For three decades, Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal starred in their own real-life love story. O'Neal was at her bedside when Farrah tragically died of cancer in June. But today, Greg Lott is making a stunning claim, that he was Fawcett's secret lover until the very end.

"I'm the real love of her life and vice versa, and it was as strong a love as there is," Lott tells INSIDE EDITION.

In an INSIDE EDITION world exclusive, Lott reveals details of what he calls a secret love affair for the last 11 years of Fawcett's life.
            
"After an 11-year love affair that was really a secret, why would you come out now publically?" asks INSIDE EDITION's Jim Moret.
"Because the truth has to be told," Lott says.
       
Lott says he met Fawcett in 1965. She was an art major at the University of Texas and he was the star quarterback. "I was just thunderstruck...I just fell flat in love with her."
   
But Lott says they drifted apart after college and Fawcett went on to Hollywood for the role that would bring her fame and fortune, playing one of Charlie's Angels.
   
She became the iconic pinup who captivated the imaginations of millions of young men, but Ryan O'Neal captured her heart. Yet in 1998, Fawcett and O'Neal's romance hit a snag. Lott says out of the blue, she phoned him to vent about her volatile lover.
               
"She always referred to [O'Neal] to me as the fat [expletive deleted] from the beach," Lott told Moret.

Lott, who is a drug counselor in Lubbock, Texas, claims that phone call was the rekindling of their romance."
   
"Why didn't you ever marry Farrah Fawcett?" Moret asks.

"We just got to a point by 1998 we didn't need a piece of paper to...we had a commitment, we made a total commitment to each other...and I didn't want to be Mr. Fawcett"

Lott says he often visited Farrah at her penthouse condo in Los Angeles. They wrote each other intimate love letters, and he read one for INSIDE EDITION. "Dearest Greg, I miss you so much and sometimes the loneliness makes me cry. Thinking of you always and love you forever, Farrah in Bavaria."

Lott says Fawcett sent that from Germany where she underwent treatment for cancer. But it was O'Neal, not Lott, who was by her side as the world saw in the heartbreaking documentary Farrah's Story.

When Farrah returned to the U.S. she entered this Santa Monica hospital under an assumed name. "She always had a code name so I found her, got her on the phone and talked to her for a week, talked to her until the Thursday night before Easter, and she said, 'I'll call you tomorrow night.' I never talked to her again," he says.
     
Fawcett died three months after that last conversation. After her death, Lott says he received a bizarre autographed photo showing Ryan O'Neal with a punching bag, and the caption "For Greg Lott...Nobody wins, Peace."

Lott says like O'Neal's eldest son Griffin, he too was forbidden from attending Fawcett's funeral.
   
"I was barred from the funeral," Lott says.
"So he, Ryan, cut you off completely from Farrah at the end. What are your feelings about the guy?" asks Moret.
"Terrible father, nut," Lott says.
"That's how you feel about Ryan O'Neal?"
"No, I feel a lot worse than that, I mean this guy barred me from seeing the love of my life for the last three months of her life," he says.

Lott never got to say goodbye to Farrah, until now.  He was emotional as he placed a bouquet of orchids, Farrah's favorite flower, on her grave in Los Angeles. He told her one last time that his love for her would never die.
       
"What was there that you wanted to say that you didn't get to say?"
"I just wasn't ready for her to go"

Ryan O'Neal had no comment.