Inside the world of the billionaire playboy Adnan Khashoggi who had a penchant for teen brides, an obsession with call girls and collection of 11 ‘pleasure wives’
The billionaire was never far from controversy and allegedly canoodled with Sir Paul McCartney’s former wife Heather Mills
ANYONE who saw Adnan Khashoggi reclining on his yacht surrounded by young women dripping in jewels could be in no doubt he was a powerful man.
The Saudi arms dealer, who died this week of Parkinson’s disease at the age of 81, could buy anything — and anyone — he wanted.
And his desire for female company was gargantuan.
The twice-married billionaire enjoyed lavish parties with call girls and kept 11 “pleasure wives”.
At the peak of his wealth in the early Eighties, Khashoggi — who was protected by a South Korean bodyguard called Mr Kill — was spending £150,000 a day, drinking champagne like water and eating caviar noon and night.
And he used his then £3billion fortune to buy 35 palatial homes, a 282ft yacht that featured in James Bond film Never Say Never Again and more than 100 limousines.
But there were scandals and bankruptcy, too.
His career as a wheeler dealer began while he studied in America in the early 1960s.
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He used the money his father gave him to buy a car to invest in a freight hire business instead.
Soon Khashoggi, who was uncle to Princess Diana’s lover Dodi Fayed, was making multi-million pound commissions as a middle man in the sale of arms from the United States to Saudi Arabia.
His business empire expanded to include holiday resorts, car sales, property and shipping lines.
Many of those lucrative contracts were won by impressing clients with luxurious parties and the services of high-class prostitutes.
Biographer Ronald Kessler wrote: “He ordered ten for an evening, sharing them with friends, princes and business associates and using them himself.
“He always wanted fresh, new women who would outdo the previous ones.”
Among the girls he canoodled with was Sir Paul McCartney’s former wife Heather Mills.
Khashoggi’s private secretary Abdul Khoury once claimed: “One of my duties was to look after Mr Khashoggi’s guests, which included Heather Mills, who I know had sex with him.”
Heather denied she slept with the arms dealer, but friends have corroborated the story and Khashoggi refused to deny it.
One of his high-class escorts was Pamella Bordes, notorious for having a House of Commons pass as an MP’s researcher.
She described him as a tiny man in “the biggest bed I had ever seen”.
Despite being 5ft 4in tall, balding and paunchy, the Saudi playboy did not always have to pay women to keep his silk sheets warm.
He twice married young brides and had 11 “pleasure wives” as mistresses.
Leicester-born former convent schoolgirl Sandra Jarvis-Daly wed him in 1961 aged 20 and took the Muslim name Soraya.
She explained: “It was on holiday that we met Adnan’s family, who invited us to spend New Year’s Eve with them.
“Six months later, in 1960, I met Adnan for the first time in London. We fell in love. I am a sucker for big brown eyes.
“I went to work for him as a translator. And on trips he would ask me to try on coats or dresses that he said he wanted to buy for his sisters.
“At the time I didn’t know that all these presents were for me and he was beginning the transformation of my wardrobe.
“One day he proposed. He must have known I was going to say yes because he had already had the rings engraved.”
Once married, the level of luxury increased.
She recalled: “There were times when I didn’t even have to go shopping as Adnan brought the shops to me.
“Yves Saint Laurent and Givenchy would send models to show me the latest collection in my own home, while Cartier and Asprey would happily display their goods in our hotel rooms.
“Once, in New York, Adnan borrowed so many jewels for me to wear at a ball that the jeweller sent armed bodyguards to follow me around all evening.”
The couple were married for 13 years and had five children together.
But in 1974, Khashoggi suddenly divorced her without her knowledge.
Shortly after their split, Soraya gave birth to daughter Petrina.
But both had been sleeping around while together — and it was later revealed that Petrina’s true father was Tory MP Jonathan Aitken.
Khashoggi met his second wife, Italian Laura Biancolini, when she was 17, but it was not long after their wedding in 1978 that he began cheating on her as well.
One of his “pleasure wives” was model turned fashion designer Jill Dodd, who was 24 years his junior.
And he made his intentions towards her clear from the start.
In her memoirs, Jill recalled how they were lying in bed together when he said: “We can’t kiss until I tell you the situation.
“I want you to be one of my pleasure wives. By Saudi Arabian law, I’m allowed to have 11 pleasure wives and three legal wives.
“I won’t kiss you until you agree to this contract.”
Jill added: “Yes, I say, and we seal the agreement as our lips meet.
“In that moment, I become a member of Adnan’s harem, taking turns with other women to have sex with the man I love.”
The compensation for putting up with his cheating was that his regular wives enjoyed lives of dazzling luxury.
Khashoggi’s sprawling homes included the fairytale Chateau Louis XIII in Cannes and a seven-villa Spanish estate with the world’s largest outdoor marble dance floor.
These palatial properties were used to entertain stars including Sean Connery, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins, Frank Sinatra, Raquel Welch and Brooke Shields.
On average Khashoggi only spent three days a year at each home, as he travelled the globe in his private Boeing 727 and Douglas DC-8 planes doing business.
Much of his relaxation time was spent on yacht Nabila — named after his daughter.
His 50th birthday party was a five-day celebration where 400 guests dined from a sprawling 50-item buffet and listened to Dame Shirley Bassey sing Happy Birthday live.
But having to find the means to pay such eye-watering bills caught up with him and he was hit by a series of scandals in the late 1980s.
First he was implicated in the 1986 Iran–Contra affair when it was revealed that the United States had secretly sold arms to Iran, ignoring an embargo.
A year later one of his American companies filed for bankruptcy in the middle of building a shopping centre in Salt Lake City.
Then in 1988 he was arrested in Switzerland accused of committing fraud with Imelda Marcos, the reviled widow of the exiled Philippine despot Ferdinand Marcos.
He was cleared of the charges in 1990, but by that time he had been forced to sell most of his houses, his yacht and planes. The yacht was later bought by Donald Trump.
Over the next three decades he developed a serious gambling habit, and in 1998 he settled out of court after being accused of bouncing cheques worth £3million at the Ritz Casino in London.
As his health faltered, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
In one of his final interviews, Khashoggi said of his life: “What did I do wrong? Nothing. I behaved unethically, for ethical reasons.”
And of his jewels, his houses and his girls, he said: “It’s all part of the mechanism for impressing people”.
Or perhaps, as biographer Ronald Kessler concluded: “He craved the women for companionship — because he was a profoundly lonely man.”