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Princess Diana was left shaking after hearing the news of the murder of her fashion designer friend Gianni Versace in 1997—just one month before her untimely death in a Paris car crash, according to a new book written by her former bodyguard.
Lee Sansum, an ex-military policeman who went on to become a private bodyguard employed by Mohamed Al-Fayed in the 1990s, has opened up about his experience guarding the princess during the last months of her life when she accompanied her partner Dodi Fayed to the south of France on vacation, in a newly published book titled Protecting Diana.
The book has been released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the royal's death, alongside Dodi Fayed, in a high-speed car crash while traveling through a tunnel in Paris on August 31, 1997. Sansum was not assigned to accompany the couple on their visit to Paris.
Sansum met Diana in St. Tropez on the yacht owned by billionaire Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed in July 1997.
At the time, the princess was in a new relationship with Al-Fayed's son, film producer Dodi. Press and paparazzi interest in the couple intensified as they attempted to secure pictures of the couple together.
During the vacation onboard the yacht known as the Jonikal, Diana received the news that Versace, 50, had been shot and killed outside his Miami home on July 15, 1997.
The princess and Versace had formed a close working relationship as he designed a number of her most famous dresses following her divorce from Prince Charles in 1996.
"That morning, the security team were having breakfast when we heard the news that Versace had been killed," Sansum wrote of the event, adding that while walking around the yacht he bumped into Diana.
"When she turned, we were face to face and she was only about a foot away from me. Diana was in tears and looked very distressed," he said.
"'You've heard about my friend Versace?'" the bodyguard recounted that Diana asked him before seeking his professional assessment of the murder.
"It was clear she was asking me about my professional view on the killing," he wrote.
"'I don't know,' I admitted but I echoed the thoughts of all of the security team that morning: 'It does sound like it might have been a professional job.'"
"Then she said something that always stayed with me," he continued. "'Do you think they'll do that to me?' She was shaking..."
Versace's killer was later identified as 27-year-old Andrew Cunanan who was linked to the murders of four other men in 1997. The motive for Versace's murder is unknown.
Diana attended the designer's funeral in Milan on July 22 that year alongside her friend Sir Elton John and a number of the fashion industry's most influential figures.
When news broke that Diana and Dodi had been killed in a car crash in the early hours of August 31 in Paris, Sansum writes of his shock and devastation given that, he claims, the couple were planning to move to the United States where he had signed up to join them.
"I was devastated," he said.
"I had got to know Diana just a month earlier and really liked her. I was planning to go to the U.S. with her and Dodi and now they were both gone.
"Her two young sons had lost a mother they loved and who adored them. My boss, Mohamed, had lost his son. Dodi's stepmother, brothers and sisters would all be grief-stricken. It was terrible and I felt completely helpless."
On the findings of the inquest into the circumstances surrounding the crash delivered in 2008 that the princess' death had been caused by the "grossly negligent driving of the following vehicles [the paparazzi] and of the Mercedes driver Henri Paul," Sansum has said he remains skeptical.
He maintained that had he been on duty with the royal and Dodi on the night of the accident, he would have insisted the passengers of the car were wearing their seatbelts, something that was revealed they were not.
Protecting Diana: A Bodyguard's Story by Lee Sansum with Howard Linskey is out now.
Newsweek approached representatives of Sansum for comment.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more