Princess Diana and the Al Fayed family: Her last lover was the son of a sexual predator
Glamorized by "The Crown," the late Mohamed Al Fayed has been accused of assaulting and raping numerous female employees of his Harrods department store. Why did Diana fall for his decadent son?
As the author of Diana In Search of Herself: Portrait of a Troubled Princess, a biography of the late Princess of Wales published in 1999, as well as Dodi’s Life in the Fast Lane in the December 1997 issue of Vanity Fair, an in-depth portrait of Dodi Fayed, the lover with whom Diana died on August 31, 1997, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the widening probe into the sexual depravity of Dodi’s father, Mohamed Al Fayed. In addition to analyzing the BBC documentary that broke open the Al Fayed sexual predator story and the episodes in The Crown in which Mohamed and Dodi appear, I’ve delved into my past research for further explanations of Diana’s involvement with the Al Fayed family.
The recent BBC documentary, Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods, detailed graphic allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed by more than twenty women employed by the Harrods department store that he owned from 1985 to 2010. It is a devastating portrait of Al Fayed’s brutal sexual abuse and terrifying intimidation to ensure the silence of his victims.
The BBC investigation began with a newscaster announcing Al Fayed’s death at age 94 in August 2023 and stating that the billionaire “became known to a new generation through the most recent series, The Crown.” The program cut to a scene from season five, episode three, “Mou Mou,” when Diana supposedly met Al Fayed for the first time at the Royal Windsor Horse Show. “Mohamed,” he said by way of introduction, “but you must call me ‘Mou Mou.’”
“He’s being eulogized by the most popular television program out there”
The light-hearted and completely invented moment was shown by BBC journalists to two of Al Fayed’s victims. Said one: “He comes across as pleasant, and we all know he’s not.” A second survivor of his sexual assaults spoke through choked tears: “It makes him look so funny and gregarious, and he could turn that on, but he wasn’t. He was vile, and that makes me angry. People shouldn’t remember him like that. It’s not how he was.” Added Chris Atkins, who tried but failed to unmask Al Fayed’s sexual depredations in a 2009 TV documentary, “Mohamed Al Fayed should be on trial, but he’s not. He’s in the ground, and he’s being eulogized by the most popular television program out there.”
As The Times of London noted in an editorial calling for further investigations of Al Fayed’s “associates and the authorities,” The Crown portrayed him “as an entrepreneurial upstart who had penetrated the top echelons of British society by his charm and determination…It was that portrayal, in part, that prompted women to come forward.” The victims independently reported to the BBC strikingly similar traumatic experiences of sexual assault.
“He was basically grooming us”
Facing the camera, the survivors—some still so frightened they used pseudonyms or omitted their surnames—described to the BBC in stomach-turning detail Al Fayed’s tactics. “He said ‘Call me Papa. Come to Papa,’” recalled Katherine, his executive assistant in 2005. He also purported to be a “father figure” to “Alice,” his personal assistant from 1986 to 1991. “He pushed me on the sofa and climbed on top of me and pulled down my top and put his hand inside my bra, clearly aroused, hand inside my underwear, hand inside me. I remember thinking, just get it over with.” Natacha, a personal assistant from 1989 to 1991 said, “He was basically grooming us.”
Gemma, his personal assistant in 2007 and 2008, was attacked by Al Fayed at the Villa Windsor in Paris, the former home of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor that he had spent $12 million to restore. He entered Gemma’s bedroom wearing a silk dressing gown. “I told him, ‘No, I don’t want you to,’” she recalled. “And he proceeded to just keep trying to get in the bed, at which point he was kind of on top of me, and [I] really couldn’t move anywhere. I was kind of face down on the bed, and he pressed himself on me.” “Is he a rapist?” asked the BBC producer. “Yes, he is a rapist,” replied Gemma.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to ROYALS EXTRA BY SALLY BEDELL SMITH to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.