In the shadowed corridors of royal history, where whispers of betrayal and tragedy linger like fog over the Thames, a voice long silenced has finally emerged from the past. Ken Wharfe, Princess Diana’s trusted bodyguard and confidant during her most turbulent years, has broken his 28-year silence in a revelation that could rewrite the narrative of the People’s Princess’s final days. Speaking exclusively to a close circle of investigators and historians, Wharfe, now 74, drops a bombshell about the authenticity of Diana’s handwritten will – a document shrouded in mystery since her tragic death on August 31, 1997. What he witnessed that fateful afternoon in 1997, he claims, exposes a forgery so brazen it implicates forces within the highest echelons of power, determined to control her legacy even in death.
Wharfe, who served as Diana’s protection officer from 1987 to 1996, was no stranger to the princess’s inner sanctum. Nicknamed her “rock” by the tabloids, he was privy to her deepest fears – from the suffocating grip of Buckingham Palace to the raw pain of her crumbling marriage to Prince Charles. But it was in the summer of 1997, mere weeks before the Paris car crash that claimed her life at 36, that Wharfe says he saw something that haunted him for decades. Diana, then entangled in a whirlwind romance with Dodi Fayed, had confided in him about updating her personal will. “She wanted to ensure her boys – William and Harry – were protected, not just from the crown’s games, but from the vultures circling her estate,” Wharfe recalls in his forthcoming memoir excerpts. The will, a simple handwritten affair dated July 1997, bequeathed her £17 million fortune primarily to her sons, with provisions for charities like the landmine ban campaign she championed.
The bombshell? The signature at the bottom – that elegant, looping “Diana” – wasn’t hers. Wharfe swears he watched her draft it in her Kensington Palace study, her hand trembling slightly from exhaustion after a grueling day of secret meetings. “It was her script, precise and flowing, but when the final version surfaced after her death, it was off – the slant wrong, the pressure uneven. Like someone traced it in haste.” He alleges the document was tampered with in the chaotic hours post-crash, possibly by palace insiders fearing Diana’s assets would fuel anti-monarchy causes. “She’d added a clause for Dodi, a gesture of trust, but that vanished. They couldn’t risk her ‘people’s heart’ beating on without their strings attached.”
This isn’t Wharfe’s first foray into the fray. In 2025, amid renewed scrutiny from Netflix documentaries and Harry’s memoir Spare, he reignited debates by revealing a desperate plea he made to Diana: to wear a seatbelt during her final trip. “I begged her that morning – ‘Ma’am, promise me you’ll buckle up.’ She laughed it off, said she felt invincible.” Trevor Rees-Jones, the bodyguard in the crash’s passenger seat, was the sole survivor, his belt saving him while Diana and Dodi perished. Wharfe’s guilt over that unheeded advice pales, he says, against the will’s betrayal – a “moral murder” of her intentions.
Skeptics point to forensic analyses from the 2004 inquest, which deemed the will authentic. Yet Wharfe counters with details only an eyewitness could know: a smudged ink blot from Diana’s favorite Montblanc pen, absent in the official copy. Royal watchers speculate this ties into broader conspiracies – the crashed Mercedes’ tampered brakes, paparazzi chases – painting a picture of a throne desperate to silence a rebel. Diana’s estate, now worth over £100 million through savvy investments, funds her sons’ causes, but Wharfe wonders: What hidden bequests for AIDS hospices or African orphans were erased?
As King Charles III navigates his own reign, this disclosure arrives like a ghost at the feast. Wharfe, haunted by nightmares of that Paris tunnel, urges closure: “For 28 years, loyalty chained me. Now, truth sets her free.” The world, still captivated by Diana’s sapphire-eyed grace, braces for the fallout. Will Buckingham Palace respond? Or will this signature – real or forged – seal another chapter in the endless saga of a princess who dared to dream beyond the crown?
