As 'The Crown' nears its conclusion, Princess Diana's death and its controversies are revisited

The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, on Aug. 31, 1997, was one of those "where were you when you found out?" moments that looms large in the collective memory. A tragic turning point in a decade largely defined by celebrity scandal, her demise was as pivotal and era-defining as the assassination of John F. Kennedy more than 30 years earlier.

And it would prove to be nearly as contentious.

Since Diana, boyfriend Dodi Fayed and their driver, Henri Paul, were killed in a high-speed crash in a Paris tunnel while fleeing paparazzi, the exact nature of the couple's relationship and the circumstances surrounding the accident have been exhaustively scrutinized and reexamined.

Conspiracy theories have also run amok, encouraged by Dodi's father, Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Fayed, who was the leading proponent of the baseless idea that the couple was assassinated by British intelligence because Diana was pregnant with Dodi's child. (Mohamed Fayed died in August at age 94.)

Already chronicled in numerous books, documentaries, official investigations and narrative films, Diana's final weeks and the media frenzy that followed her death take center stage in the final season of "The Crown," which returned to Neftlix on Thursday. (It's split into two parts, with the second installment coming Dec. 14.)

The first four episodes