Princess Diana's Bodyguard Was the Only Person to Survive Her Fatal Crash — Where Is He Now?

When Princess Diana died in a horrific car crash in Paris nearly three decades ago, three of the four people inside the Mercedes were killed. The fourth, bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, somehow survived. His injuries were so severe that surgeons used an old wedding photograph as a guide while rebuilding his shattered face during an 11-hour operation.

Now, according to People, twenty-nine years later, Rees-Jones is 58, still bears the scars of that night, and has built a remarkably private life far removed from one of the most scrutinized deaths in modern history.

Rees-Jones wasn't actually employed by Diana. The former British Army serviceman worked security for the Fayed family and was assigned to protect Dodi Fayed, Diana's boyfriend. That put the princess under his protection whenever she was with Dodi.

But Rees-Jones later said protecting the couple could be maddeningly difficult because Dodi routinely kept his security team guessing. "Dodi was a pain in the neck," he said. "He didn't want to tell anybody where he was going ahead of time, so it was difficult for a bodyguard to set up security."

That problem became critical on August 30, 1997. After Diana and Dodi ate at the Ritz Paris, their plans to leave the hotel abruptly changed. A decoy was sent from the front while the couple slipped out the back in a Mercedes driven by Henri Paul. Dodi reportedly didn't want a bodyguard accompanying them, but Rees-Jones insisted.

He took the front passenger seat. Diana and Dodi sat behind him.

Within minutes, photographers were following them toward the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. The Mercedes entered the tunnel at high speed and slammed head-on into a concrete support column.

Paul and Dodi died at the scene. Diana was rushed to a hospital but died hours later at 36. Rees-Jones was left with catastrophic head, chest, and facial injuries.

"I have never seen so many fractures on a man who was still alive," surgeon Luc Chikhani later said.

Doctors used more than 30 metal plates and screws to reconstruct his face, consulting photographs from his wedding to determine what he had looked like before the impact. Somehow, the man sitting closest to the front of the wreckage became its only survivor.

Survival didn't end Rees-Jones' ordeal. His head injuries left him with significant memory loss, placing him at the center of questions about what happened during the car's final moments. Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi's father, eventually accused Rees-Jones of concealing the truth as part of a conspiracy surrounding Diana and Dodi's deaths.

Rees-Jones forcefully denied the allegations and released his memoir, The Bodyguard's Story, in 2000. "It's not so-called survivor's guilt," he said that year. "It's the fact that 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."

Official investigations later rejected claims that Rees-Jones had participated in a cover-up.