The Truth About Princess Diana's Ex, Hasnat Khan

Decades after Princess Diana's death, the public is still fascinated by her tragic life. This obsession carries over to the royal's past relationships. Princess Diana was linked to several men throughout her life, including Major James Hewitt and Dodi Fayed, who also perished in the car crash that killed Princess Diana.

One of Diana's lesser-known exes is Hasnat Khan who, while less high-profile than some of her other beaus, was no less committed to the icon. Per Biography, Khan met the royal in 1995 when she was visiting a friend at the hospital. Diana quickly fell for the heart surgeon, and they were together for two years until shortly before her untimely death. 

Princess Diana began dating Fayed after their split, but reportedly never got over Khan. The month after their breakup, Diana was in the fateful car accident that took her life.

Khan had not revealed much about his relationship with Princess Diana, but he did speak out after a scandal broke out concerning Martin Bashir, who famously interviewed Princess Diana in 1995. The televised interview exposed the secrets of her marriage to Prince Charles, and also revealed many of her struggles to adapt to royal life. Bashir allegedly falsified documents to get close to Princess Diana and to land the interview, which led to a BBC investigation in 2020 (via The Guardian).

Khan told the Daily Mail that his then-girlfriend was "manipulated" by Bashir. "One of her most attractive qualities was her vulnerability," said Khan. "It was what endeared her to the public. I later realized that Martin picked on those vulnerabilities and exploited them. He was very persuasive with Diana. It was all about him being from the BBC, being respectable and very pious even. But he filled her head with rubbish..."

Khan also spoke of meeting Bashir, who he said asked many intrusive questions. "Almost from the word go, he started asking me the most direct personal questions about Diana and our relationship," he said. "Why didn't we get married? When were we going to get married? That kind of thing. It was intimate stuff."

While Khan very rarely gives interviews, he has been adamant about protecting Princess Diana's legacy. He similarly spoke out in 2013 after the release of a trailer for the film Diana, which explores their love story. Khan was not impressed with how their relationship was portrayed and told the Daily Mail that he had not signed off on the film.

"It is based on gossip and Diana's friends talking about a relationship that they didn't know much about, and some of my relatives who didn't know much about it either," said Khan. "It is all based on hypotheses and gossip."

The surgeon also criticized a still image from the film. "You could tell from that picture that it is all just presumed about how we would behave with each other, and they have got it completely wrong," he said."There wasn't any hierarchy in our relationship. She wasn't a Princess and I wasn't a doctor. We were friends, and normal people stand like friends with each other. That one still picture told me a lot about how they will portray things in the film and I can see [it] is wrong."