For nearly 30 years, royal chauffeur Steve Davies was baffled about why he had been suddenly shunned by his boss, Princess Diana, then made redundant from his dream job.
It wasn’t until he was watching an episode of Netflix’s TV series The Crown that he finally learned why he had been frozen out all those years ago.
Now Steve, formerly one of the late Princess of Wales’ most trusted staff members, has spoken out about the deception that cost him his job and led to Diana going to her grave falsely believing he had betrayed her.
And he believes if he’d still been driving her, she’d never have been in the car crash that took her life in 1997.
“All I know is that if life had taken a different trajectory, if I’d been driving her that night in Paris, she would still be here today. I would have kept her safe,” he asserts.
Former soldier Steve, 61, started working for Diana and her husband, then Prince Charles, in 1989. He was her personal driver after her marriage broke up. He got on so well with her and her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. Once he even joined them on a well publicised outing to theme park Alton Towers, riding a rollercoaster beside William.
Then, late in 1995, a royal aide told him that he wouldn’t be driving the princess any more.
“It happened overnight,” he says. “They told me she didn’t want me anywhere near her car. They didn’t even let me wash or hoover it. I was still on her payroll. But, all I could do was sit in the garage for 10 hours a day doing nothing. Then, I’d simply go home. I was heartbroken and humiliated.”
Steve was eventually made redundant in March 1996. He says Diana – who’d once invited him to join her as she was treated to an impromptu concert by Sir Elton John and George Michael while having dinner at Elton’s house – was “glacial” to him on his last day.
“Someone ushered me into her drawing room at Kensington Palace. She said, ‘Bye Steve, thanks for everything,’ shook my hand and walked out. She left me standing alone, without having said a word in return.”
Mystified about why she treated him the way she did, Steve finally found out after watching an episode of The Crown in 2022. It covered the tactics that now-disgraced BBC reporter Martin Bashir used to persuade Diana to do the infamous Panorama interview with him, in which she opened up about the failure of her marriage.
Bashir told a number of lies to Diana and her brother, Earl Spencer, 60. His lies were about a conspiracy against her involving her staff, the security services, royal courtiers and the media. It was an attempt to make her feel insecure. He wanted to win her trust and convince her to do an exclusive interview with him. He hired a graphic designer to forge bank statements that “proved” someone had paid those close to her, such as her former private secretary Patrick Jephson, to spy on her.
And he told her Steve was selling information about her to the media, saying he “feeds Today newspaper… change your chauffeur”. Steve says Bashir also told Diana someone had bugged and was tracking her car.
Allegations that Bashir had used deceptive measures to persuade an increasingly paranoid Diana to do an interview with him had surfaced as far back as 1996, but it wasn’t until 2020 and the 25th anniversary of the bombshell interview once dubbed the “scoop of the century”, that the scandal blew up and Bashir’s actions were revealed. Steve still had no idea he was caught up in it until he watched The Crown two years later. He heard his name mentioned and it clicked.
A Supreme Court judge had been appointed to head an investigation into the claims. They found Bashir guilty of deceit and breaching BBC editorial conduct.
Steve, meanwhile, sued the BBC for slander and earlier this year settled with the broadcaster for a “substantial sum”. The BBC’s lawyer conceded the false allegations made about Steve most likely caused Diana to “doubt [Steve’s] loyalty and professionalism. That may well have contributed to his redundancy six months later.”
Steve, who now works for a wealthy private family, says his job for the princess was his life.
“I’d have taken a bullet for Diana. I was forced out of a job I wanted to be my life’s work. Royal service is about trust and loyalty, showing discretion and having a sense of duty. Your reputation, your good name, is everything. Martin Bashir robbed me of mine by making those allegations to Diana.
“I’m not the kind of man who wastes time and energy being bitter. But she died believing I had betrayed her and that’s something I can’t ever forgive or forget.”
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