Mohamed Al Fayed bought Duke of Windsor's house and spent £10m on 'royal museum'

02 September 2023 , 00:20

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Mohamed Al Fayed kept a picture of Princess Diana in his Harrods office

Mohamed Al Fayed was a man so deeply involved with the Royal Family that an entire episode of Netflix hit The Crown's fifth season is devoted to telling his story.

The self-made Egyptian businessman, who has sadly died at the age of 94, had a deep personal bond with Princess Diana – but he also had a strange connection to another outcast member of the United Kingdom's Royal Family. Mr Al Fayed was the proud owner of a French mansion once owned by Queen Elizabeth II's uncle, the Duke of Windsor – and he even turned it into a museum of sorts to the British monarchy.

"Villa Windsor" as Mohamed came to call it, is a 14-room mansion on the outskirts of Paris. The incredible building was the home of King Edward VIII and his American divorcee wife Wallis Simpson from 1952 until 1986. When Ms Simpson died that year, Mr Al Fayed took out a 50-year lease on the property for the sum of 1million Francs per year. The lease also required him to spend 30million Francs in total on renovating the property, which had slowly begun to fall into a state of minor disrepair.

Mohamed Al Fayed posing for a photograph inside Villa Windsor (Steve Back/ANL/REX/Shutterstock)

"It’s like a mausoleum," Al Fayed told People Magazine in a 1990 interview, having spent somewhere in the region of £10.5million in total on sprucing up the villa. "It sometimes gives you the creeps—both of them having died here. But it’s still a happy place, a great fantasy which I love to live in."

Mr Al Fayed even went the extra mile when it came to recruitment. So keen was the millionaire to maintain an authentic royal experience at the villa that he hired the Duke of Edinburgh's ex-valet, Sydney Johnson, to oversee renovations at the property and curate a private collection of royal memorabilia to be stored at the site.

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Mohamed's friendship with the Queen appeared in the latest series of The Crown (GETTY)

In February 1998, a collection of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's personal possessions that had been held at the villa was put up for auction by Mr Al Fayed. Amongst the items were 10,000 private photographs, the desk used by the Duke of Windsor himself and a small doll given to King Edward VIII by his mother Queen Mary.

It's believed Mohamed Al Fayed had spent around £4million on purchasing the items in the first place, and they were split across 3,200 different lots. All profits from the sale went to the Dodi Fayed International Charitable Foundation and causes associated with the late Princess of Wales.

Mr Al Fayed was long fascinated by the royal life, even before his son Dodi became involved with Princess Diana (Sipa/REX/Shutterstock)

Mr Al Fayed was buried on September 2 after Friday prayers following a service at Regent’s Park Mosque in London, reported Al Jazeera Egypt. He died one day before the 26th anniversary of the death of his eldest son, Dodi, and Princess Diana.

Bond with Princess Diana

While it's unknown where they first met, Princess Diana and Al Fayed's circles would have crossed regularly as he sponsored many of the charities she was involved with. Their unlikely friendship features heavily in season five of The Crown, showing Mr Al Fayed, played by Salim Daw, growing closer to the royals.

In the summer of 1997, the year after Charles and Diana were finally able to officially divorce following their five year separation, Al Fayed invited Diana and her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, to join his family on his yacht in the south of France.

The 208ft superyacht was the perfect setting for family time, with photos from the time showing the loving mum playing with her sons on the deck . The boat, which has now changed hands, has nine staterooms and can hold 18 people as well as a crew of 26. Dripping in luxury, it boasted a jacuzzi, office, formal dining room and a swim platform.

And it was during this trip that Diana grew close to Al Fayed's oldest son, 42-year-old film producer Dodi. Pictures of the couple cuddling and kissing on the top deck went around the world, while Diana was photographed sunbathing, jumping into a speedboat and sitting on the stern in a contemplative mood.

They were among the last pictures of the Princess, who told her friend Rosa Monckton in a phone call from the yacht that her time there was "bliss”.

Fallout with the royals

Al Fayed spent a decade after the lovers' 1997 deaths in Paris's Alma tunnel repeatedly claiming that they were murdered in a plot by the security services and the Duke of Edinburgh. But he was forced to reluctantly concede defeat after a high-profile six-month inquest in 2007 and 2008.

The jury returned unlawful killing verdicts on both Diana and Dodi, but pinned the blame on the drink-driving of their chauffeur Henri Paul, who also died in the crash. Paul was employed by the Paris Ritz, from where their journey had started on August 31, a hotel owned by Mr Al Fayed.

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At the end of the inquest, coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker openly voiced suggestions of "closing ranks" at the hotel over the question of whether they knew Paul was drinking on the night of the smash.

The jury had heard allegations, strenuously denied, that key witnesses were pressurised to back Mr Al Fayed's theories and that there was a "conspiracy to pervert the truth" within the Fayed organisation. Al Fayed later announced he would accept the verdict of the inquest jury, albeit "with reservations".

Matt Clemenson