James Hewitt, the former cavalry officer who had a five-year affair with Princess Diana, has spoken out about the bitter rift between Prince William and Prince Harry. In a rare TV interview on Good Morning Britain, Hewitt, now 66, claimed that Diana “would have done her best” to repair the strained relationship between her sons.
“I think that any mother would be worried and concerned about such a rift… and she’d do her best to try and get them together,” he said, adding that the late Princess of Wales would have been deeply troubled by their fallout.
Hewitt’s relationship with Diana, which lasted from 1986 to 1991, was one of the most controversial aspects of her life, publicly confirmed by the Princess herself in her infamous BBC Panorama interview in 1995.
During his GMB appearance, Hewitt was primarily there to discuss Operation Safedrop, a humanitarian aid effort delivering supplies to Ukraine. But when host Richard Madeley brought up Diana, he didn’t shy away from sharing his thoughts, even revealing the last time they spoke.
He said their final conversation happened shortly after Diana’s bombshell interview with Martin Bashir, where she laid bare the turmoil in her marriage to Prince Charles. Hewitt didn’t hold back in criticizing Bashir and the BBC for the way they secured the interview, which was later exposed as being obtained through deceitful tactics.
“It was a stitch-up job. It was appalling of Bashir to inveigle, lie to her—criminal activity, absolutely appalling,” he said, slamming the journalist for using fake bank statements to manipulate Diana into taking part.
Hewitt added that Diana seemed “distant” during their final chat, admitting that the fallout from the interview created problems for her. “But I’m trying to move on from that. This is, admittedly, personal for me, and I just want to help as best I can,” he said.
The ongoing feud between William and Harry has been widely reported ever since Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down from royal duties in January 2020. Since then, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have made a series of claims against the Royal Family, from their bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview to Harry’s tell-all memoir Spare. Their Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan also detailed their reasons for stepping back, painting a picture of a deepening divide between the brothers.
Princess Diana, who died in a tragic car crash in Paris in 1997, never got the chance to see her sons grow up into the men they are today. But if Hewitt’s words are anything to go by, she would have done everything in her power to mend their broken bond.
'I see it as a duty to help those less fortunate than we are.'
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) February 25, 2025
James Hewitt describes how emotional he was when delivering aid to Ukraine and how important it was to team up with John Lawler, founder of Operation SafeDrop, to help those in need. pic.twitter.com/azfd1pz57p
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