John Travolta Revisits 'Storybook' Dance with Princess Diana: 'The Whole Room Cleared'

One of Princess Diana's dreams came true when she danced with John Travolta more than three decades ago.

In a sneak peek of the upcoming PBS special “In Their Own Words: Diana, Princess of Wales,” Travolta, 67, shed new light on how his famous dance with the late royal at a 1985 White House dinner hosted by President Ronald Reagan came to be.

According to the actor, he "went with a very humble attitude" to the event because he felt that he "was an extra in a room of very important people."

However, later that night, former first lady Nancy Reagan approached Travolta with a special request from Princess Diana.

"About 10 o'clock at night, Nancy Reagan tapped on my shoulder and said, 'The princess, her fantasy is to dance with you. Would you like to dance with her tonight?'" he shared. "And I said, 'Well of course.'"

The first lady escorted him to meet Princess Diana as the clock approached midnight so he could ask her to dance. Travolta admitted that he was so nervous when he approached the royal that his heart started to race.

"I tap her on the shoulder and she turns around and looks at me, and she had that kind of bashful dip [of her chin] that she did, and she looked up at me, and I said, 'Would you care to dance with me?'" he recalled.

"The whole room cleared. We danced for what felt like 15 minutes," Travolta continued. "It was a storybook moment. We bowed when it was over, and, you know, she was off, and I was off, and my carriage turned into a pumpkin."

Debbie Frank, Princess Diana's astrologer, said the late royal "loved dancing, and she brought pure joy to everyone else."

Meanwhile, royal historian Kate Williams said Princess Diana was already becoming a global sensation around the time of the dinner.

"When Diana went to America in 1985, it cemented her place on a world stage. She was no longer this young, naive girl. She was a huge celebrity, the most famous woman in the world. Di-mania spread from Britain across the world, and then it seized the world," Williams was quoted by People as saying.

It wasn't the only time Princess Diana had revealed her love of dancing. When she attended a gala performance with Prince Charles in December 1985, she left her seat in the royal box to dance with Wayne Sleep to Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl."

Princess Diana's performance at the event was "top secret," Sleep revealed to The Guardian.

Meanwhile, Tina Brown, one of Princess Diana's biographers, said Prince Charles was cool and detached after the performance. "It was embarrassingly clear that he had not been ravished by the spectacle of his wife en pointe. His disappointing response, when it leaked, was interpreted as frigid disapproval of Diana's lapse in royal etiquette," she was quoted by Vanity Fair as saying.

"In Their Own Words: Diana, Princess of Wales" premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. EDT on PBS.