When Harry Met Sally’s now-iconic deli scene made one thing clear for star Billy Crystal—he wouldn’t date Princess Diana. Looking back on the classic rom-com’s London, England, premiere, Crystal shared how the late royal’s reaction to the scene made him realize if they ever dated it wouldn’t last long. Why? How Diana laughed.
Crystal sat with Princess Diana at the London premiere of ‘When Harry Met Sally’
During an Oct. 23, 2024, appearance on The View, Crystal reflected on the November 1989 When Harry Met Sally London premiere. Diana didn’t just attend and meet the cast. She also sat with Crystal and his co-star, Meg Ryan, for a screening of the Rob Reiner-directed romantic comedy.
“She’s on my left and Meg is on her left. So it’s me, Rob [Reiner], Princess [Diana], and then Meg,” Crystal said in a clip on the show’s social media. “So we sit down together in the balcony in the theater. And the trumpets are blaring as we walk in, which happens in every movie theater,” he joked.
Ryan, he remembered, at one point leaned “in front like, ‘Do you believe who she is?’ It’s, like, crazy.”
Crystal ‘wouldn’t see’ Diana again because of her ‘big laugh’ during the deli scene
Crystal continued, saying Diana’s “big” laugh during the movie’s now-iconic deli scene would’ve been a dealbreaker if they’d dated. (Reiner’s mother famously played the part of the deli patron who remarks, “I’ll have what she’s having,” as the scene ended.)
“And then the deli scene happens, and the whole audience below us is now looking back to see how the princess is gonna react to Meg faking the orgasm,” he recalled. “And then she starts laughing. A big laugh.”
“It’s the kind of laugh, that if we were dating, I wouldn’t see her again,” Crystal said. “I’d go, ‘The laugh! She’s beautiful, but the laugh.’ But it was spectacular. A spectacular evening, and so great to meet her.”
Diana made the ‘Back to the Future’ movie premiere memorable for Michael J. Fox
Crystal is far from the only actor with memories of Diana from a movie premiere. (During her time in the royal family Diana attended many red carpet events.) Her presence at the 1985 Back to the Future premiere made it a particularly memorable night for star Michael J. Fox. But not in a good way.
“She was sitting next to me,” Fox once recalled on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “The lights go down and the movie starts and I realize I am one fake yawn and an arm stretch away from being on a date with her, which is hilarious.”
“The movie started and also I had to go pee,” Fox continued. “So for the rest of the movie, I’m sitting there, like, dying. I can’t say anything to her and I can’t walk away from her because I can’t turn my back on her.”
“So it was just agony. It could have been the greatest night of my life but it was just a nightmare, a pee-holding nightmare,” he added.
