Dodi Al Fayed's Mom Was Part of the Khashoggi Family
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An early episode in season five of The Crown, explores Mohamed Al Fayed's background, and how his fascination with the British royal family led to a friendship with Princess Diana. As The Crown suggests, Mohamed did not grow up wealthy, but his first wife, Samira Khashoggi, did. She plays a small role in this season (portrayed by actress Chayma Abdelkarimi). Here, learn a bit more about her—and how Dodi is connected to the Khashoggi family.
Dodi's grandfather was Muhammad Khashoggi.
Muhammad Khashoggi, Samira's father and Dodi's maternal grandfather, was Saudi Arabian king Ibn Saud's personal doctor.
Muhammad Khashoggi and his wife, Samiha Ahmed, had six children: Adnan, Samira, Essam, Ahmad, Adil, and Soheir. After World War II ended, Muhammed sent his children to school in Egypt, and eventually, Samiha made Alexandria her home to be closer to her children.
Dodi's parents married in 1954.
Dodi's parents, Mohamed Fayed (the 'Al' was added later, after he moved to England) and Samira Khashoggi, married in 1954. Dodi was born in 1955; a year later, his parents divorced. Though his father got custody of him, his mother was still part of his life.
"He was absolutely devoted to Samira and there was hardly a day he didn't talk to her from wherever he was," a friend of Dodi's recalled. "They'd talk for up to an hour and no matter how beautiful the girl might be he was with at the time, he'd drop her in a second if his mother called. It's thanks to his mother he has such a sensitive side and is able to understand women so well. That is part of the reason why so many women going through relationship break-ups turn to him."
Samira remarried twice after divorcing Mohamed.
A short time later, she married Anas Yassin (also spelled Yaseen), and they moved to Beirut. Yassin was a former Saudi ambassador to the United Nations, India, and Turkey. Samira had another child, Jumana, nicknamed Gigi, in 1965. After Anas died in a car accident in 1974, she remarried a third time, to a Lebanese businessman, Abdel Rahman al-Aseer.
Samira was a writer.
She founded the Al Sharkiah magazine dedicated to Arab women. Jumana is now editor-in-chief. Samira also authored numerous books in Arabic under the pseudonym Samirah, Daughter of the Arabian Peninsula.
Samira died in 1986 of a heart attack.
Dodi "knew how much his mother loved him," Jumana told Tom Sancton and Scott MacLeod in Death of a Princess. "When she died, he collapsed."
"For Dodi and myself it was a terrible tragedy," Samira's sister Soheir said of Samira's death. "Dodi did not have time to get to her before she died. He travelled to Egypt but could not get there until the next day. He was at the funeral and he still talks about her often when we speak every few weeks."
Dodi's uncle, Adnan Khashoggi, was a Saudi businessman and arms dealer.
By the 1970s, Adnan was one of the world's richest men. "Adnan Khashoggi was the embodiment of the extraordinary riches that the petrodollar brought to his homeland, Saudi Arabia - although his fortune was made in arms deals rather than oil," the BBC wrote in his obituary "Through his vast reserve of contacts and a series of massive international arms deals in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, he ended up rivalling the Saudi royal family for glittering wealth and extravagance. His parties were legendary, featuring a cast of celebrities, glamorous women and fellow tycoons. But a series of scandals - political and financial - not only tarnished his reputation but greatly diminished his fortune."
He died at age 82 of Parkinson's disease.
His cousin was journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Jamal's father, Ahmad, is Samira's brother, making Dodi and Jamal first cousins. Jamal was raised in Medina, like his father, aunts and uncles, whereas Dodi was raised in Alexandria.
Jamal became a prominent Saudi journalist who was close with the Saudi royal family like his grandfather. Yet, in 2017, he went into exile in the U.S.; a year later, he was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. A UN investigation found that his death "constituted an extrajudicial killing for which the state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible."
Unfortunately, after Jamal's death, conspiracy theorists tried to link his death to that of his cousin Dodi's death. There was no connection.
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