Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed's 'Last Minute' Wrong Decisions Killed Them Both

For the world, Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed were killed in a tragic car crash. However, a journalist told an outlet last year (in 2023) that sadly a series of Al Fayed's decisions on the night led to their untimely death. Although brief, Diana's romance with the Egyptian billionaire and film producer was a source of media fascination before she died on August 10, 1997.

Journalist Andrew Neil claimed, "Of course, Dodi was, sadly, the architect of his own death and Diana's. The decision to leave The Ritz wasn't taken until the very last minute, as was the roundabout route through a tunnel to get to Dodi's apartment. By Al Fayed's own testimony to me, nobody could have been lying in wait to assassinate them since nobody knew in advance what they were going to do or how they were going to do it," per The Royal Observer. 

The late couple were settled in The Ritz Hotel when Al Fayed decided to take Diana to his apartment close to the Champs-Elysées. But, Al Fayed was aware the paparazzi would follow them through. So he dialed his father, Mohamed Al Fayed, who died on August 30, 2023, for help and asked if he and Diana could use the businessman's personal security to escape the swarming photographers. And, of course, he allowed. 

The next contributing decision was when Al Fayed instructed the driver Henry Paul to take a different detour, once again, to avoid the intrusive media. Little did he know it was the same route that death would be waiting for them. Out of the four people in the car, only one survived- their bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones. However, to date, the sole survivor has no memory of the crash. 

An investigation probe launched in the mid-2000s concluded in 2008, citing "gross negligence" of the chauffeur and the paparazzi pursuing them. However, despite an apparent accident, Al Fayed's father, Mohamed, blamed a royal conspiracy and alleged it wasn't a natural death but a well-planned murder. The Harrod's owner told the inquest, "Diana told me on the telephone that she was pregnant. I was the only person that they told," per The Guardian.

But  PR executive Chester Stern told a publication, "He [Mohamed] backed off [Diana's pregnancy news] being a direct conspiracy led by Prince Philip in more recent years. This suggests he was quietly beginning to accept it was an accident." 

Shortly after Diana's relationship with Hasnat ended, she began dating Al Fayed in the summer of 1997. Similar to Diana, the Egyptian was divorced. They were first photographed kissing on the Fayed family yacht and less than a week before their death, Sunday Mirror wrote, "You only have to look at the sensual body language to know that they have found physical and spiritual fulfillment in each other," per PEOPLE. 

Although they seemed smitten with each other, royal historian Sally Bedell Smith told Vanity Fair, "Mohamed Al Fayed engineered the romance with Dodi. And Dodi basically did whatever his father told him to do. He was really the puppet master behind Dodi and Diana’s very brief, barely more than a month, romance."