Author says Princess Diana regretted her shocking BBC interview
Patrick Jephson, Princess Diana’s former chief of staff claims she regretted doing the famous BBC interview where she spoke out about Prince Charles’ affair with Camilla Parker Bowles.
Princess Diana's devoted driver will never forget the day the beloved royal died in a car crash in Paris, along with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and their driver at the time.
Colin Tebbutt, now 77, was one of the first people to get a call that dreadful night. He was tasked with retrieving the body of the Princess of Wales, then 36, and bringing it safely back home to England, where she would be buried.
Tebbutt recalled Diana's room at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital being packed with doctors, nurses and others – including former French President Jacques Chirac – hours after the Aug. 31, 1997 car wreck.
While Tebbutt was told the princess had died, he didn't believe the tragic news was true until he saw her with his own eyes.
After emptying Diana's hospital room, he turned on the fan — it was an extremely warm day, he recalled.
"I look round, and the eyelids and the front of the hair of the Princess were moving,” he previously described to People. “I thought, ‘God, she’s alive.'"
For a moment Tebbutt was hopeful, but he then realized it was just the air.
“Within a second, I realized what was happening. Turned around, a couple seconds to myself, I managed to get it together again. But that was the one bit when I felt I lost myself," he told the publication.
But Tebbutt knew he had to gather himself for the princess' family.
He told The Sun he hired a local undertaker to help with her makeup and hair before her ex-husband Prince Charles arrived.
“When I returned, she looked 100 percent better but it was one of the hottest days of the year and the room was like a furnace," he recalled to the British newspaper. “He did her hair nicely then he put a rosary on the bed."
Days later, on Sept. 6, 1997, millions of mourners watched Diana's televised funeral, including her two sons, Princes William and Harry — then 15 and 12, respectively.
The decision for Harry and William to walk behind her coffin in front of millions of mourners was reportedly a collective family decision. Friends of the royal family have claimed that it was their grandfather, Prince Philip, who reportedly told the grieving young boys, “If I do it, will you?”
Fox News' Stephanie Nolasco contributed to this report.
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