Discover ALL the Secrets of Princess Diana's Diamond 'Tell Me Yes' Engagement Ring From Secret Lover Dodi Fayed

Princess Diana remains at the center of one of the most enduring modern royal myths thanks to a diamond engagement ring bought by her final partner Dodi Fayed just hours before the couple's deaths – a piece of jewelry that has since come to symbolize a future that never arrived.

OK! can reveal the ring, known as the "Dis-Moi Oui" – French for "Tell Me Yes" – was purchased in Paris in August 1997, months after Diana's divorce from King Charles, then Prince Charles, who was then 48 years old.

Diana had begun a fast-moving relationship with Fayed, the son of billionaire businessman Mohamed Al Fayed during the summer of that year. But on August 31, 1997, Diana and Fayed were killed in a car crash in Paris alongside their driver, Henri Paul, 41.

The ring entered the popular imagination decades later through The Crown, which dramatized a proposal that never took place.

In the series, Dodi presents the ring in a hotel room, telling Diana: "It's the ring," before adding: "You said you liked it in Montecarlo."

The scene ends with Diana declining, a moment that reinforced the uncertainty surrounding their relationship.

In reality, many experts say no such proposal occurred – but admit the ring did exist.

Designed by Italian jeweler Alberto Repossi, the "Dis-Moi Oui" ring was a diamond dome featuring a large emerald-cut center stone framed by four trillion-cut diamonds arranged in a star shape. Though there are no confirmed photographs of the exact ring purchased, it appeared in advertising for Repossi's collection at the time.

The ring is said to have cost around $15,200 in 1997 and was bought only hours before Diana's the fatal crash. Adjusted for inflation, its value today would be roughly double – though its provenance effectively makes it priceless.

The ring was later recovered from Fayed's Paris apartment.

By comparison, Diana's first engagement ring – the 12-carat Ceylon sapphire she selected herself in 1981 – is now valued at approximately $132,913.

That ring, famously worn today by Kate Middleton, 44, was used by Prince William, 43, to propose in 2010.

The supposedly fictionalized proposal in The Crown was portrayed by Khalid Abdalla, who later reflected on his role as Dodi by calling it "a huge honor and a huge responsibility" to portray the playboy.

He added: "What I hope will happen when people watch is that they will have a different view of this cultural wound, their death in that crash, that we've been aware of for the last 25 years."

The actor continued: "It stops being just a picture, and a distant memory that actually no one really knows much actually about, and it starts to become something fuller."

In the years following Diana's fatal crash, questions about whether she and Dodi were secretly engaged persisted.

In 1997, Fayed's spokesman Michael Cole said: "What that ring meant we shall probably never know. However, during a later inquest into the crash, Cole said Fayed had given him the strongest indication that he was going to marry Diana."

He added: "He was a man in love and there was no doubt about it in my mind."

Cole also quoted Fayed as saying about Diana: "There will never be another woman for me. Following Diana's death, Repossi withdrew the ring from production. My employees were offered money to share secrets, and we were offered a lot of money for the boutique's video surveillance," he said.

He added: "To stop this hysteria, I had the drawings and models of the jewelry destroyed in the workshop, and I stopped the ‘Dis-moi Oui!' jewelry campaign as well as the production of this model."