French paparazzo sparks controversy by creating and selling Princess Diana NFT
Betrand Garde makes outspoken defence of his actions, claims he is simply making the money he lost out on in 1997.
NEWS
DIGITAL: How the debate-causing non-fungible token looked in Bertrand Garde's Crypto Wallet before its sale for over €1,000,000. (Hubris McKenna/Crypto Bumface Auction House)
French paparazzo Bertrand Garde has sparked controversy by minting and selling a non-fungible token (NFT) of a photograph he took of Diana, Princess of Wales, immediately after the fatal car crash in Paris in August 1997 that ended her life mere hours later, as well as that of her lover Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul.
The image, which depicts the dying Princess as a cartoon ape, has drawn condemnation across the board, but photographer Garde, who pursued Diana’s car at high speed by motorbike alongside fellow paparazzi, has furiously argued he is in the right, describing it as his “long awaited big pay day.”
In a statement, Mr. Garde said, “You English pigs think you’re so moral. Well if you worthless bitches are so moral why were your newspaper editors begging for photos of the Princess having sex? I was just doing my job and then, suddenly, your idiot journalists say ‘oh no, we can’t print that, she’s dead!’ Then they start to cry, the stupid worthless bitches! ‘She was the People’s Princess!’ You hypocritical dogs!”
During a fiery impromptu press conference held for an awaiting press pack outside his apartment on the outskirts of Marseille, Garde tried to draw sympathy by explaining his financial troubles in the decades following his unsellable photograph.
“I was so desperate I ended up on your idiotic British TV show Eurotrash. I had to pretend to be a Belgian farmer who played a trumpet by sticking it up, how do you say, the fart pipe. So sticking a musical instrument up my naked butt on TV for 600 Francs is okay, but the photographs, oh no no no!”
Across a wide reaching range of questions and answers Garde touched on subjects including Brexit, English sexual inadequacy and his hatred of Sir Elton John. He ended with a warning: “Tell Her Majesty, your Queen Elizabeth, that I am coming for her next.”
The identity of the buyer and price paid is not known, but some internet rumour-mongering has suggested it was purchased for a seven figure sum by a former British professional footballer.
