{"id":16750,"date":"2025-09-01T13:33:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T13:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=16750"},"modified":"2025-09-01T13:33:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T13:33:00","slug":"princess-dianas-ex-chauffeur-breaks-30-year-silence-with-huge-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=16750","title":{"rendered":"Princess Diana\u2019s ex-chauffeur breaks 30 year silence with huge claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former chauffeur of Princess Diana believes the late royal would still be alive today if he had been driving on the fateful night when she lost her life.<\/strong><\/p>\n

28 years on from the tragedy that shook the world, speculation is still rife as to what exactly happened, with conflicting opinions readily available wherever one cares to look.<\/p>\n

Aged just 36, the Princess of Wales was\u00a0traveling\u00a0in a\u00a0car\u00a0with her boyfriend\u00a0Dodi Fayed, along with her driver, Henri Paul, and Fayed\u2019s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones in Paris, France in the early hours August 31, 1997.<\/p>\n

With the car being pursued by a pack of journalists as it sped through the Pont de l\u2019Alma underpass, Paul \u2013 who was four times over the legal alcohol limit for driving in France \u2013 reportedly lost control and crashed into a column. Both he and Fayed were killed instantly, while Princess Diana and Trevor Rees-Jones were critically injured.<\/p>\n

Diana was rushed to hospital. Despite the best efforts of surgeons to save her life, she was pronounced dead at 4am.<\/p>\n

Almost three decades have passed since the crash, but the circumstances surrounding the princess\u2019s demise are still the subject of much debate.<\/p>\n

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Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One thing\u2019s for certain, and that\u2019s that Diana\u2019s former chauffeur, Steve Davies, believes she would still be alive had he not lost his job.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d have taken a bullet for Diana. My job was my life,\u201d Davies said,\u00a0as per The Sun.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI was always there for her. I went from having the dream job to having to start again from scratch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the fateful night that claimed her life, he added: \u201cAll I know is that if life had taken a different \u00adtrajectory, if I\u2019d been driving her that night in Paris, she would still be here today\u2026 because I would\u2019ve kept her safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed (both partially visible in back seat), bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones (front, left) and driver Henri Paul, in their Mercedes-Benz S280, shortly before the fatal crash which killed Diana, Fayed and Paul, Paris, 31st August 1997. Jacques Langevin\u2019s photo was presented as part of the evidence at the Scott Baker Inquest into the crash, in which the jury found that Diana and Dodi had been unlawfully killed because of the reckless driving of Henri Paul and the pursuing paparazzi. (Photo by Jacques Langevin\/scottbaker-inquests.gov.uk via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A former army man, Davies claimed he never knew exactly why he had been dismissed until he watched the Netflix series\u00a0The Crown.<\/em><\/p>\n

Apparently, journalist Martin Bashir had spread lies about the driver, telling Diana that he had leaked information about her to the press. Allegedly, Bashir was trying to win Diana\u2019s trust shortly before his controversial Panorama interview with her.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Ken Wharfe, who served as Diana\u2019s personal protection officer from 1987 to 1993, also insisted earlier this year that the People\u2019s Princess might still be alive today if key decisions had been made differently.<\/p>\n

\u201dThe one thing that would have saved Diana\u2019s life that night would have been if they\u2019d kicked out the chauffeur and for Rees-Jones to have driven,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

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Princess Diana (1961 \u2013 1997) at the Royal Albert Hall after an English National Ballet production of \u2018Swan Lake\u2019, London, 3rd June 1997. The Princess is wearing a dress by designer Jacques Azagury. (Photo by David M Benett\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cBut he couldn\u2019t do that because he couldn\u2019t speak to Dodi Fayed \u2014 he told him what to do. And that\u2019s a shame, because had Rees-Jones taken that command, had he taken that decision to boot out Henri Paul, you and I would not be having this discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most avoidable mistake, according to Wharfe, was Diana\u2019s decision to dismiss her Scotland Yard security team. After separating from Prince Charles in 1992, she eventually let go of her royal protection.<\/p>\n

Wharfe recalls urging Diana to reconsider just weeks before she cut ties with them. \u201dShe said, \u2018You\u2019ve always been great with advice. If there\u2019s one piece of advice you\u2019d give me, what would it be?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

His response was clear: \u201cI urge you, I urge you, not to lose the Scotland Yard security because we have given you that freedom, we\u2019ve broken rules to allow you to have the normality that you crave for, and there\u2019s no reason why that shouldn\u2019t continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his warning, Diana dismissed her entire security team just four weeks later. Wharfe firmly believes that had Queen Elizabeth insisted she keep them, Diana would have agreed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The former chauffeur of Princess Diana believes the late royal would still be alive today…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":19,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16752,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16750\/revisions\/16752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}