Princess Diana Feared She Could Be Assassinated Like Her Friend Versace, Bodyguard Reveals

August 31 marks 25 years since Princess Diana died in a high-speed car crash in Paris. Her bodyguard Lee Sansum has released a book titled "Protecting Diana: A Bodyguard's Story," which details his work as part of the security team that protected Diana and her sons during the princess' last summer alive.

Princess Diana was afraid that she could be assassinated like her friend, Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace, who was gunned down outside his mansion in Miami in July 1997, her bodyguard Lee Sansum has revealed.

In his book titled "Protecting Diana: A Bodyguard's Story," Sansum writes about his experience as part of the security team which protected the Princess of Wales and her sons, William and Harry, during their summer vacation in France in 1997, shortly before Diana's tragic death in a car crash in Paris.

After the news about Versace's death emerged, Sansum said he had a conversation with Diana in which she revealed her fears to him.

"I went to the stern of the boat. The princess was there... When I went in, I turned around, and she was crying. She came towards me, and she was talking about Versace. She was extremely upset... And she was really, really tearful...She asked me, ‘Do you think they’re going to kill me?’ She was very concerned about the potential risks to her life at that time. I said: ‘You’re safe here. You’ve got great security. We’re not going to let anything happen to you.’ ... She stopped crying, but she was really upset… [And] I made a quick exit," Sansum wrote.

Also, Diana's bodyguard recalls that there were "hundreds" of paparazzi surrounding their yacht daily, adding that the princess said she had already got used to them in the UK and there was nothing one could do about the situation. According to Sansum, Diana also told him she was considering moving to the US, where her boyfriend at the time, Egyptian businessman Dodi Al Fayed, had a "place out in California." She thought she could "get away from it all" there, the bodyguard said.

Tragically, the paparazzi played a major role in Princess Diana's death, when a Mercedes she and her boyfriend Al Fayed were traveling in after a dinner at a Paris restaurant crashed at a high speed in the Pont de l'Alma underpass late on August 31, 1997. The crash happened after Diana's driver Henry Paul apparently tried to drive around a vehicle in front of him to escape the paparazzi, who were chasing Diana on motorcycles and in cars. He lost control of the vehicle and collided head-on with a pillar that supported the roof of the tunnel.

The driver and Dodi Al Fayed died on the spot, while the Princess of Wales was pronounced dead at a Paris hospital hours later. The only survivor in the crash was Diana’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones.