The new film about Diana, Princess of Wales, has been attacked by her former lover and the man on whom one of the film's principal characters is based, heart surgeon Hasnat Khan.
Khan, who had a well-documented relationship with Diana between 1995 and 1997, admitted he has not seen the film but accused it of being "based on gossip", in an interview in the Mail on Sunday. He said the film's story came from "Diana's friends talking about a relationship that they didn't know much about, and some of my relatives who didn't know much about it either. It is all based on hypotheses and gossip."
Diana, which stars Naomi Watts as the late princess, and Naveen Andrews as Khan, focuses on the relationship between the two, which ended shortly before the former's death in a car accident in August 1997. The film is based on the 2001 book Diana: Her Last Love by Kate Snell and according to the film's website, documents Diana's attempt to persuade Khan's family to allow them to marry. "One of the most famous and beautiful women in the world, she hoped to persuade Dr Khan's mother that she would make a suitable wife for her son. Had she succeeded, the events of that summer might have been very different …"
Khan, now consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Basildon University hospital, said he had seen stills from the film, and that was enough to inform his view that the film-makers had got it badly wrong.
"I could tell immediately those were never our mannerisms at all, with [my] hands folded behind the back and all that.
"You could tell from that picture that it is all just presumed about how we would behave with each other, and they have got it completely wrong."
Khan also rejected a suggestion by the film's producers he had given the film his "tacit acceptance". He said: "It is a complete lie. I have never given any approval."
Diana is released in the UK on 20 September.