Princess Diana’s personal driver and aide spoke out about her untimely death for the first time in 20 years on Wednesday, in an intimate interview with Good Morning Britain.
Colin Tebbutt was one of Princess Diana’s most trusted aides. He didn’t have the duty of driving her on August 31, 1997, when she lost her life in a fatal accident at the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel in Paris. Henri Paul drove Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed. All three suffered fatal injuries while Diana’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, who was also in the car, was the sole survivor.
While some people feel the accident was a setup, others, such as Tebutt, feel that the driver took the curve too fast, resulting in him crashing head-on into a pillar.
“I think they went in too fast but in the inquest that was sorted out, I’ve driven through the tunnel myself,” Tebutt told Good Morning Britain, referring to the fatal car crash.
Watch our full interview with Princess Diana's trusted aide, about the 'very emotional day' she diedhttps://t.co/caN0HOzUXg pic.twitter.com/Kr24eUMbTN
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) August 10, 2017
Tebutt later visited Diana while she lay lifeless in the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in France. He remembered trying to wrap his mind around Diana lying there while Prince Charles and her sisters made their way to hospital to collect her body and take her back to England.
“It’s very difficult and emotional to see a person lying in a bed and not in a mortuary. I went and got some fans to cool the room down. As I turned around, the eyelashes and hair of the princess were moving caused by the fan and that just struck me…..I had to turn away, think about it and then grip myself back and get on with what I was doing.”
“I was worried about the room, which was very, very hot,” Tebutt continued. “We looked up at the window above the Princess’s bed and could see people on rooftops, trying to take photos. ‘It didn’t seem as if they knew which room to look for at that stage, and I asked for blankets to hang up at the window, so nobody could see in.”
Tebutt fought back tears during the interview. He found it difficult to talk about the incident even 20 years after the fact. He said he always felt responsible for Diana’s death, a burden he stills carries around today.
“Yes you always do [feel responsible], that’s not good to have in the mind.”
[Feature Photo: AP]
