A Complete Timeline of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed's Relationship

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The first part of the final season of The Crown focused heavily on Princess Diana and her relationship with Dodi Al Fayed, the son of Mohammed Al Fayed. Portrayed by Elizabeth Debicki and Khalid Abdalla, respectively, the first episodes of season six show their brief romance.

"The funny thing is that everyone focuses on the crash," Abdalla told Town & Country. "And strangely, as a result, what they miss is this fabulous summer that Dodi and Diana had with each other. From an acting perspective, that's the real challenge—and that's also been the real joy to explore. They're falling in love, but you know what happened afterwards. You look at the images of Diana at that time, and she was really happy. It's been a real pleasure as Dodi, as a character who makes Diana happy, having those scenes with a happy Diana."

As the final season of The Crown is now fully streaming (part two dropped today), here's the full, complete timeline of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed's brief relationship:

Sometime in the late '80s: Princess Diana meets Mohammed Al Fayed

After Mohammed, an Egyptian businessman, purchased the iconic Harrods department store in 1985, he entered the orbit of the British royal family—including Princess Diana. They met numerous times over the years, and even attended a charity dinner together at Harrods in 1996.

Reportedly, during this time, Diana meets Dodi for the first time, at a 1986 polo match in Windsor.

August 1996: Prince Charles and Diana formally divorce

Then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana separated in 1992, but would not formally divorce until August 1996. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip supported a divorce in late 1995, and it was finalized less than a year later.

"After considering the present situation, the Queen wrote to both the Prince and Princess earlier this week and gave them her view, supported by the Duke of Edinburgh, that an early divorce is desirable. The Prince of Wales also takes this view and has made this known to the Princess of Wales since the letter," Buckingham Palace said in a statement on December 1995. "The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will continue to do all they can to help and support the Prince and Princess of Wales, and most particularly their children, in this difficult period."

Charles and Diana split custody of their children.

July 1997: Diana and Dodi's romance begins

In summer 1997, Mohammed invites Princess Diana and her sons, Princes William and Harry, to vacation with his family in the south of France. She accepts the invitation, and the end of season five of The Crown shows Diana packing for this trip.

By this point, Diana was no longer dating Hasnat Khan, a British Pakistani surgeon. (Here, a guide to all of Diana's rumored boyfriends.) Khan said of Dodi, "She wanted to be with someone who was happy to be seen with her in public and she could do that with Dodi." He added, "I think that Diana finally realized that Al Fayed could give her all the things I could not. He had money and could provide the necessary security for her."

Diana and her sons join the Fayed family on their yacht and at their villa, Castle St. Therese, for a trip from July 11 through 20. Prince Harry would later write in his memoir, Spare, "Everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven." He explains, "We'd been with Mummy weeks earlier when she first met him, in St. Tropez"—the him refers to Dodi—"We were having a grand time, just the three of us, staying at some old gent's villa." At the time, Dodi was dating (and possibly engaged to) American model Kelly Fisher, but soon, a romance blossoms between Dodi and Diana.

August 1997: Diana continues seeing Dodi

After Princes William and Harry go to Balmoral in Scotland for summer vacation with Prince Charles, Diana continues to undertake engagements. She flies back to the South of France, where she and Dodi spend time together aboard the Jonikal in early August, where they are snapped by paparazzi photographer Mario Brenna—who sells the pictures to the Sunday Mirror for record-breaking prices. The pictures first ran on August 10, 1997 with the headline "THE KISS" while Diana was traveling to Bosnia to highlight her work around landmines.

Despite the press surrounding them, after going to Greece with Rosa Monckton, Diana returns to Saint Tropez to vacation again with Dodi on August 21, 1997. On August 24, 1997, Diana is photographed famously sitting at the end of the yacht's diving board.

During this trip, too, Diana and Dodi visit Monaco, where they visit the Repossi boutique. The Washington Post later reported, "Alberto Repossi said in a telephone interview today that the couple came into the Monaco branch of his store unexpectedly about 10 days before the Aug. 30 auto accident that killed them. The couple was vacationing on the Riviera at the time. They spent only about four or five minutes in the store, Repossi said, because they already knew which ring they wanted. They had seen it in a Repossi advertisement in the September edition of a fashion magazine, L'Officiel de la Couture et de la Mode de Paris."

August 30 and 31, 1997

On August 30, 1997, Diana and Dodi fly to Paris, where they go to the Ritz Paris, which is owned by Mohammed Al Fayed. That same day, Dodi also goes to the Repossi store in Paris to pick up the ring they reportedly chose in Monaco.

As the Associated Press reports, "the day has been tense. The couple has been having problems with paparazzi ever since their mid-afternoon arrival in Paris. First, they trailed Diana and Dodi from Le Bourget Airport outside Paris, on their way to see Villa Windsor — a mansion that once housed the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and that Dodi’s father has bought and renovated. Their driver managed to shake the photographers." They try to have dinner at Chez Benoit, but paparazzi trail them so they eat at the Ritz Paris, in the Imperial Suite.

After dinner, they decide to go to an apartment Dodi owned off the Champs-Elysees, and 20 minutes after midnight, they leave the hotel. With paparazzi in pursuit, their car crashes in the Pont d'Alma tunnel, in Paris. Dodi died instantly, and early that morning, August 31 at Hospital La Pitié Salpêtrière, Diana was declared dead.

Dodi was buried that evening, in accordance with Muslim tradition, after a funeral at Central London mosque. Princess Diana's funeral took place on September 6, 1997

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