Inside playboy life of Diana’s lover Dodi Fayed as he appears in The Crown… from string of A-list romances to £150k cars
DODI Fayed was the son of multi-millionaire and former Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, but certainly lived a very colourful life.
The Netflix show focuses on the film producer's famous relationship with Princess Diana in the final episode.
In it we see a feckless Dodi begging his multi-millionaire father Mohamed Al-Fayed to put a deposit down on a mansion in Malibu for him, snorting cocaine and making love to his latest girlfriend on a private jet paid for by his dad.
That, though, is just a small sample of the reported debauched lifestyle of the eldest son of the former owner of Harrods department store and Fulham football club.
Dodi, who died aged 42 in a Paris car crash with Diana 26 years ago, had a reputation for playing with guns, being paranoid about his health and running up massive debts.
Much of the money was spent on impressing a string of beautiful models and actresses.
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'A talent for women'
Dodi’s dad says in The Crown: “The one thing you have a talent for is women.”
That was certainly true.
The playboy was linked to Blue Lagoon actress Brooke Shields, Val Kilmer’s ex-wife Joanne Whalley, Stranger Things star Winona Ryder and Frank Sinatra’s daughter Tina.
The models he’s said to have wooed include Koo Stark, Traci Lind and Marie Helvin.
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Dodi was described as charming by many exes, but not all were enamoured by his behaviour.
He first met Diana at a polo match in 1989, but they did not get together until Dodi invited the princess to stay at his father's 30-bedroom villa in St Tropez in July 1997.
At that time she was in an on-off relationship with surgeon Hasnat Khan, while Dodi was engaged to American model Kelly Fisher.
When paparazzi photographs revealed Diana snuggling close to Dodi on a yacht, Kelly was so outraged she sued her fiance.
Kelly said: "I was blissfully unaware that the man trying to father my child was setting his sights on Diana.”
Having slept with his fiancee, Dodi would slip off to another yacht to spend the rest of the night with the princess.
But model Suzanne Gregard, who was married to Dodi for eight months after getting hitched in 1986, was kinder about her ex.
She said: “The day we were married the telephone was ringing off the hook with lawyers about prenuptial agreements.
"We never signed one. Dodi felt it would have been unromantic, and he trusted me.”
Mother's tragic death
Dodi has been described as a mummy's boy who rang his mother Samira every day.
He was devastated when she died from cancer and a heart attack in 1986.
Dodi once said: "If it meant giving up everything I have - cars, wealth, and women - I would do it to bring my mother back."
If it meant giving up everything I have - cars, wealth, and women - I would do it to bring my mother back
Dodi Fayed
Many former associates described Mohamed as controlling and Diana teased Dodi by saying "God's calling" when his dad rang him.
Egyptian Mohamed, 93, was the son of a school teacher from Alexandria who went on to become a billionaire.
At one point he worked with Saudi businesseman and arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who was the brother of his first wife.
Flash Ferraris
Before Dodi was old enough to drive, his dad had bought him a Rolls- Royce with a chauffeur.
By the time he’d met Diana his collection of expensive motors included two Aston Martins, a Range Rover and a Ferrari.
At one point Mohamed made his son the director of a Ferrari dealership he’d bought near London.
It meant that Dodi got his hands on a Testarossa worth around £150,000
Drug-fuelled parties
Party lover Dodi lived the high life with the showbusiness pals he’d made while operating as a movie producer.
According to a couple of sources, that included snorting large amounts of cocaine.
Mark Fleischman, who owned the New York Studio 54 club between 1981 and 84, wrote in his autobiography: “Dodi loved Quaaludes, good quality coke and hot women and he always had plenty of those.”
And he remembered during one New Year blow out: “'I lost track of what day it was, forgot about my plans for later and partied through the night in a suite at the Plaza Hotel with Dodi.”
Pal Nona Summers told Vanity Fair magazine: “He was into . He told me he had done it, that he got himself in trouble and stopped.”
Guns and paranoia
Actress Traci Lind claimed that Dodi once threatened her with a 9mm Beretta gun when she refused to marry him.
The American former model, who dated the playboy when she was aged 16 and 21, alleged that he had a terrible temper.
She said: "Part of the reason I left Dodi was that he pulled a gun on me.”
Meanwhile Kelly Fisher told how Dodi was surrounded by guns, some owned by him and others by his bodyguards.
She saw an Uzi submachine gun and a weapon that could be disguised.
Kelly said: “He boasted that it was the type of gun that could be smuggled into an airport or on to a plane."
Legend has it that Al-Fayed gave his son his first bodyguard when Dodi was aged just 15.
The family had a huge security team who followed them everywhere.
Kelly suspected that Dodi had his men spy on her and investigate her background.
There were also signs that he feared catching a disease, as he often used wet wipes and kept oxygen tanks close by.
Mounting debts
Despite being given a reported £85,000 a month allowance by his dad, Dodi ran up huge debts.
In just two months he ran up that same sum on his American Express Gold Card and the credit car card company sued him in 1994 for failing to pay it back.
Dodi’s lavish spending included renting a beach house in Los Angeles, spending £10,000 on furs, £12,000 on jewellery and £8,000 on Armani clothes.
Friends told how he would give them caviar as a gift.
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He had displayed talent as a movie producer, earning a reported £8million by helping to make the Oscar-winning movie Chariots of Fire in 1981.
But the 1995 Demi Moore and Gary Oldman film The Scarlet Letter was roundly panned by critics and proved to be a costly flop.
