Princess Diana told her brother that Mohamed Al Fayed groped her and made a sexually suggestive remark during the early stages of her relationship with his son, Dodi, according to Earl Spencer.
In his memoir Swan Song, Spencer writes that the Princess of Wales was “revolted” by the late Harrods owner and believed he had used his friendship with her stepmother, Raine, Countess Spencer, to help bring her and Dodi together.
Spencer says Diana told him that Al Fayed had approached her, placed a hand on her bottom and squeezed it. He claims Al Fayed then said: “And in Egypt, father-in-law gets first go…”
According to the memoir, Diana laughed while recounting what had happened, but Spencer said the incident had alerted her to “who Dodi’s father really was”.
Earl Spencer’s account of Diana and Dodi
Spencer claims that Raine had helped engineer Diana’s introduction to Dodi after securing a senior role on the board of Harrods following the death of her husband, Diana’s father.
He writes that Raine and the Spencer family had known Mohamed Al Fayed, and suggests the businessman expected something in return for employing her.
Diana and Dodi were killed in a car crash in Paris in August 1997, weeks after beginning their relationship. Spencer says the final images of the pair showed “a gentle playfulness”.
He also writes that he regrets removing Dodi’s name from the eulogy he delivered at Diana’s funeral. His original draft had thanked Dodi for making his sister happy during the final weeks of her life.
Spencer believes, however, that Diana’s relationship with Dodi that summer was partly intended to make another suitor jealous.
Al Fayed spent years claiming that the Royal Family had ordered the deaths of Diana and his son. He died aged 94 in 2023.
Since the late 1990s, Al Fayed has been accused of sexually abusing, trafficking and raping hundreds of women. More than 400 allegations of sexual misconduct have been made against him and other people linked to him, dating from 1977 to 2014.
The Metropolitan Police is dealing with at least 159 people who contacted the force directly, including 21 who came forward before Al Fayed’s death. Operation Cornpoppy, launched in November 2024, is examining whether people may have facilitated or enabled his alleged crimes.
