Di’s ‘bike of shame’ sells for nearly R1m

PRINCESS Diana’s old bicycle has sold for £44 000 (about R870 000). The 1970s Raleigh Traveller ladies bike went for twice the price it was expected to fetch when it was bought by an online American bidder from an auction in England last week.

Diana, who died at the age of 36 in a car accident in Paris, used to ride the bicycle to her workplace, a nursery school in London, before she married Prince Charles in 1981. After marrying, the bike was apparently deemed “not suitable for a royal” by officials, so she got rid of it.

Auctioneer Mark Ellin described it as “probably the most famous bike in the world”, while the Burstow and Hewett auction house listed it as the “shame bike” and “a famous symbol of Diana’s oppression”.

It came with a letter of authenticity from Gerald Stonehill, who acquired the bike from Diana.

Apparently it sold for such a high price due to the popularity of the Netflix series The Crown which tells a fictionalised version of the history of the British royal family. The bike’s new owner is Barry Glazer, an attorney in Baltimore in the US. | Bang Showbiz