Princess Diana’s Bodyguard Speaks Out: Sole Crash Survivor Still Haunted Nearly 30 Years Later

Troubled bodyguard the sole survivor of the Paris car crash that killed Princess Diana and two others nearly 30 years ago — remains haunted by the horrific tragedy!

But courtiers confess he’s not the only one — as guilt-stricken King Charles, 76, believes he has his dead ex-wife’s blood on his hands!

On Aug. 31, 1997, former soldier Rees-Jones — an employee of late Harrods department store honcho Mohamed al Fayed — was enlisted to escort the billionaire’s son Dodi, 42, and 36-year-old Diana, the playboy’s latest galpal.

But shortly after the party left the Ritz Hotel, soused chauffeur Henri Paul lost control of their Mercedes-Benz while speeding through the Pont del’Alma tunnel — and smashed into a pillar!

Dodi and Paul were declared dead at the scene, while Diana and Rees-Jones were pulled from the mangled wreckage with horrific injuries.

As GLOBE readers know, the People’s Princess did not survive, leaving behind her heartbroken sons — Prince William, now 42, and Prince Harry, 40.

Rees-Jones spent five weeks in the hospital with severe brain and chest trauma. Surgeons were forced to rely on old photos — and 150 pieces of titanium — to rebuild his fractured facial bones!

During a 2008 inquest, the ex-paratrooper said of the immediate aftermath of the crash, “I remember having heard somebody moaning and the name Dodi was uttered, but I don’t know who said it. On the other hand, if there was no one else there apart from us, I conclude that it was Princess Diana as it was a female voice.”

But he seemed to dismiss his own recollections, saying: “These memories are vague and I myself doubt them, but I’m mentioning them as these memories are coming back to me repeatedly.”

While the onetime muscle physically recovered, Rees-Jones admits he “goes mad thinking about ‘if onlys.’ ”

He recalls bristling at Dodi’s demand that the two cars the group had used earlier that day would leave from the front of the hotel to serve as decoys to ditch paparazzi, while Ritz security chief Paul would personally drive Di and Dodi in a hotel limo, leaving from the rear.

“I wasn’t happy, as it meant Dodi would be splitting the security officers, but I went along with it,” Rees-Jones says.

The military veteran also insists he wasn’t aware that Paul was pickled!

Rees-Jones explains, “A mistake was made by Henri Paul to get behind the wheel of the car when he knew that he had been drinking. Not declaring either to us or to Dodi that he wasn’t fit to drive.”

When speaking of the chauffeur’s actions behind the wheel, Rees-Jones shares, “I don’t know what speed the vehicle was going because I don’t remember. But if Henri Paul had been driving so fast that it was a security risk, that his driving was —that he couldn’t control the car, that it was going too fast — then I would like to think that I would have said, ‘Slow down.’ ”

Rees-Jones discusses the ordeal — and his bruised sense of “moral responsibility” — in his 2000 tell-all The Bodyguard’s Story: Diana, The Crash and the Sole Survivor.

He writes, “I was paid to look after Dodi and his guest, and they died on my shift. I’ve got this hanging over me for the rest of my life.

“A couple of times I felt if I had died instead of them it would have been much easier.”

But as Rees-Jones grapples with the past, courtiers say cancer-stricken King Charles is also plagued by demons for sabotaging his marriage with Diana by carrying on with Camilla Parker Bowles, who has since become his wife and queen!

A palace insider tells GLOBE, “Charles will never take outright responsibility for Diana’s death — but he know how miserable she was over his longtime affair with Camilla. That unhappiness sent her running into Dodi’s arms — and into her grave!

“He regrets that William and Harry will never forgive him for the pain he and Camilla caused their mother. That’s why the monarch issued a deathbed ultimatum — telling William if he protects Camil- la’s palace standing after he inherits the throne, the new king can banish Harry and his uppity American wife, Meghan, for badmouthing the royal family!”