Exactly 26 years after the death of his son Dodi in a car accident that also killed Princess Diana, billionaire Mohammed Al Fayed has passed away.
The tycoon, founder of Harrods but probably better known as the father of Dodi Al Fayed, companion of the late Princess Diana, passed away a few days ago. The 94-year-old Egyptian billionaire, among other things, was the owner of the Premier League club Fulham, as well as the legendary Ritz Hotel in Paris. He died 26 years after his son died in a fatal car accident on 31 August 1997 in Paris.
Hugely popular and beloved by the people of Britain, “Lady Dee” is said to have had a special “family bond” with her lover’s father, as the magnate claimed that his firstborn and son’s lover were killed by order of the royal family. Princess Diana and her friend Dodi Al-Fayed died in a car accident in Paris, writes the BBC.
In 2008, a jury in London’s High Court ruled that the crash was the result of negligence by the driver and reporters who were chasing the couple. Mohammed Al-Fayed did not agree with the official version and conducted his own investigation for a long time, but in the end he resigned himself to the conclusions of the jury. “Enough. I leave retribution to the Almighty. But I myself will not do anything else, ”he said in 2008.
Mohamed Al-Fayed died, according to data quoted by the Daily Mail, on the night of August 31 to September 1. Mohammed Al Fayed (then simply Fayed) was born in Alexandria to a school teacher in 1929 and raised in Alexandria, Egypt.
His fortunes changed dramatically after he met his first wife Samira Khashoggi, the sister of Saudi millionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who took him into his import business in Saudi Arabia. A year later, Dodi was born.
The job helped him make new connections in Egypt, and although the marriage lasted little more than two years, Al-Fayed started his own shipping business. Then, in 1966, Mohammed went to work financial adviser to the Sultan of Brunei. Having accumulated considerable wealth and experience, in 1974 he moved to the UK. Five years later, in an effort to secure his position, especially among the upper strata of British society, he, along with his brother Ali, bought the famous Paris Ritz hotel for 20 million pounds.
In 1985, they also bought Harrods, a department store for the rich and famous, for £615m, after a tough bidding battle with the mining conglomerate Lonrho group. Al Fayed bought Fulham Football Club in the 1990s.
In 1985, Mohamed Al Fayed married Finnish actress and model Heini Wathem, with whom he had four more children: Camila, Omar, Yasmin and Karim. Among the known facts about him is the friendship with the late Michael Jackson, to whom the magnate erected a monument near the Fulham stadium.
In recent years, Al-Fayed has hardly appeared in public and lived in a mansion in Surrey with his wife Heini.
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