Love letters from the late Princess Diana to Major James Hewitt have been touted for sale

Love letters from the late Princess Diana to Major James Hewitt have reportedly been touted for sale and could reach up to $1 million. The Sun reported that a “US auction house has lined up a wealthy collector to buy the 64 love letters with a price tag of up to $1 million ( (£780,000) — raising fears they could be made public. According to The Sun, James Hewitt, 65, previously offered them as collateral for a £500,000 loan.”

The love letters between the late Princess Diana and Major James Hewitt were written in the period between 1989 and 1991. This is not the first time that letters between the late Princess and James Hewitt have been touted for sale. In 2023, The Times reported that “Lawyers indicated that although he is free to sell the letters, the purchaser would not be free to publish them, as copyright resides with the trustees of the late Princess’s estate.

“Major Hewitt regards a museum as the ideal repository for the 64 hand-written letters and the British Library immediately stepped in to register a strong interest.”

Major James Hewitt appeared on the Larry King show in 2003 where he said that “Yes I was interested when someone offered me a large sum of money,” and when he was asked by Larry King, “But what will you do with the money, you will not say?” James Hewitt replied that “An awful lot of good can be done with the money.” 

How much have other Princess Diana items sold for?

The late Princess Diana’s iconic ‘black sheep’ jumper that was created by Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne of knitwear brand Warm & Wonderful sold for $1.14 million (approx £916,700) at Sotheby’s auction house in New York, the original estimated value was between £40,000 and £70,000. The then Lady Diana Spencer wore the sweater to a polo match in 1981 and in a press release before it was sold, the designers said that “Much to our amazement, the first we knew of Lady Diana Spencer wearing the sweater was when we saw her on the front page of one of the Sunday newspapers.”

The designers also said that “Her influence was impactful almost immediately thereafter, leading to a surge in sales and public awareness of our small label, for which we will be forever grateful.”

In 1985, the late Princess Diana wore an off-the-shoulder Victor Edelstein dress that she wore to dance with actor John Travolta at the White House. It was part of an auction by Kerry Taylor Auctions in 2019, but Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) an independent charity, reportedly bought it outside of the auction for £264,000. 

In December 2023, a dress that she wore in 1985 sold for £900,000, 11 times its estimated value. The Jacques Azagury gown was worn by Princess Diana whilst on a royal tour with the then Prince Charles in Florence, Italy, in 1985. She wore it again to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 1986. 

In 2019, her Fly Virgin Atlantic jumper sold for £42,760, and in 2022. Her Ford Escort sold for £650K. She drove the Ford Escort RS Turbo for three years from August 1985 and it was sold to a buyer in Cheshire by Silverstone Auctions in Warwickshire. In June 2021, another Ford Escort the late Princess Diana used, was sold at auction for £52,000. 

In February 2023, personal letters written by Princess Diana were sold at auction for £161,000. In the 32 letters and message cards, Dinaa revealed how the negotiations over hers and the then Prince Charles’s divorce settlement had left her ‘on (her) knees.’ The letters were sent to her friends Susie and Tarek Kassem and the Daily Mail reported that “The Kassems said that owning the poignant letters was a responsibility that they did not wish to pass on to their children or grandchildren and so sold them at auction in individual lots.”