LADY DI’S DARLINGS
Her suitors’ private pain
Among those who mourned Princess Diana when her life was tragically cut short in a car accident in 1997 was a small group of men who’d at different times held a special place in her heart.
Trapped in an unhappy marriage, she had turned to men other than her husband Prince Charles for friendship, support and even love. After she died, most had to do their grieving in private because their relationships with her were not considered appropriate.
Twenty years on, here’s what happened to the men whose lives were forever changed after they crossed paths with a princess.
THEN: Cavalry officer James Hewitt met Diana in 1986, when she hired him to teach her to ride. (Those who believe rumours that he’s Prince Harry’s father should take note that this was two years after Harry was born.)
He gave her the affection and attention that was lacking from her husband, and the following year their friendship became an affair. According to Diana’s former bodyguard Ken Wharfe, the couple had trysts in an old cottage in Devon that belonged to James’ mother Shirley, and the princess once gave him more than $30,000 in a briefcase to buy a sports car.
Their on-off relationship lasted five years, until 1992
– the year she and Charles announced their separation. Two years later, she was furious when James collaborated with writer Anna Pasternak on the book Princess in Love about their relationship.
In 1995, during the landmark Panorama TV interview, Diana admitted she’d committed adultery with James. “I adored him,” she said. “I was in love with him.”
NOW: Bachelor James (58) left the army after his affair with Diana came to light and went on to make money from talking about her in TV appearances. He received a payout of around $220,000 for the book Princess in Love and two years ago tried to sell letters she had written to him for a similar sum.
For a while, he led a charmed existence as an ex-pat in Spain. But it all came crashing down.
Today James is virtually broke. He lost two businesses he started – a bar in Spain and a golf driving range. He now lives with his mother in a two-bedroom flat.