When Princess Diana was killed in a devastating car crash in Paris nearly three decades ago, three of the four people inside the Mercedes lost their lives. The only survivor was bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones.
Rees-Jones suffered severe injuries in the crash, including devastating facial trauma. During an 11-hour operation, surgeons reportedly used an old wedding photograph as a reference while reconstructing his face.
Now, according to People, 29 years later, Rees-Jones is 58 and still carries physical reminders of that tragic night. However, he has since built a largely private life away from the intense public attention surrounding one of the most closely examined tragedies in modern history.
Rees-Jones was not directly employed as Princess Diana’s bodyguard. The former British Army serviceman worked security for the Fayed family and was assigned to protect Dodi Fayed, Diana’s boyfriend. As a result, Diana was also under his protection whenever she was with Dodi.
Rees-Jones later admitted that protecting the couple could be incredibly challenging because Dodi often kept his security team in the dark about his plans.
“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 issue became especially significant on August 30, 1997. After Diana and Dodi had dinner at the Ritz Paris, their plans for leaving the hotel suddenly changed. A decoy vehicle reportedly departed from the front while the couple left through the back in a Mercedes driven by Henri Paul. Dodi allegedly did not want a bodyguard to accompany them, but Rees-Jones insisted on going.
He sat in the front passenger seat, while Diana and Dodi were seated behind him.
Within minutes, photographers were following the vehicle toward the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. The Mercedes entered the tunnel at high speed before crashing head-on into a concrete support column.
Henri Paul and Dodi died at the scene. Diana was taken to a hospital but died hours later at the age of 36. Rees-Jones was left with devastating injuries to his head, chest, and face.
“I have never seen so many fractures on a man who was still alive,” surgeon Luc Chikhani later said.
Doctors reportedly used more than 30 metal plates and screws to reconstruct Rees-Jones’ face, relying on photographs from his wedding to help determine what he looked like before the crash. Despite sitting closest to the front of the wreckage, he became the only person to survive.
However, surviving the crash did not end Rees-Jones’ ordeal. His head injuries caused significant memory loss, placing him at the center of questions surrounding the vehicle’s final moments. Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi’s father, later accused Rees-Jones of hiding the truth as part of an alleged conspiracy involving Diana and Dodi’s deaths.
Rees-Jones strongly denied those 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 was involved in any cover-up.
Eventually, Rees-Jones began rebuilding his life. After recovering, he briefly returned to work for the Fayed family before resigning in 1998. He later continued his career in security, working with organizations including the United Nations, Halliburton, and AstraZeneca. He remarried in 2003 and went on to raise a family in England.
