After hearing the news of Princess Diana’s untimely death in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997, the entire world was in shock. However, the unexpected loss of the Princess of Wales wasn’t the only grim event stemming from that fateful night. Although billions of people tuned in to Princess Diana’s funeral, hers was actually one of three untimely deaths, including the driver of the car, Henri Paul, and Diana’s boyfriend, Dodi Al Fayed. One person, Dodi Al Fayed’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only one to survive the car crash that killed everyone else.
Who Was Princess Diana’s Boyfriend?
Though Fayed’s name will always be linked to the late Princess of Wales, he had an interesting life in his own right long before he met Diana. Everything you ever wanted to know about Dodi Al Fayed is right here.
Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed reportedly met years before they began dating, but Diana didn’t get to know Dodi until his father Mohamed invited her to visit his estate in St. Tropez in 1997, together with Prince William and Prince Harry.
After divorcing Prince Charles, Diana began dating Hasnat Khan, a Pakistani cardiac surgeon who, according to her reportedly close friends, became her true love. Diana allowed herself to be swept up in the extravagant al-Fayed whirlwind after her breakup with Khan and being excluded from spending the summer at Balmoral with her sons and the rest of the royal family. She accepted gifts from Dodi including tropical fruits, a roomful of roses, and a Cartier watch, and spent more and more time that summer on his mega-yacht Jonikal.
Friends described Dodi as mild-mannered and caring, but he secretly desired celebrity and his father’s illusive acceptance. In fact, according to his buddy Jack Martin, Dodi asked him several times over the years, “It was the Princess of Wales who held the key to winning over Mohamed and becoming a household name around the world.”
Dodi al-Fayed took Princess Diana to the Ritz Paris after they began dating because his father, Mohamed, owned the hotel. Diana’s friends say she was only having a good time with Dodi for the summer and didn’t plan to keep seeing him, but Fayed sees more promise and seriousness in the pairing. On that very same evening in Paris, he allegedly had a diamond ring ready to propose to Princess Diana.
a teenage boy giving flowers to princess diana with the help of his friends, 1989. pic.twitter.com/9cyE6Yig7Y
— 2000s (@PopCulture2000s) September 10, 2022
What if Diana had been offered? It’s impossible to know for sure, but royal reporter Richard Kay may have a clue because Diana called him in the hours before her death. Kay later spoke with Diana’s personal secretary, who shared her belief that the princess would shortly cancel. She is quoted as saying, “It’s very much a personal view,” she is reported to have said, “but I don’t think she would have seen Dodi again once she got back.” Unfortunately, nobody will ever find out. As Diana and Dodi left the Ritz Paris in the early hours of August 31, 1997, they were followed by paparazzi into the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, and the rest, as they say, is tragic indelible history.
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