Princess Diana's relationship with Dodi Fayed would not have continued if they had not died in a car crash, her former private secretary has said.

Michael Gibbins, who worked for Diana for over a year, said he believed the romance would not have lasted beyond the summer of 1997, when the British tabloids were full of speculation about Diana's friendship with Fayed, the son of Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed.

During that summer, the princess was pictured on a cruise of the Mediterranean on board the Fayed family's luxury yacht. The holiday was just weeks before both Diana and Dodi were killed in Paris on 31 August of that year.

Speaking to The Sun, Gibbins said: "I think frankly she was just having a lovely summer at somebody else's expense to be perfectly honest.

"When the summer was over, everything would have disintegrated."

When asked if Diana had ever mentioned marrying Fayed, a rumour which surfaced at the time of their romance, Gibbins told the newspaper: "Absolutely not. Nor do I believe that for a second.

"Superficially she was happy. Deep down, more ­difficult to say."

Referring to how Diana dealt with the end of her marriage to Prince Charles, Gibbins added: "My feeling was that she was determined to build a new her in whatever way."

From: Harper's BAZAAR UK