Paul Burrell Publishes New Book About Princess Diana

Posted on September 5, 2006

In his sensational new book, The Way We Were: Remembering Diana (Morrow), Princess Diana's former butler Paul Burell declares that Diana was not engaged to Dodi Fayad and that the ring he gave her most certainly was not an engagement ring.

At the time of her death, Princess Diana was wearing a diamond ring given to her by Dodi Al-Fayed, according to a new book by Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell. The $5,000 ring was a friendship ring, not an engagement ring, according to Burrell, who claims the princess was not ready to remarry. "Her precise words to me were: 'I want another marriage like I want a bad rash,' " he writes in his new book, serialized in Britain's Mail on Sunday.
Why does the ring matter? Because Dodi's father, Mohammed Al-Fayed, claims his son, a Muslim, was about to pop the question, so the young lovers were killed on royal orders. It is a claim everyone implicated strenuously denies. "He [Dodi's father] must accept the Princess and Dodi had no more than a summer fling," Burrell writes. "The world must stop believing Diana and Dodi were due to get married, because that simply isn't true."
Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty Magazine, said that Burrell's motives may not be entirely pure. "Paul Burrell needs to make money, and he makes money from his memories of Diana," Seward said. "But they are pretty valid, because he was there and nobody else was."

According to a statement issued by publisher William Morrow, The Way We Were takes "the reader into the lively day-to-day life at Kensington Palace and includes, for the first time ever, a uniquely personal record of that time."

"With previously unseen photographs of the interiors, Burrell takes the reader from room to room, and from memory to memory, in a remarkably candid narrative that only he could tell," the statement said.

The book promises some interesting new facts about Diana.

Burrell writes that Diana had no plans to marry her companion, Dodi Fayed, who also died in the 1997 Paris car crash along with their driver, Henri Paul. Just days before the fatal accident, Dodi had reportedly given Diana a gold Bulgari ring.
"She made it clear this was not an engagement ring. It was nothing more than an addition to her collection of costume jewelry," he writes. "She said how romantic he had been and giggled with relief that the ring had not been more significant. 'Pheeeew!' She gave an exaggerated sigh, suggesting she was happy and that engagement was the furthest thing from her mind."
Burrell also wrote in "A Royal Duty" that Diana was not serious about Dodi, observing that "All the princess' closest friends know the identity of the only man with whom she had enjoyed a happy, long-term relationship since her divorce. And it was not Dodi al Fayed." The man's name was not revealed.

Ok, we're in. It's a must read.