In September 1995, Princess Diana visited the Royal Brompton Hospital in London to see the husband of a friend, who was recovering from heart surgery. There she met one of the doctors, Hasnat Khan, a Pakistani-born heart surgeon in his mid-thirties.
He was quiet, serious and devoted to his work, and he did not seem impressed by fame. Friends later said that was exactly what drew Diana to him.
Over the next two years, the two built a relationship that stayed largely hidden. Diana reportedly visited the hospital late at night and went to great lengths to avoid photographers. Only a small circle of friends knew. According to them, she affectionately called him Mr Wonderful.
In 1996, Diana travelled to Lahore to support Imran Khan’s cancer hospital. During that trip she reportedly also met members of Hasnat Khan’s family, a sign of how seriously she took the relationship.
Friends said Diana hoped the relationship had a future. But Khan was an intensely private man, and the prospect of living under constant press attention reportedly troubled him deeply. A life with the most photographed woman on earth would have meant giving up the quiet life and the work he valued.
In the summer of 1997, the relationship ended. Only weeks later, Diana was photographed on holiday with Dodi Fayed, and those pictures went around the world. Some of her friends later suggested that her feelings for Khan had not disappeared.
Khan stayed silent for years and never sold his story. When the official inquest into Diana’s death took place in 2008, a statement from him describing their relationship was read to the court.
In 2013, their story became the subject of the film Diana, starring Naomi Watts. Khan reportedly dismissed it as inaccurate.
For a woman who lived her whole adult life in front of cameras, it may have been the one love story she tried hardest to keep for herself.