Britain’s royal family was blindsided by Princess Diana’s 1995 “Panorama” interview with Martin Bashir, which continues to generate controversy with the claims of her brother, Martin Spencer, that Bashir tricked her into participating.
Now, one of Diana’s former lovers is coming forward to share his own experiences with Bashir, and that even her teenage son warned her the journalist was “not a good person.”
British surgeon Hasnat Khan, who was romantically involved with Diana at the time she did the interview, told the Daily Mail that Bashir “filled her head with rubbish” in order to land the career-making interview.
RELATED: Royal Chef Details The ‘Artistic License’ That ‘The Crown’ Took With Charles & Diana
“Of course I am not naïve. I knew that there was a part of Diana that wanted to give an interview but my question is if Martin Bashir had not been there persuading her, would she ever have done it?” he added.
According to Khan, Prince William “hated the Panorama interview and told her she had made a mistake, which had upset her.”
William, then 13, “was very direct and said ‘Mummy, he’s not a good person,’” Khan said, referencing Bashir.
“One of her most attractive qualities was her vulnerability. It was what endeared her to the public. I later realized that Martin picked on those vulnerabilities and exploited them,” Khan told the Mail.
“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,” said Khan, who has rarely spoken publicly about his relationship with Diana.
Khan, in fact, met Bashir in a pub ahead of time, and came away feeling suspicious.
RELATED: Princess Diana’s Brother Reminds Viewers That ‘The Crown’ Is ‘Fiction’
“Almost from the word go, he started asking me the most direct personal questions about Diana and our relationship. Why didn’t we get married? When were we going to get married? That kind of thing,” he said. “There was something about Bashir I didn’t like. I told her to be careful of him.”
