Dodi Al Fayed and Diana, Princess of Wales perished in a car accident in the Pont D’Alma tunnel in Paris in 1997.
Dodi, the millionaire Mohamed Al Fayed’s son, was a jetsetter and film producer who divided his time between London, Los Angeles, and other family estates.
Dodi had relationships with a number of well-known women and was purportedly engaged to model Kelly Fisher when he met Diana. How serious their relationship was at the time of their deaths is a topic of much discussion.
A vehicle tragedy in Paris claimed the life of Princess Diana, one of the most well-known ladies on earth, 25 years ago, shocking the entire globe.
Diana wasn’t the only person who died in the accident. Dodi Al Fayed, Princess Diana’s boyfriend, and the driver, Henri Paul, are thought to have died instantly. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was the only survivor and spent two months in the hospital due to his terrible injuries. He has insisted time and time again that he doesn’t recall much of the collision.
Dodi Al Fayed and Princess Diana in the backseat of the vehicle where they passed away in 1997.
Shortly before the 1997 catastrophic collision that claimed the lives of Diana, Fayed, and Paul, Diana and Dodi (both partially visible in the back seat), bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones (front, left), and driver Henri Paul were seen in their Mercedes-Benz S280. At an inquest, the picture was offered as evidence.
Prior to their terrible deaths, Dodi and the Princess of Wales had only been dating for a short while and had only spent a small number of days together. Despite the young age of the relationship, there was a lot of media and public interest in the couple, as well as rumours about what they had in store for the future.
Dodi was the oldest child of wealthy businessman Mohamed Al Fayed, a colourful and contentious character in the UK. Mohamed was the owner of the renowned luxury retailer Harrods in London, the Fulham football team, and the Ritz hotel in Paris, where Diana and Dodi started their deadly drive, with an estimated net worth of $1.87 billion at the time.
Samira Khashoggi, Dodi’s mother, was Mohamed’s first spouse. Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi arms dealer, was her brother, and her father had served as Kind Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia’s personal physician.
Dodi was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1955 as Emad El-Din Mohamed Abdel Mena’em Fayed. He then attended illustrious institutions including the private Le Rosey in Switzerland and the UK’s Sandhurst military academy, where Princes William and Harry also studied.
According to an obituary in The Independent, Dodi spent his formative years alternating between the Khashoggi mansions in Paris, the Riviera, and Cairo and his father’s residence in Alexandria, Egypt. At age 15, he relocated to London, where he established himself as a well-known character in the city’s nightlife and developed a taste for fast vehicles and attractive women.
Before Diana, Julia Roberts, Brooke Shields, Winona Ryder, and Nancy Sinatra were among Dodi’s reputed lovers. He wed the fashion model Suzanne Gregard in 1986, but their marriage lasted just eight months.
He was a junior officer in the United Arab Emirates air force stationed in London when he was a young man, but he quickly made the switch to the movie business, working as an executive producer on movies like Demi Moore and Gary Oldman’s The Scarlet Letter (1995) and Chariots of Fire (1981), which won four Oscars, including Best Picture. Despite his accomplishments, many people who worked with him at the time have claimed that, in the early years, his father largely made the choices for the family’s production firm, while Dodi lived off a generous monthly stipend.
Dodi was known as a rich playboy who yearned for fame. Dodi allegedly said to a buddy once: “When am I going to meet a woman so renowned she will get my face on the cover of People magazine?” according to a 2009 investigation by The Guardian. He very certainly did in 1997.
Many people also remarked on how calm and sensitive he was despite this image. According to Dominick Dunne, a writer for Vanity Fair, whatever else he was, he was a good guy. He had a very gentle quality about him.
The actor who portrays Dodi on The Crown, Khalid Abdalla, said to T&C, “This idea of him as the Hugh Hefner type is entirely incorrect. But it doesn’t sound at all like Dodi, a number of his pals would remark in the 1990s, and it wasn’t. Investigating it has been incredibly interesting.
Meeting When Diana was still wed to Prince Charles, they first met Diana Dodi. This occurred in 1986 at a polo match in Windsor between Charles and Dodi’s opposing teams, according to The Independent. No one made a comment if their meeting was anything more than brief.
The Princess of Wales and her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, were invited to spend time on Mohamed Al Fayed’s yacht, the Jonikal, in the south of France during the summer of 1997. Diana improved her knowledge of Dodi there.
Diana had previously dated the heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, who later testified at an inquest into the Princess’s death in 2008 that she broke things off with him after they started dating for two years and went on vacation with Mohamed Al Fayed and his family. He claimed that while she initially denied leaving him for someone else, he heard about her new relationship with Dodi on the radio a few weeks later.
In August, Diana visited the Jonikal once more, this time without her kids. A picture of Diana and Dodi kissing made headlines all over the world. They travelled to Sardinia and the South of France before travelling to Paris, where they passed away.
The interesting thing is that everyone is focused on the crash, says The Crown actor Abdalla, who plays Dodi. Strangely, as a result, they regret not experiencing Dodi and Diana’s wonderful summer together. They are in love, but you already know what happened next. When you look at pictures of Diana from that era, you can tell that she was very content.
Diana and Dodi’s renowned affair was brief, but it was widely reported about and surrounded by controversy. At home, Dodi’s reputation as a billionaire playboy with a taste for well-known, alluring ladies created quite a commotion.
When Kelly Fisher, a previous lover of Dodi’s, arrived in tears at a press conference alongside formidable attorney Gloria Allred to say she was suing Dodi for allegedly deserting her at the altar, the story only grew worse. She claimed she was looking for payment on the $500,000 in “premarital support” Dodi had promised her in exchange for giving up her modelling career, according to the LA Times. She displayed an amazing engagement ring as confirmation of the engagement.
“We are prepared to leave it to the good judgement of the British and American people to judge this development for what it is,” the Al Fayed family responded.
The lawsuit was dismissed by Fisher upon the passing of Dodi and Diana “out of respect for the tragedy and enormous loss the Fayed family have suffered,” according to the Associated Press.
There are rumours that certain royal family members disapproved of the princess’s union with Dodi. According to The Guardian, former British prime minister Tony Blair said in his 2010 autobiography that he personally informed Lady Di that he thought their relationship was “a problem.”
Paul Burrell, Princess Diana’s former butler and confidant, reportedly stated at a 2007 inquest into their murders that he didn’t get the idea from Diana that Dodi was “the one” and that he was a “rebound” from her relationship with Hasnat Khan.
Dodi had a tiny Islamic burial following their passing on August 31, 1997, at a mosque in the heart of London. Numerous mourners lined the streets outside as his casket was escorted by police.
He was initially interred in a London cemetery but later moved to his father’s estate in Surrey, where plans for a monument to be built in his honour were publicised in the media.
After Dodi and Diana passed away, the Al Fayed family’s department store Harrods paid tribute to them both with modest shrines, and in 2005, a contentious bronze statue depicting the dancing pair was constructed. The statue was scheduled to be taken down and given back to Dodi Al Fayed’s father, Mohamed Al Fayed, who had sold Harrods to Qatari owners in 2010.