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Despite the elder Al Fayed's wealth, prestigious holdings and good works, he has never managed to be accepted into British society. He has lived in England for 20 years, and the four children of his second marriage are all British citizens. He was a friend of Diana's father, the late Lord Spencer, and employs her stepmother Raine, Countess de Chambrun, as a director of Harrods International, the store's duty-free arm. Al Fayed sponsors the Royal Windsor Horse Show, at which he shares the Queen's box. Still, the British government has for years denied his requests for citizenship without explanation. Al Fayed also deeply resents a 1990 government report criticizing the financing of his takeover of Harrods. The cold shoulder of his adopted home reflects, he says, contempt for Britain's fast-growing immigrant population. And ingratitude as well. Al Fayed has invested almost $500 million in Harrods since he bought it in 1984, and he has given generously to British charities. "You don't want to work hard for 40 years and have a bunch of crooks and bastards and gun runners insult you," he recently told the New York Times. "They say, 'You own Harrods, you bloody Egyptian coming from Africa. How can you dare buy Harrods?'" Al Fayed got a measure of revenge against the Conservative Party, which he particularly blames for his rejection, when he helped bring down John Major's government by disclosing that Tory Members of Parliament took money from him in paper bags or accepted his hospitality at the Ritz Hotel in Paris in exchange for political influence. Al Fayed was happy to take some credit for the defeat of the Conservatives after 18 years in office. "I was proud," he told the Times, "because I showed the masses and I showed the voters that they were ruled by a bunch of crooks, and my message got through."
There have been suggestions in the London press that Al Fayed encouraged his son to court Diana as a way to get back--or, as the Independent put it, "cock a snook"--at the British Establishment. Nothing would have made him happier, some royal watchers contend, than for his son to become stepfather to the future King of England. Dodi and Diana's liaison reportedly began when the elder Al Fayed invited the princess and her two sons to vacation with his family at his villa in St.-Tropez. Adnan Khashoggi told a Saudi newspaper last month, "We welcome Diana into our family." The relationship between Dodi and Di led to an "inflated sense of pride" for England's Middle Eastern and Asian communities, contributor Fuad Nahdi wrote in the Independent. "You might hate and abuse us on the high streets and in alleyways, but our boys are cruising off with your biggest catches on the high seas."
Some of Diana's friends, however, believed that Al Fayeds' wealth could do more for the princess than she could do for them. With Al Fayeds' seemingly endless supply of mansions, boats, helicopters and bodyguards, Dodi had the material resources to provide her with the stability and privacy that her life was so lacking in. The elder Al Fayed's decision to auction off the contents of the Windsor villa set off speculation that he was cleaning it out so that Dodi and Di could marry and move in. There would have been rich symbolism in the two of them living together in the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's former home, proving to a new generation that there can be life, and love, after royalty. Alas, it was not to be.