“They were chatting away while they were dancing. I was very impressed,” Donahue’s wife Marlo Thomas said

Princess Diana (left) and Phil Donahue (right). Photo: Ken Goff/Gett

The late Phil Donahue and Princess Diana once shared a special moment together.

In an interview with host Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live in 2020, Donahue — who died on Aug. 18 at 88 years old after a “long illness” — sat down with his wife, Marlo Thomas, and played a game about celebrities he had met. And in doing so, Donahue opened up about an unforgettable night he once had with Princess Diana.

“I danced with her,” he revealed before joking, “I had to fight off all the guys who wanted to cut in!”

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Thomas explained that she was speaking at a charity luncheon in Chicago in 1997 when she was asked if her talk show host husband would do a favor.

“They said, ‘We need a man to dance with Princess Diana and there are three rules,’” she recalled. “‘A: he has to be married, B: she has to be in the room, the wife has to be in the room, and C: he has to be at least 6 feet tall, so we’d like Phil to be that person.’ So I told Phil and he said, ‘Oh I don’t want to do that,’ because Phil’s very shy, people don’t realize that. He did though.”

She continued, “He had his first dance with Princess Diana at the party and they got along great. They were chatting away while they were dancing. I was very impressed.”

Phil Donahue (left) and Princess Diana (right).Mike Forster/Daily Mail/Shutterstock

Later appearing on The Drew Barrymore Show, Donahue noted that he “never had so many pictures taken of me” as he did that night.

The couple also revealed they kept the photos of the dance, in which Diana can be seen in a floor-length purple gown and Donahue was dressed in a tux with a bowtie.

“My dancing partner,” Donahue called her.

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Phil Donahue.Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage

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Donahue died on Sunday, Aug. 18, his family announced the next day in a statement first given to Today. They said he had Thomas, who he had been married to for 44 years, by his side along with “his sister, his children, grandchildren and his beloved golden retriever, Charlie.”

The 20-time Emmy winner forged a path for future daytime talk show hosts like Geraldo Rivera, Sally Jessy Raphael, Ricki Lake, Montel Williams and Oprah Winfrey — several of whom posted sweet tributes to Donahue after the news of his death.

“There wouldn’t have been an Oprah Show without Phil Donahue being the first to prove that daytime talk and women watching should be taken seriously,” Winfrey wrote in an Instagram post. “He was a pioneer. I’m glad I got to thank him for it. Rest in peace Phil 🙏🏽🕊️.”

Raphael shared a similar sentiment, writing, “His show changed the way we talked, what we talked about, and gave a voice to everyone. If there wasn’t a Phil Donahue, there would have never been a Sally Jessy Raphael. Quite simply, Phil was a legend, and his demise is a great loss to the world. My thoughts and prayers go out to Marlo and their family.”