Princess Diana confided in a close friend that she needed marriage to Dodi Fayed "like a rash on my face" days before the couple died in a car crash, her inquest heard.
Lady Annabel Goldsmith, 73, said she would never forget those words as it was the last thing the Princess ever said to her.
Rumours were rife in the press that the Princess and Dodi were about to get married and Lady Annabel raised the subject in a conversation with Diana on August 24 1997.
Lady Annabel told the inquest in central London: "It had been splashed all over the papers. I said to her laughably, 'you are not going to do anything silly are you?'
"I meant you are not going to do anything silly like rushing off and eloping or getting married and she said 'I would need marriage like a rash on my face.'
"It was a very Diana expression."
Lady Annabel said she was in no doubt that the Princess was having a "wonderful" time with Dodi before they were killed in Paris on August 31 1997.
She recalled the Princess saying "she had never been so spoiled" but had also suggested that marriage was not an option.
Of the rash comment, Lady Annabel told the jury: "I took it to mean that she was not serious about marriage to Dodi.
"She might have been having a wonderful time with him, I'm sure, but I thought her remark that she needed marriage like a rash meant that she was not serious about it."
