passing during which they do not think of her.
Spencer, now 43, said it's been both but a moment and forever for him. "It's amazing to me that it's so long ago" he said. Yet he, too, thinks of her every day.
The fascination with her never seems to wane. "I actually don't think that it will ever go away," he said. "Of course there are peaks and troughs, and this is a peak because of the 10th anniversary. But if you came here anytime over the last 10 years, there's still an enormous amount of interest in her, most of it very positive and very supportive."
There are no end of conspiracy theories surrounding Diana's death, but Spencer rejects them. It was a drunken driver, a pack of pursuing paparazzi, a horrible accident, he said.
Sunday's concert will be held in the newly renovated Wembley Stadium in London. Among the performers are such favorites of Diana's as her good friend Elton John, Rod Stewart and Duran Duran, along with currently popular performers such as P. Diddy and British pop singers Natasha Bedingfield and Joss Stone.
The English National Ballet will also perform a piece from "Swan Lake," one of Diana's favorite compositions. "She took great solace in dance," the National Ballet's Derek Keane told NBC's Keith Miller. "It was a great calming influence on her."
As Lauer observed, Diana "was one of the world's great humanitarians." Her sons have carried on her tradition, sponsoring causes ranging from helping London's homeless, as their mother had done, to battling AIDS in Africa. The proceeds from the concert will go to charities that Diana supported.
Spencer said he does not follow what the media writes about his iconic sister.
"I've never read a book about Diana, I've never read an article about her. I never really give interviews about her," he said.
But Sunday's concert is as important to him as it is to his nephews.
"This is something to celebrate," he said. "Hopefully we're going to see something positive, something celebrative —and raise a lot of money for charity.
"This is absolutely right for her to be remembered in a celebratory way."