From the royal palace to South Africa: Princess Diana’s secret plan with Hasnat Khan

This is claimed by her brother, Charles Spencer, in the new book “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,” in which he recounts some of the most private episodes of the princess’s life.

According to Spencer, Diana had hoped Khan would find a job in Cape Town and that the two would build a life there, far from the pressure of the royal family and the media.

She had even contacted the renowned doctor Christian Barnard, hoping he could help Khan secure a position at Groote Schuur Hospital, the hospital where Barnard had performed the first successful human heart transplant.

“Diana dreamed that she and her boyfriend would live happily — normally — nearby. The other side of the world seemed to offer the possibility of a shelter,” Spencer writes.

Diana and Hasnat Khan first met in 1995, when the princess visited a friend at Royal Brompton Hospital, where Khan worked as a surgeon. According to Spencer’s account, Diana returned to the hospital almost every day for three weeks, and later a secret relationship began between them.

Khan was one of Diana’s most significant relationships after her separation from then-Prince Charles in 1992.

The couple tried to keep the romance away from public attention. On one occasion, Diana wore a black wig to enter the famous Soho jazz club Ronnie Scott’s unrecognized. On another occasion, Khan hid in a car’s trunk to enter Kensington Palace and meet Diana.

According to Spencer, Diana had gone so far as to ask her butler, Paul Burrell, to find a priest who could marry her to Khan, who is Muslim. The doctor, however, later described this as a “ridiculous idea.”

Diana even visited Khan’s family in Pakistan and introduced him to her sons, William and Harry.

Why did the couple split?

In a 2008 inquest into Diana’s death, Khan stated he feared marriage to the most famous woman in the world would be too difficult for him.

“I knew I would not be able to live a normal life,” he had said. According to Khan, the two had also considered the possibility of moving to Pakistan, but Diana ultimately rejected the idea.

He said it was Diana who ended the relationship after returning from a holiday with Mohamed Al-Fayed and his family in July 1997. Shortly afterward, she began a relationship with Al-Fayed’s son, Dodi Fayed, who lost his life together with Diana in the car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997.