Princess Diana—who married into British royalty, only to later be divorced from it—devoted herself to charitable causes and became a global icon before dying in a car accident in Paris in 1997. Diana Spencer married the Prince of Wales in 1981. Although their wedding was watched by millions worldwide, and two sons were born while they were together, her life ended just when she had done what she had been wanting for years—to separate from her husband.
Divorce, BBC interview, and Dodi Al Fayed
Five years into the marriage, the couple’s incompatibility and age difference became visible and damaging. In order to calm her internal pain, Diana began a relationship with James Hewitt, the family’s former riding instructor, and in the same year, Charles started again his relationship with his former girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles.
By 1987, cracks in the marriage had become visible, and the couple’s unhappiness and cold attitude towards one another started to spread through the press. In order to get the attention of herself and make the Royal Family agree to the divorce, Diana started to take first steps in this direction. She was exposed in cooperation with the publication of Andrew Morton‘s book, Diana: Her True Story. The book, which also revealed Charles’ affairs as well as Diana’s allegedly suicidal unhappiness, caused a media storm. In 1991, James Colthurst conducted secret interviews with Diana in which she had talked about her marital issues and difficulties. However, the last step in the back of Charles and the whole Royal Family was made in 1995 with the broadcast of the “Panorama” BBC show, where Diana discussed her own and her husband’s extramarital affairs. Referring to Charles’s relationship with Parker Bowles, she said:
Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.
The interview proved to be the tipping point. On 20 December, Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen had sent letters to Charles and Diana, advising them to divorce.
Several months later, Diana began a relationship with Dodi Fayed, the son of her summer host, Mohamed Al-Fayed. That summer, Diana had considered taking her sons on a holiday to the Hamptons on Long Island, New York, but security officials had prevented it. Mohamed Al-Fayed bought the Jonikal, a 60-metre multimillion-pound yacht on which to entertain Diana and her sons.
Princess Diana’s death
On the evening of August 31, 1997, Diana and Al-Fayed were dining privately in the Imperial Suite at Paris’ famous Ritz Hotel. They had planned to have a quiet, romantic meal at the hotel’s restaurant—Al-Fayed had reportedly purchased a ring for Diana earlier in the day—but they had to leave after 10 minutes because they were being disturbed by the press and other patrons.
At 11:30 that night, as they left the hotel to return to Al-Fayed’s Paris apartment, they were hounded by paparazzi, despite the fact that significant security precautions had been taken, including the use of a decoy vehicle, which left from the front of the hotel.
Diana and Al-Fayed left the hotel using a rear entrance, with French driver Henri Paul and one of the princess’ bodyguards, Trevor Rees-Jones.
Driving a Mercedes S-280 limousine, Paul took Rees-Jones, Diana and Al-Fayed on a high-speed trip through the boulevards and narrow streets of central Paris. Investigators later estimated that the car may have been traveling in excess of 60 miles per hour.
At 12:19 a.m., the Mercedes carrying the couple, Paul and Rees-Jones, crashed into the 13th pillar of the Pont d’Alma Bridge, which traverses the River Seine. They were less than two miles from the Ritz Hotel.
Al-Fayed and Paul died at the scene. Diana was taken to Paris’ La Pitie Salpetriere Hospital, but several hours later, at 4 a.m., she died as a result of injuries she sustained in the crash, including a severed pulmonary vein. She was 36 years old.
Mohammed Al Fayed investigation and the theory of the involvement of the Royal Family in Diana’s death
Following the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed, Dodi’s father, Mohamed Al Fayed, refused to accept that they died in a car crash and that it was an accident.
The alleged motive was that the Princess of Wales was pregnant with Dodi Al Fayed’s child and there was to be an imminent announcement of their engagement. It is suggested by Mohamed Al Fayed that the Royal Family ‘could not accept that an Egyptian Muslim could eventually be the stepfather of the future King of England.’ It is alleged that the Security Services of the United Kingdom covertly obtained the information concerning pregnancy and engagement, with or without the co-operation of overseas agencies, precipitating the need to put into operation a plan to murder them. Mohamed Al Fayed further alleges there was a cover-up by the ‘Establishment’ to prevent the conspiracy and murders from coming to light.
The British government, together with the British royal family, refused the allegations. Due to the French and British authorities, there is no proof of Diana’s engagement with Dodi Fayed as well as the fact that she was pregnant at that time. However, the conspiracy theory remained popular in public and started to be discussed again after the investigation against Muhammad Al Fayed recently.
The case against Muhammad Al Fayed
Last month, the Guardian reported claims that corrupt police officers had helped Fayed in persecuting members of his staff, including a young woman who allegedly rebuffed the Harrods owner’s sexual advances.
At least 111 women and girls may have been raped and mistreated by Mohamed Al Fayed over the course of almost 40 years, according to police, with the youngest victim reportedly only 13 years old.
The extent of the crime would rank Fayed, who passed away last year at the age of 94, among the most infamous sex criminals in Britain, and it begs the issue of how he managed to get away with his crimes.
Scotland Yard claimed that five unidentified people are being looked into as possible “facilitators” for Fayed, the former owner of the upscale Knightsbridge retailer Harrods.
Claims that dishonest police officers assisted Fayed in punishing his employees, including a young woman who allegedly rejected the Harrods owner’s sexual advances, were published in the Guardian last month.
In addition to 90 women who have come forward since the BBC broadcast a program on Fayed in September, there are 111 alleged cases of abuse involving Fayed, including 21 alleged victims who reported crimes to the police between 2005 and his death.
The Met has voluntarily referred these cases to the Independent Office for Police Conduct in response to complaints from two women regarding the caliber of investigations carried out in 2008,
a Met spokesperson stated.
We are dedicated to understanding, being transparent about any shortcomings, and improving our response to survivors going forward, even though these cases span more than ten years, and we cannot change what happened in the past.
After the case was revealed to the public, people started to question if the allegations of Fayed about the Royal Family being involved in the car crash in 1997 were “not the allegations at all”, especially considering the new facts about Fayed’s family and what damage to the reputation of the British Royal Family could be done if the information had been revealed earlier…
Mohammed Al Fayed short biography
Mohammed al-Fayed was born January 27, 1929, in Alexandria Egypt (died recently August 30, 2023). He was an Egyptian businessman who acquired a number of prestigious holdings throughout his career, including the Ritz Hotel in Paris and Harrods department store in London.
Fayed grew up in Egypt’s Alexandria. Official records indicate that he was born in 1929, however, he later claimed to have been born in 1933. He married (later divorced) Samira Khashoggi in 1954. She was the sister of Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi billionaire and international arms trader, who hired him for his import-export company. In 1958, Fayed relocated to Genoa, Italy, and in 1964, he went to London. Two years later, he established his own shipping company “Genevaco” and was appointed an advisor to the Sultan of Brunei. He established International maritime Services, a maritime repair company in Dubay, in 1972.
After relocating to Britain in 1974, Fayed added the suffix al- to his name and amassed a sizable estate, which included the Ritz Hotel in Paris (1979). It was widely known that Fayed had a tense relationship with the British establishment. He defeated mining behemoth Lonrho in a bloody takeover in 1985 to acquire the House of Fraser, the holding firm that owned the Harrods department store. Encouraged by Roland (“Tiny”) Rowland, the proprietor of Lonrho, the government charged Fayed with lying about his capacity to fund the takeover. Even when Fayed demonstrated his financial stability, several people still questioned his wealth. In 1986 he restored a villa of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, which he promptly restored (former King of England was perceived negatively by the Royal Family due to his connections with Nazi Germany in the past). Following the formal reopening of the villa in 1989, he received the Plaque de Paris, the city’s highest honour.
Fayed’s 1995 attempt to buy London News Radio and his 1996 bid to buy The Observer also attracted considerable publicity, as did his relaunch of the magazine Punch (1996–2002).
Although frustrated in his efforts to be accepted as a British citizen—his application was first denied in 1995, and subsequent attempts were also unsuccessful—Fayed continued to play an influential and highly controversial role in Great Britain. He had numerous feuds with the British establishment and helped wreck the careers of several Conservative politicians.
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