Princess Diana’s close friend Jemima Khan has revealed how the Princess of Wales would seek advice from her on living in Pakistan when Diana made visits to the country. In a Vanity Fair article titled: 'The Grandmother Prince George Never Knew', Jemima says Diana, who dated the heart surgeon from 1995-97, sought her advice during fundraising visits to Lahore.
The story inside the mag details Princess Diana's two-year relationship with Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, whom she dated from 1995 to 1997, just before her passing. (At the time of her death, Diana was linked to Dodi Al Fayed, but friends tell VF that Hasnat was the true love of her life.) “Diana was madly in love with Hasnat Khan and wanted to marry him, even if that meant living in Pakistan, and that’s one of the reasons why we became friends,” she told Vanity Fair contributing editor Sarah Ellison.
Khan told the magazine that Princess Diana visited her twice in Pakistan. “She also went to meet his family secretly to discuss the possibility of marriage to Hasnat. She wanted to know how hard it had been for me to adapt to life in Pakistan.” The princess had told two of her friends that she wanted a daughter with him, Ellison reports in the September issue of the magazine.
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Here the man Hasnat Khan, the real and true love of Diana |
The relationship broke off as Hasnat Khan wouldn’t agree to marry Diana. He was often called the love of her life but he dreaded life amid media glare. “He hated the thought of being in the glare of publicity for the rest of his life,” Jemima added. But according to Ellison, Hasnat’s decision to not marry Diana may have been a “greatest” gift to the princess.
“Everybody sells me out. Hasnat is the one person who will never sell me out,” Diana said to a friend months before her death, writes Ellison. Yet their relationship was serious enough for his family to meet the Princess during her 1996 visit to Pakistan, when she wore a traditional shalwar kameez out of respect for their Muslim faith. Diana's friend Rosa Monckton says Hasnat was the one who initiated the break-up, but other friends argue that Diana ended it because the surgeon refused to marry her.
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Late Princess Diana and Jamaima Khan in Pakistan |
Diana, the Upcoming Movie Starring Noami Watts
Mail Online reports that Diana's relationship with Hasnat is at the centre of the upcoming film Diana, starring Naomi Watts in the title role. Despite this fact, Vanity Fair reveals Hasnat refused to cooperate with filmmakers, remaining very much the man Diana once described to a friend as 'the one person who will never sell me out."
Diana had famously described as "Mr Wonderful" to Hasnat. He worked at different hospitals. Until 1991 he worked in Sydney, Australia and then began to work in London. He served at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London from 1995 to 1996. Then he began to work at the London Chest Hospital. In 2000, he worked at St Bart’s hospital. Then he served at Harefield Hospital.
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Late Princess Diana and Jamaima Khan with PTI chairman Imran Khan in Pakistan |
Dr Hasnat told Telegraph in 2008, "She really enjoyed her time when she came here. She also enjoyed the afternoon tea she had with my family. And I think she very much liked the Asian family's eccentric culture." He speaks tenderly about why he will never divulge the details of his affair with the Princess.
Other lovers, notably former Household Cavalry officer James Hewitt, may have cashed in on their relationship, but the intimate moments Dr Hasnat enjoyed with Diana will never be shared with a wider audience.
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Late Princess Diana and Jamaima Khan in Pakistan |
"Generally I do not talk about people - family or friends. This is how I am. I'm loyal to her [the Princess] not because she was a celebrity but because I'm loyal to all my friends. I'm like that." The September issue of Vanity Fair will be available on newsstands in New York and LA on August 1 and nationally on the iPad, Nook, and Kindle on August 6.
His father Abdul Rasheed Khan, told the Telegraph in 2008 said Dr Khan thought any marriage would not have lasted longer than a year because they 'were on difference planets.' One of princess' closest friends, Rosa Monckton, said the Princess had been "deeply upset and hurt" when Dr Khan broke off their relationship in the summer of 1997.
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This photo of Diana, Princess of Wales, kissing Dodi Al Fayed appeared
in the Sunday Mirror on August 10, 1997, as she vacationed on Dodi's
father's yacht, the Jonikal. |
"She was very much in love with him. She hoped that they would be able to have a future together. She wanted to marry him," she told the hearing. It is understood that at one point the Princess was willing to convert to Islam in order to marry him but abandoned the idea when he took the decision that their relationship could not work in the long term.