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- John Travolta reminisced about dancing with Princess Diana, saying it felt like "a fairytale."
- The dance took place during a 1985 state dinner at the White House hosted by Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
- Speaking to Esquire Mexico, the actor said that he had not planned to dance with Diana.
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John Travolta looks back on the time he danced with Princess Diana with great fondness and said the experience felt "as if it were a fairytale."
The dance took place during a 1985 gala dinner held by then-president Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan. According to a New York Times report at the time, the dinner was held to honor pioneers within film, television, ballet, music, sports, science, the arts, and New York society.
Speaking to Esquire Mexico in an interview published this week, the 67-year-old actor reminisced about the moment behind the now-iconic photograph of him and the Princess of Wales.
"I didn't think they'd ask me to dance with her. I had the great privilege and honor of doing so, and I thought, 'There must be a reason for doing this and I better give it my all,'" he said.
"That meant lead the dance well and make sure we had fun. That was the easy part, but just the fact of greeting Diana appropriately, being confident, and asking her to dance was a complicated task," Travolta added.
Travolta remembers the night as dreamlike and made a conscious effort to remember the details.
"Think of the setting," he said. "We were at the White House. It's midnight. The stage is like a dream. I approach her, touch her elbow, invite her to dance. She spins around and gives me that captivating smile, just a little sad, and accepts my invitation. And there we were, dancing together as if it were a fairytale."
He added: "Who could ever imagine something like that would happen to them someday? I was smart enough to stamp it in my memory as a very special, magical moment."
Diana, who was in attendance at the dinner with Prince Charles, wore a midnight blue gown with a pearl choker. The dress she wore was later auctioned off with two other dresses she owned, as part of the "Passion for Fashion" auction organized by Kerry Taylor Auctions.
According to Tatler, the dress failed to sell at auction and Historic Royal Palaces, a charity that manages royal palaces, bought the so-called "Travolta dress" post-auction for $367,051 (£264,000).
Travolta has spoken about the time he danced with Diana before, telling Dutch television station Één in 2007 that it was the first lady who encouraged him to ask her to dance because "it is her wish," Vanity Fair previously reported.
"At midnight, I had to tap her on her shoulder, and I had to say, 'Would you care to dance?' She turned around and dipped her head in that Lady Diana way, and we were off for 15 minutes dancing," Travolta told Één.
The Saturday Night Fever star added: "It was her highlight of being in the United States; it was her favorite moment. So I feel I made her life better, she made my life better, and I'm very sorry that she's not here."
BBC America reported that Charles and Diana spent three days in the US Capitol, where she also visited a hospice while Charles was able to see the Treaty of 1812.