They finally separated in 1992 after a tumultuous marriage in which they both committed adultery.
While Prince Charles was ensconced with the future Queen Camilla (then Mrs. Parker Bowles), Diana had several lovers.
One who has never been named was a married politician who was “famously” charming, according to royal expert Tom Quinn.
He revealed in his 2021 book Scandals of the Royal Palaces that the politician, whose identity has never been revealed, was seen late at night in his underpants by a member of Kensington Palace staff.
According to a former employee, the lover had “vanished” without pants and then was unable to return to Diana’s room because a door closed behind him.
He was “red-faced” when a staff member said good morning, Quinn said.
On other occasions, the lover was allegedly forced to hide behind curtains or in Diana’s bathroom when staff entered her bedroom, because the princess was “embarrassed.”
Princess Diana returns to the Carlyle Hotel in New York after attending several functions, June 1997
One of Diana’s lovers, a married politician, was caught wandering the halls of Kensington Palace in his underwear.
Charles and Diana in Seoul, South Korea, in November 1992
Quinn said she interviewed an unnamed former Palace staffer, who said of Diana’s political lover: “But he got caught once, literally with his pants down.”
“I don’t know how it happened, but the staff laughed about it for weeks.”
‘Somehow he got up in the night in shorts and walked away until he discovered that a door had closed behind him and he couldn’t open it to get back.
‘Diana quickly realized what had happened and went to look for him, but he had already been spotted by a member of staff who simply said good morning and walked past while he stood frozen, red-faced and trying to pretend he wasn’t nothing was happening. evil.’
One of Diana’s staff members, Kitty Power, used to help the princess sneak her lovers into the palace.
She would use techniques that included saying they were there to discuss work-related topics, Quinn wrote.
Some of Diana’s lovers acquired a high profile. One of them was Captain James Hewitt, with whom the princess had a five-year affair after the couple first met in 1986.
Princess Diana presents the Captain and Subalterns Cup to Captain James Hewitt after he led his Army polo team to glory at Tidworth, Wiltshire, in 1989.
A perhaps unlikely suitor was the art dealer Oliver Hoare, a friend of Charles. He was married to the Frenchwoman Diane de Waldner de Freundstein.
Diana confirmed the affair with Hewitt during her now infamous 1995 Panorama interview with journalist Martin Bashir.
A photo taken during their secret relationship shows Diana presenting the Captain and Subalterns Cup to Hewitt after he led his army polo team to glory in Tidworth, Wiltshire, in 1989.
The relationship ended when he went to serve in the Gulf War.
She said at the time: ‘Yes, I adored him. Yes, I was in love with him. But I was very disappointed.”
Another lover was the art dealer Oliver Hoare, a friend of Charles. He was married to the Frenchwoman Diane de Waldner de Freundstein.
Oliver and Diana met at a house party at Windsor Castle during Royal Ascot in 1985, Richard Kay previously reported.
The princess was said to be in love with the father-of-three and was accused of bombarding his family home with more than 300 phone calls.
Diana’s former lover Hasnat Khan, a cardiac surgeon photographed in 1997.
Princess Diana and film producer Dodi Fayed, son of now-disgraced Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, in St Tropez in August 1997. The couple were murdered less than a week later.
Neither Hoare nor Diana publicly acknowledged the relationship and the art dealer died in 2019 at the age of 73.
Another former lover was cardiac surgeon Hasnat Khan. The couple met at the Royal Brompton Hospital when Diana was visiting a friend recovering from heart surgery.
They then had a discreet two-year relationship that ended in early summer 1997.
In 2008, Khan broke an 11-year silence about the princess, saying: “I found her to be a very normal person with great qualities.”
Diana’s last relationship was with film producer Dodi Fayed, the eldest son of now-disgraced Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed.
The couple dated for about two months before dying in a car accident in Paris in 1997.
