Tycoon Mohamed al-Fayed, father of Princess Diana's lover Dodi, dies at 94

Mohamed al-Fayed, an Egyptian-born tycoon and self-described unwelcome outsider in England who shared grief with British royalty for his son Dodi and Princess Diana after their brief romance ended in tragedy, died Aug. 30. He was 94, reports The Washington Post.

His death was reported by the Associated Press, citing a family statement issued by the Fulham Football Club. Mr. Fayed previously owned the team. No further details were immediately available.

Mr. Fayed, whose holdings included London landmarks such as Harrods department store, became best known to the world through the prism of collective sorrow after the 1997 death of Diana in a high-speed car crash in Paris. In his adopted homeland of Britain, however, Mr. Fayed's life and legacy was much more complex.

Admirers saw him as an inspirational empire-builder with achievements such as helping bankroll the Oscar-winning 1981 historical drama "Chariots of Fire" and relaunching the venerable humor magazine Punch in 1996 for a last-gasp, six-year run. Critics, meanwhile, pressed claims — never proved — that Mr. Fayed was something of a flimflam man in a bespoke suit and ascot, embellishing his fortune and background.

In his later years, Mr. Fayed became increasingly isolated over his self-fueled obsession that a vast conspiracy led to the car crash that killed Dodi, Diana and their driver shortly after they left the Fayed-owned Hotel Ritz in the Place Vendome.

The steady hum of scandals and quarrels was widely seen as undercutting Mr. Fayed's quest to gain British citizenship. Yet Mr. Fayed also represented an inescapable fact of British life: the flood of Arab money into London since the 1960s, and how the deep-pocket newcomers influenced the capital’s life and economy.

Mr. Fayed, whose net worth in 2022 Forbes estimated at $2 billion, took special joy in tweaking haughty sensibilities.