Pottering around a petrol station shop, Hewitt’s a shadow of dashing polo player who wooed Diana
HE was the man who was ‘loved and adored’ by Princess Diana – as she sensationally confessed on TV.
But 20 years after her death in a Paris car crash, it seems time hasn’t been kind to ‘love rat’ James Hewitt.
The once-dashing Cavalry officer cuts a lonely figure today. Aged 58, wearing glasses and with his hairline receding, he shares a flat in the English countryside with his elderly mother.
Over the weekend he was spotted driving his 12-year-old estate car to a petrol station, pausing to look at the newspapers he once dominated before paying for his fuel and returning home.
His mother Shirley, 87, said: ‘James leads a quiet life. He comes and goes
‘Doesn’t want anyone to know his business’
from here and doesn’t want anyone else to know his business.’
When asked about Diana, who died on August 31, 1997, Hewitt said: ‘I’ve got nothing to say.’
That was not always the case. The princess was left devastated when her former lover decided to cash in with a kiss-and-tell book about their romance, which began in 1986 after her marriage to Prince Charles had broken down.
Lonely and desperate for affection, Diana met Hewitt at a friend’s cocktail party, where he offered to teach her how to get over her fear of horses.
Hewitt was attentive and charming, and there was an instant spark between the two, which turned into a passionate affair. They often spent weekends at his mother’s cottage in Devon and Diana was so besotted that she showered him with clothes and gifts. The pair would walk on the beach at Budleigh Salterton, with Diana disguised with a headscarf.
The relationship continued when Hewitt was sent to fight in the first Gulf War as a tank commander but finally ended in 1992.
To Diana’s horror, the officer used dozens of her love letters as the basis of Princess In Love, a syrupy tell-all about the relationship. Although he is believed to have made a significant amount of money from the publishing deal, Hewitt’s fortunes have waned since then, and he lost a large proportion of the profits on business ventures in Spain, where he lived for a while. He has since been caught out trying to set up deals to sell the letters from Diana in order to cash in one last time.
Now he lives in modest circumstances in Devon, a few miles from the cottage where he and Diana used to meet.
A neighbour said: ‘James is a very lonely figure these days. It’s clear he’s never going to be able to move on from that relationship.’