Princess Diana’s ex-lover James Hewitt issues a heartfelt message to feuding William and Harry and explains how their ‘concerned’ mother would get them to reconcile if she were alive

James Hewitt today claimed his former lover Princess Diana ‘would be concerned’ about the ongoing rift between her warring sons Princes William and Harry.

The former cavalry officer said in a rare TV interview that the late Princess of Wales, who died in Paris in 1997, would have done ‘her best to try and get them together’.

He was asked on ITV’s Good Morning Britain by host Richard Madeley whether Diana would have been able to ‘make a rapprochement possible’ between her sons.

The 66-year-old said: ‘I think any mother would be worried and concerned about such a rift, as you put it, and she’d do her best to try and get them together.’

Diana had a five-year affair with Mr Hewitt between 1986 and 1991, with the Princess publicly confessing to the relationship during her BBC Panorama interview in 1995. Diana married then-Prince Charles in 1981, separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996.

Mr Hewitt was appearing on the ITV show this morning primarily to talk about his involvement in Operation Safedrop, which is delivering humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

But he was also asked about Diana, and spoke about the approach to mental health having changed since her death. He said: ‘I think we’ve progressed and it’s seemingly possible to talk about those kind of problems now, in a way I think that’s a good thing.’

Mr Hewitt also commented on the BBC’s treatment of Diana relating to the infamous Panorama interview with Martin Bashir, for which the broadcaster later apologised.

Mr Hewitt said: ‘It was a stitch up job. It was appalling of Bashir to inveigled, lied to her, criminal activity, absolutely appalling. As I’ve said, I hate bullies and bullying and arrogant people and I think it’s appalling.’

Asked when he last spoke to Diana, Mr Hewit said: ‘After that, just after.’ 

Mr Madeley asked him ‘how was that’, and he replied: ‘Distant, probably.’

Mr Madeley said the interview ‘created real problems, didn’t it’, and Mr Hewitt responded: ‘Yes, it did create problems, but I’m trying to move on from that, and this is admittedly personal for me to try and move on and to help as best I can.’

In a previous interview in March 2017, Mr Hewitt spoke out about his affair with Diana, denying long-standing rumours he could have been Harry’s father.

In that interview with Channel Seven’s Sunday Night in Australia, Mr Hewitt was asked: ‘Are you Harry’s father?’ He replied: ‘No, I’m not.’

The host asked him: ‘Why does that keep being repeated?’ He said: ‘It sells papers’.

During Harry’s High Court case in June 2023 against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over alleged unlawful information gathering, the Prince suggested stories on rumours his father was Mr Hewitt were aimed at ousting him from the Royal Family.

Harry referred to an article in The People newspaper from 2002 with the headline ‘Plot to rob the DNA of Harry’ which reported a bid to steal a sample of the Prince’s DNA to check his parentage.

The Duke described the stories about the rumours as ‘cruel’, saying he was 18 at the time of the article and had lost his mother just a few years earlier.

‘They were hurtful, mean and cruel. I was always left questioning the motives behind the stories,’ he said. ‘Were the newspapers keen to put doubt into the minds of the public so I might be ousted from the Royal Family?’

Harry added that his mother had not met Mr Hewitt until after his birth in 1984 and that he learnt of this timeline in 2014, but that this was common knowledge amongst the defendant’s journalists.

The Duke was later awarded £140,600 in damages by a judge over his case against MGN.

As for Mr Hewitt, he previously described his five-year relationship with Diana as ‘exciting and sexy’.

In a magazine interview with Zoo in January 2013, he said: ‘The situation that Princess Diana and I were in made it exciting and sexy because it was risky.

‘The danger spiced it up a bit, if you know what I mean.’

Diana’s Panorama interview in 1995 saw her open up about her struggles with royal life, how she felt isolated and unsupported and how her husband Charles’s staff wanted to undermine her.

She confessed to adultery with Mr Hewitt, and said of Charles’ affair with Camilla Parker Bowles: ‘There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.’

The interview was broadcast on November 20, 1995 and 23million viewers tuned in.

But a subsequent inquiry by Lord Dyson found in May 2021 that the BBC had covered up Mr Bashir’s ‘deceitful behaviour’.

It also concluded that the journalist was in ‘serious breach’ of the BBC’s producer guidelines when he faked bank statements and showed them to Diana’s brother Earl Spencer to gain access to the Princess.

William and Harry condemned the broadcaster for its treatment of Diana and the corporation has since apologised and vowed never to air the interview again.

Mr Bashir, 62, a former religion editor, left the BBC in April 2021 citing health reasons following Covid-19-related complications.