WOMAN SCORNED
Dodi Fayed’s brutal split from Kelly Fisher who sued him for £355K after he romped with her ‘hours before meeting Diana’
Model Kelly claimed she discovered their engagement was over in the most savage way
ANY woman who's ever been scorned will feel for Kelly Fisher after watching the latest instalment of The Crown.
The ex-model, who was reportedly engaged to Dodi Fayed before he met Diana, is branded a "gold digger" by his father and callously cast adrift while he begins romancing the princess on a yacht in .
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In the wake of their split, Kelly, played by Erin Richards in the Netflix drama, sensationally claimed she romped with playboy Dodi on a nearby boat hours before he left to meet Diana - a scene that plays out on The Crown.
But ultimately she proved no match for "the most beautiful woman in the world", who stole her lover's heart.
Kelly, who modelled for Victoria’s Secret, Armani and Calvin Klein and graced the covers of Elle, Marie Claire and W magazine, met film producer Dodi in Paris in July 1996.
They dated for around six months before he is believed to have popped the question at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles in February 1997.
He presented her with a £180,000 diamond and sapphire ring that bore a striking resemblance to Diana's from Prince Charles.
A friend told the Daily Mail that Dodi "lavished attention on her and told her that he was in love with her", and within a short while "she was convinced she was in love with him too".
She also claimed Dodi, 42, convinced her to pack in her lucrative modelling work and gave her a £2,000-a-day allowance.
The couple set a provisional date of August 9 for their wedding, with Dodi - who received a £400,000 a month allowance from his tycoon father Mohamed Al-Fayed - allegedly telling Kelly he'd bought them a £5million home in Malibu.
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Kelly, who was born in Kentucky before relocating to Ontario, Canada aged eight with her family, later claimed Dodi had told her to "start shopping for furnishings".
But weeks before their wedding, Dodi was invited to join his father in St Tropez, where he was entertaining Diana, 36, and Princes William and Harry on board his yacht.
Royal expert Katie Nicholl claimed Mohamed's ulterior motive was "to play Cupid between the princess and his eldest son".
The day after Dodi and Kelly's scheduled wedding, photos emerged of Dodi kissing Princess Diana on-board his father's yacht Jonikal - the moment Kelly claimed she learned their engagement was over.
It had been taken by an Italian paparazzo using a telephoto lens on August 4, and was bought for £300,000 by a Sunday newspaper.
In total, images from the holiday were sold for more than £3million around the world.
Kelly, then 31, claimed she was in St Tropez at the time the first kiss picture was taken, staying aboard another of the Fayed family’s yachts, believing it was a pre-wedding holiday.
She said she tried to get through to Dodi on the phone, but was "abruptly told by a family member not to call anymore", reported the Los Angeles Times.
She previously told The Sun: “I was heartbroken to see the pictures of Diana and Dodi together. But the most heartbroken I ever, ever was – ever – was when he died.
"That was too much for me. It was incredibly difficult.”
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A week after the photos emerged, Kelly sued Dodi for $440,000 - a move that made headlines around the world.
The 'breach of contract' lawsuit alleged Dodi had offered to pay her $500,000 to "put her career in second place behind him and to spend more time with him and less on her modelling career".
The Los Angeles Times reported that the suit stated Dodi told her his family was embarrassed that his fiancée worked.
Kelly claimed she received $60,000 and a cheque for $200,000, which bounced, so she sought the remaining balance, plus legal costs and damages, having turned down work.
Her lawyer Gloria Allred called Dodi a “frog in prince’s clothing” during a press conference.
In a statement, she claimed he “led [Kelly] emotionally all the way up to the altar and abandoned her when they were almost there. He threw her love away in a callous way with no regard for her whatsoever”.
Ms Allred added that Kelly was only making her claim public because "we care about Princess Diana and her future".
"We would like the Princess, who has suffered greatly in the past, to know about Miss Fisher’s experiences with Mr Fayed so she can make an informed decision regarding her future and that of her children," she alleged.
Meanwhile the Fayed family denied Dodi had ever asked Kelly to marry him.
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While The Crown shows Dodi telling the princess that his fiancée was staying on a nearby boat, society reporter Dominick Dunne wrote in Vanity Fair that he believed it unlikely Diana had any idea what was going on.
“I think it is safe to say that Diana didn’t know that Kelly Fisher was on another family yacht, waiting for furtive visits from Dodi, with whom she had been in a relationship for nearly a year," he suggested.
"Diana had already played that scene in her marriage to Prince Charles.”
Weeks later Dodi and Diana tragically died in a car crash in Paris. Shortly after, Kelly withdrew her lawsuit "out of respect for the tragedy, and tremendous loss the Fayed family has suffered".
Ms Allred announced in a statement that Kelly "loved Dodi very much, and she is devastated by his loss, and that of Princess Diana".
It went on: "Nothing is more important than the life of a human being. In the light of this enormous tragedy, Kelly forgives Dodi for all of his past injustices against her."
Kelly told The Sun in 2017: "You go in the course of three weeks from being engaged to Dodi to being left for the most famous, gorgeous woman in the world, to them all dying.
“In three weeks. That was just terrible. I was pretty young. It was pretty bad.”
In 2007 Kelly gave evidence at the inquest into Diana and Dodi's deaths, where she admitted she felt "very betrayed".
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"I am tired of people saying I am a liar," she said. "It is humiliating to have to prove that someone wanted to marry you."
The following year transcripts of calls between her and her ex were made public.
In one she raged: "You even flew me down to St Tropez to sit on a boat while you seduced Diana all day and f****d me all night... I don’t understand how one day we’re in love and then… Why are you doing this to me?”
During another conversation Kelly said: "We were together the whole time. And you knew it.”
Dodi tried to end the call, calling her "hysterical” and insisting they had already broken up when he began his romance with Diana.
Kelly went on to marry Russian pilot Mikhail Movshina, whom she met in 2007 while on safari in the Central African Republic, and they welcomed a daughter, Alexandra Grace, in 2011.
The former model now works in real estate in Aiken, South Carolina.
Kelly said in 2017 that she kept the engagement ring Dodi gave her, and the only pain she feels now is on behalf of William and Harry.
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“I have a daughter now and cannot imagine what would have happened if I was suddenly gone," Kelly told The Sun.
"I can’t imagine what those boys must have felt.”
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