Princess Diana‘s passionate – but tumultuous – love affair with a married English art dealer in the early 90s, just months after her separation from the now King, once saw the late royal turn up at his family home naked except for a fur coat and tiara.
The eye-opening new details about Diana’s on-off dalliance with charismatic old Etonian Oliver Hoare, who died aged 73 in 2018, were revealed this week by journalist and royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith in her latest post on her Substack Royal Extras.
Bedell Smith recounted the ‘incredibly close bond’ that Diana shared at the time with ‘mother figure’ Lady Elsa Bowker.
Lady Elsa, who was already in her mid eighties when her friendship with the then 32-year-old princess blossomed, saw the royal divulging her deepest secrets to her on her affair with the handsome Hoare, a close friend of Prince Charles.
The art dealer, who was 16 years Diana’s senior at 46, was married to Diane de Waldner de Freundstein at the time, heiress to a French oil company – with the couple sharing three children, Tristan, Damian and Olivia
Lady Elsa, wife of diplomat Sir Reginald James Bowker, became privy to the most intimate details of the liaison, including the alleged moment when Diana was so upset at the thought of Oliver seeing his wife, she fled a moving vehicle the lovers were in.
Diana’s confidante Lady Elsa, who died in 2000 at the age of 92, recounted: ‘Once when Oliver’s wife was out of town, he told Diana he had to leave because he had to see his daughter, who had a fever.
‘She suspected he was really going to see his wife, and nothing he said could convince her otherwise. She was very suspicious and mistrustful. They were in the car, and at one point she was so upset that she opened the door as if to jump out.’
Princess Diana was said to be ‘infatuated’ with debonair English art dealer Oliver Hoare (pictured in 1986), with new details about the one-time lovers’ passionate relationship revealed this week in journalist and royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith’s latest Substack Royal Extras
Princess Diana and the then Prince Charles now King pictured with Oliver Hoare and his wife, French oil heiress Diane de Waldner de Freundstein, chatting at Guard’s Polo in June 1986
The ageing ambassador’s wife, who was described by Bedell Smith in her book Diana In Search of Herself as ‘enchanting’ to those she met, went on to relay how the late Princess did eventually exit the vehicle in haste.
She said: ‘A little while later they were in a traffic jam in Sloane Square. Suddenly Diana did jump out, leaving behind her bag and her money and everything, Oliver was so distraught that he never even saw his daughter.
‘He drove all over London for three hours and finally found Diana in the park near Kensington Palace, lying down and weeping.’
Their emotional entanglement was, according to Lady Elsa’s account, a hugely sexual affair, with the ‘mother confessor’ revealing that Diana had once been bold enough to arrive at the Hoare family home clad in nothing but a fur coat, a tiara and jewels.
Revealing Diana’s revelations on the impassioned encounter to Bedell Smith over high tea in May 1998, the royal biographer says Lady Elsa told her: ‘One time she [Diana] arrived at his house when his wife and children were away.
‘Diana came in the evening, and when he opened the door, she was wearing a fur coat and tiara. They came inside and were standing in front of the fire.
‘He said, “Aren’t you warm in that coat?” and she took it off. Underneath she was naked and wearing lots of jewels. Both Diana and Oliver told me that.’
Of all Diana’s lovers (they included James Hewitt, James Gilbey, Will Carling and Dodi Fayed), Hoare was arguably the most debonair – although he never publicly admitted to falling for the royal.
While the handsome Hoare, who was 14 years older than Diana – and a married father-of-three – never admitted to their romance, the late Princess confided in diplomat’s wife Lady Elsa Bowker, who she was ‘incredibly close’ to
‘Aren’t you warm in that coat?’ Lady Elsa, who died in 2000 at the age of 92, once recounted how Diana had arrived at Hoare’s home in a fur coat, and wearing nothing else
Over tea in the late 90s, Lady Elsa, who was in her 80s when she became close to Diana, divulged that the pair had a stormy relationship, with the late royal once fleeing his car – she was later found by the art dealer lying down in a park close to Kensington Gardens (Hoare pictured in the early 90s close to his home in Chelsea)
Diana was once said to have smuggled him into Kensington Palace in the boot of her car, and security staff once found him half-naked and hiding behind a bay tree as he tried to sneak out after a fire alarm went off in the middle of the night.
However, Hoare was not inclined to leave his wife and after he tried to cool the relationship in 1994, Diana allegedly bombarded his Chelsea home with nuisance telephone calls.
On his wife’s insistence, Hoare contacted the police, and some of the 300 calls were traced to the Princess’s private line in Kensington Palace, with others coming from telephone boxes in the Kensington area.
The police later announced the inquiries had been ended ‘at Mr Hoare’s request.’
Diana admitted in the notorious Panorama interview with Martin Bashir in 1995 that she had sometimes called Hoare.
‘Over a period of six to nine months, a few times, but certainly not in an obsessive manner, no,’ she insisted.
She had previously told Lady Elsa that she ‘daydreamed of living in Italy’ with him.
In Sally Bedell Smith’s latest Royal Extras post, entitled ‘Mother Confessors’, she lists the women who Princess Diana turned to in lieu of her own mother.
The Princess denied that she had been infatuated with Oliver Hoare during her famous Panorama interview with Martin Bashir for the BBC in 1995, saying she did call her former lover but ‘not in an obsessive manner, no’
Mother confessor: Diana shared her biggest secrets with Lady Elsa Bowker, who she became friends with when she was in her early 30s and Lady Elsa was in her mid 80s. She revealed in the late 90s to journalist Bedell Smith that Diana had told her she ‘daydreamed of living in Italy’ with Hoare
The art dealer, who remained married, died of cancer in France in 2018 at the age of 73
DIANA’S OTHER FORMER LOVERS
James Hewitt
James Hewitt showered Diana with the attention she craved during her marriage to Prince Charles, and she showered him with gifts in return.
However, he betrayed her trust by assisting Anna Pasternak in her 1994 book Princess In Love, which revealed their five-year relationship, and Diana never forgave his actions.
In a 1995 TV interview, she said: ‘Yes, I adored him. Yes, I was in love with him. But I was very let down.’
James Gilbey
James Gilbey was far more loyal than Diana’s previous suitor; the pair always denied their affair but had a close relationship.
Following her engagement to Charles she still used to iron his shirts, with their relationship making the press following their “Squidgygate” scandal in August 1992.
This emerged when a soppy phone call emerged between the pair in which Gilbey referred to Diana as ‘Squidgy’ 14 times, during the height of Charles and Diana’s marriage crisis.
Will Carling
England Rugby Union legend Will Carling and Diana became close after meeting at a fitness class, and he pursued her despite being warned by friend Gary Lineker that she was ‘trouble.’
Like Gilbey, he has always denied a romance with Diana, claiming that the pair were very good friends and nothing more.
However, his marriage to TV host Julia Carling ended after rumours of a tryst with the princess.
Dodi Fayed
A month after her break-up to another of her lovers, heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, Diana rebounded with Dodi Al-Fayed, son of Egyptian billionaire and Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed.
After vacationing on his family’s yacht in the French Riviera, the new couple were en route to London when they both lost their lives in a fatal Paris car crash in August 1997.
Enchanting: Royal biographer Bedell Smith describes Lady Elsa Bowker, who was the wife of diplomat Sir Reginald James Bowker, as ‘especially compelling to Diana when she was at her most vulnerable’
In her 1999 book, the journalist wrote that the royal had a ‘collection of surrogate mothers’ as she navigated her high profile life in the late eighties and early nineties.
She says they included ‘Lady Annabel Goldsmith, Lucia Flecha de Lima, Hayat Palumbo, and Elsa Bowker – formidable women in their own right, but all living outside the conventional world in which Diana had been raised.’
Bedell Smith added that Diana’s mother figures ‘were anywhere from twenty to fifty years her senior; even within the maternal category, they occupied different niches.’
Lady Elsa Bowker was described as ‘the most intriguing of these women – exotic, mysterious, and especially compelling to Diana when she was at her most vulnerable.’
Wrote Bedell Smith: ‘She spoke with heavily accented femme fatale English that would have earned her a fortune in Hollywood. Her personality and vitality were pure Mediterranean.’
Of all the men drawn into the vortex of Princess Diana’s life, Hoare was one of the few to emerge with any credit.
Too well-bred to ever allow his emotions to go on public display, he weathered the endless speculation about his affair with the Princess of Wales with a wearied insouciance, keeping both his dignity and his silence.
Diana never publicly acknowledged her love for Hoare as she did for Cavalry officer James Hewitt, or allowed her friends to talk of him as they did subsequently of other men friends such as Hasnat Khan or Dodi Al-Fayed.
