PRINCESS Diana’s romance with Dodi Fayed was faked and the couple slept in separate bedrooms, an insider has claimed.
Diana, then 36, and Dodi, 42, shared holidays and evenings out together after she split from Prince Charles.
However, a staff member who worked for them both claimed they weren’t actually romantically involved, the Daily Star reported.
The yacht worker claimed that Diana’s shows of affection were all for the cameras – and that Dodi even called her “ma’am” privately.
They said: “It’s all a big fake pretence.”
The claims were made by the worker to journalist Paul McMullan in 1997, just weeks before both Diana and Dodi died in a car crash in Paris.
They were made while Diana and Dodi sailed the Mediterranean Sea on board a 200ft yacht, owned by Dodi’s dad Mohamed Al Fayed.
A memember of the yacht’s crew reportedly told McMullan: “They don’t share the same bedroom, he calls her ma’am, is incredibly deferential and respectful.
“But as soon as she goes outside to wave to the paps, she’s bending over and kissing him and hugging him.”
Despite appearing to be in a relationship, McMullan claimed the couple were not.
Speaking during the documentary Sex & Power, he said: “The truth was the opposite.”
In 2017, Diana’s private secretary Michael Gibbins claimed she was not in love with Dodi — but just wanted a fun summer on his yacht.
Gibbins said Diana’s relationship with Dodi would only have lasted a few more weeks had both not died in a Paris car crash in 1997.
He added: “I think frankly she was just having a lovely summer at somebody else’s expense to be perfectly honest.
“When the summer was over, everything would have disintegrated.”
Diana’s final month included two cruises on the Fayeds’ yacht The Jonikal.
The holidays sparked unfounded rumours that Diana was pregnant and about to announce plans to marry Dodi.
It was claimed they picked an engagement ring together in Monte Carlo in early August 1997 — a claim rubbished by Michael.
Asked if Diana had ever mentioned a wedding, he said: “Absolutely not. Nor do I believe that for a second.
“Superficially she was happy. Deep down, more difficult to say.
“She was a pretty complex person. Superficially yes, she enjoyed bobbing around on boats with Dodi Fayed. Who wouldn’t?”
Michael said Diana never fully recovered from the end of her marriage.
He added: “Obviously it was pretty upsetting for her.
“My feeling was that she was determined to build a new her in whatever way. She was probably pretty bitter and angry at the way things had turned out.”
AMERICAN DREAM
It comes amid claims that Diana wanted to move to California with her kids before her death.
Diana’s voice coach Stewart Pearce said Diana wanted to take her sons William and Harry to Malibu as her relationship with film producer Dodi continued, according to The Daily Mail.
But he also claimed that Princess Di didn’t want to be an actress but rather wanted to do work behind the cameras.
“’There were a number of major projects brewing in her consciousness through offers that had been offered to her,” Pearce said.
“But one of the major opportunities that she wanted to create, was to start developing documentaries about three charitable interests that would then be assimilated into major movie pictures.”
“She was planning on spending a lot of time in Hollywood,” he claimed.
But Pearce said even if the move happened, Diana would have stayed behind the cameras when pursuing her new passion.
“She would have stayed behind the lens,” he told The Daily Mail.
“She knew she was much better as a person behind the camera rather than in front of the camera.”
Diana’s butler Paul Burrell also claimed in a 2007 interview that she wanted to move to Fayed’s house in Malibu.
“She said, ‘This is our new life, just won’t it be great, think of the lifestyle the boys — nobody’s judgmental here in America, you don’t have the class system, you don’t have the establishment,’” he said.
