INTERVIEW

Camilla Fayed on the night Diana and Dodi died — and following in her father’s footsteps

Controversy is never far from Camilla Fayed. Her playboy brother famously dated Princess Diana. Her father is the larger-than-life former owner of Harrods. Now the health-obsessed socialite is turning her vegan restaurant into a chain

Camilla Fayed, 35, at her farm in Kent wearing Stella McCartney
Camilla Fayed, 35, at her farm in Kent wearing Stella McCartney
MARK HARRISON
The Times

When Camilla Fayed was 12 years old, her brother Dodi Fayed was killed in a car accident in the underpass of the Pont de l’Alma in Paris. Later that night, his girlfriend of just a few months, Diana, Princess of Wales, died from her injuries. It was late August 1997 and the world erupted with the news.

Camilla’s father, Mohamed Al Fayed, at the time owner of Harrods, Fulham Football Club and the Ritz Paris, a full-front, full-wattage, flamboyant figure who routinely stuck up two fingers to the British establishment, was changed for ever. From then on, “there was such a weight” around him, says his daughter. “Always a weight.” And their family was changed too.

“Such a cataclysmic event – how could it not