Today, the legend ...
He owned the Ritz Hotel in Paris, and House of Fraser in the UK, including flagship department store Harrods. Which all looks very grand, but it did not take much perusal of Private Eye magazine at the time of the Fayed ownership to see the money-go-round of loans that kept the whole thing afloat - along with his brief tenure as owner of Fulham FC.
His Wikipedia entry gives a flavour of how trustworthy Fayed’s word really was. “After denials that Harrods was for sale, it was sold to Qatar Holdings, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, on 10 May 2010. A fortnight previously, Fayed had stated that ‘People approach us from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar. Fair enough. But I put two fingers up to them. It is not for sale. This is not Marks and Spencer or Sainsbury's. It is a special place that gives people pleasure. There is only one Mecca’”. He told them to Fug Off. Then he sold.
Fayed was also the subject of a whole host of sexual harassment accusations, with one of the more eye-catching ones claiming “A dozen ex-employees I spoke with said that Fayed would chase secretaries around the office and sometimes try to stuff money down women's blouses”.
That isn’t making any front page appearances today. Nor is the Vanity Fair article claiming “Fayed regularly walked the store on the lookout for young, attractive women to work in his office. Those who rebuffed him would often be subjected to crude, humiliating comments about their appearance or dress”.
... back then, the fact
Diana no longer enjoyed the same level of security as the Royals by the time she dined with Dodi Fayed at the Paris Ritz late in August 1997. Had that been the case, she would not have been ushered into a car driven by someone who was intoxicated and driven at high speed across the city.
That driver, Henri Paul, drove the car because he was ordered to do so. By Fayed. And staff at the Paris Ritz knew not to decline an order from the boss. Paul lost control of the car on the approach to the tunnel adjacent to the Pont d’Alma: the subsequent crash killed him and Dodi Fayed, and fatally injured Diana. Mohamed Fayed pretended Someone Else Done It.
He did so to the extent of accusing anyone and everyone he could think of - including the Duke of Edinburgh - of being in on the alleged conspiracy. He also claimed erroneously that Diana was pregnant at the time. She was, whisper it quietly, wanting to end what relationship there had been between her and Dodi Fayed. But now the legend has become fact.
So we aren’t seeing any of that on today’s front pages. Nor is the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph - which has a large photo of Fayed on its front page - making any link between the way the Fayed empire was kept afloat, and the way the Barclay empire is allegedly kept afloat. That’s the same Barclay empire that could lose control of the Tel. And Spectator.
No, today is a day for printing the legend. Even if it is a bit of a crap legend.
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1 comment:
In 2004 we went to Sharm El Sheikh over Christmas. One evening we were sat on the main strip at a restaurant and suddenly 10-12 guys in suits arrived and rearranged a number of tables. 5 minutes later Mohammed Al Fayed arrived with another 4-5 heavies for his evening meal. It was a surreal experience with staff treating him like a long lost Pharoah.
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