On Aug. 31, 1997, Princess Diana died in a car accident in Paris’ Pont de l'Alma tunnel. Her partner, Dodi Fayed, and the car’s driver, Henri Paul, also tragically passed away in the crash. Dodi’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, sustained serious injuries but was the only survivor.
The final season of Netflix’s The Crown depicts the events surrounding the fatal crash, and many viewers might now be curious to discover more about the life of Rees-Jones before and after the crash.
Born in Germany in 1968, Rees-Jones moved to the United Kingdom with his family at the age of ten. As per The Sun, he began a career in the military shortly after leaving school, serving one tour in Northern Ireland in the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment.
Trevor Rees, the former body guard to Princess Diana. Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Rees-Jones began working as a security guard for the late Harrods owner, Mohammed Al-Fayed, in 1995. He later provided private security to Mohammed’s son Dodi, including during his summer vacation with Princess Diana in 1997 — when the accident occurred.
After The Accident
Rees-Jones was the only survivor of the Paris car crash that claimed the lives of Princess Diana, Dodi Fayed, and Henri Paul in 1997.
As the Daily Mail reports, Rees-Jones suffered serious head and chest injuries in the accident and spent the ten days after the crash in a coma. He also experienced amnesia and struggled to remember specific details about the accident.
Rees-Jones returned to the UK three months after the crash in Oct. 1997 and resigned from his position as Al-Fayed’s security guard in May 1998.
Langevin Jacques/Sygma/Getty Images
In 2000, he began working as a security advisor for the United Nations and also released his book, The Bodyguard's Story: Diana, the Crash, and the Sole Survivor. Two years later, in 2002, Rees-Jones married teacher Ann Scott in the town of Oswestry.
A British inquest into the car accident that killed Princess Diana was held in 2008. After being called to give evidence, Rees-Jones explained to the coroner that he had little memory of the events leading up to the accident.
He also recalled being unsatisfied with Dodi and driver Paul’s attempt to avoid paparazzi in Paris. “I wasn’t happy,” Rees-Jones said at the inquest. “I had been told that Dodi and Diana would travel without security and I said this would not happen, that I would travel in the vehicle with them.”
Trevor Rees-JonesCARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images
Where Is Trevor Rees-Jones Today?
The Daily Mail reports that Rees-Jones moved to Shropshire in 2017 and currently works as the global head of security at AstraZeneca — the company responsible for the Oxford University Covid vaccine.
Speaking to The Sun in August 2022, a source claimed that Rees-Jones now lives a “quiet and uneventful” life, adding: “He certainly doesn't court publicity or speak much about it. He’s tried to move on and get on with his life.”
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