It all started with a pair of blue jeans.
"I didn't do anything significant," Rebecca Siegel '97 said. "I just sold her a pair of jeans."
Maybe if the "her" had not been the Princess of Wales, it would not have been so overblown. The next thing Siegel knew, she saw herself on the local news, then read about herself in the metropolitan newspapers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times.
And just when she thought it was all over, "Prime Time Live" came to Dartmouth to pay Siegel a visit.
The overnight star began her ascent as a typical college student trying to make some cash over winter break as a saleswoman at Banana Republic.
Then came Monday, Dec. 27 - the day that put Siegel's name in the national spotlight. The Princess of Wales came in, asked for Siegel's help in selecting a pair of jeans, and left. It all seemed so simple.
About one hour later, a local CBS news station came to interview Siegel, asking her questions about the Princess. Even though they told her they would not ask what Princess Diana bought, when the cameras started rolling, they did.
"I was caught off-guard, and I hesitated a bit," Siegel said. "The next thing I know I was in the Washington Post."
Good Morning America arranged a live satellite interview with Siegel the next morning. She spent the next few days doing interviews for nation-wide radio stations.
Siegel said the attention the media showered on a woman's simple afternoon of shopping frustrated and angered her.
"Initially I thought it was really exciting," she said. "But then people were only focusing on her physical attributes. It's completely irrelevant. She was a really nice person ... The media just plugs into what people want."
Hearing of Siegel's annoyance with the media's shallow questions, The Washington Post called and asked her to write an editorial about her ordeal.
"I would like to tell something to all the women interested in buying the princess's exact jeans and all the people obsessively interested in the weight, height, clothes size and other irrelevancies of the Princess of Wales: Get a life," Siegel wrote in her Jan. 2 editorial.
"Everyone has a life to lead. And as I head back to school, to brave the bitter New Hampshire winter, Princess Diana goes back to a life just as cold. The difference is that I can step into my jeans and out of my dorms without fearing that a camera will flash in my face. The Princess of Wales should be so lucky," she wrote.
Her story went out over the Associated Press wire. ABC television saw the story, saw the angle of a college freshman taking on the media, and yesterday sent a film crew up to Dartmouth to interview Siegel for "Prime Time Live."
"The crew was great, they were a lot of fun," she said. "I basically put my editorial into speech. The form was just me talking."
Siegel will be on television either today or a week from today.
