The Crown season six, episode one, focuses on Dodi Fayed’s relationship with two women: Princess Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki, and Kelly Fisher, played by Erin Richards. The latter, the viewer quickly learns, is Fayed’s fiancée—much to the disapproval of his father, who calls her “the gold digger.”
The Crown is known for taking its plot points from real-life events, many of which barely deviate from reality. But in the case of Kelly Fisher, what is fact versus fiction?
Kelly Fisher and Dodi Fayed first met in July 1996. She was a model who had graced the cover of Elle and W, and he an international playboy who reportedly received an allowance of £400,000 a month (around $925,000, adjusted for inflation) from his father, Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed. In February, he proposed at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles. “He lavished attention on her and told her that he was in love with her,” a friend told the Daily Mail that same year. “Within a short while, she was convinced she was in love with him too.” Fisher said they set a date of August 9 for the wedding.
Yet, the day after the hypothetical nuptials, a picture broke in the British tabloids of Princess Diana and Dodi kissing on the Fayed family yacht. That, claimed Fisher, is how she learned her engagement was over.
So, the following week, she sued him for $440,000.
Fisher’s suit made international headlines in both the tabloids and more prestigious papers: “Diana stole my man, now I want $1 million,” read Australia’s Daily Telegraph, whereas London’s The Mirror went with “You’re a Dodi rotten cheat.” In a press conference, Fisher’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, laid out her case against Dodi, whom Allred called a “frog in prince’s clothing”: Dodi, they alleged, offered Fisher $500,000 to scale back her modeling career. “Fayed told her his family was embarrassed that his fiancée worked, the suit claims,” the Los Angeles Times reported at the time. Allred said Dodi told Fisher “to start shopping for furnishings” for their Malibu home.
Fisher explained that after the photos broke of Dodi and Diana, she attempted to call him. Yet “at one point, Fisher was abruptly told by a family member not to call anymore, Allred said,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
The model also said that while Dodi paid her $60,000, another check for $200,000 bounced. She sought the remaining $440,000, as well as legal costs and damages. When asked by a member of the media if she’d ever reconcile with Dodi, Fisher simply responded, “No.”
Michael Cole, a spokesperson for Harrods, dismissed her claims. “We are content to leave it to the good sense of the British and American people to judge this development for what it is. If a writ is issued, Mr. Fayed’s lawyers in Los Angeles will respond in the appropriate way,” he said.
The model then sold her story to the Rupert Murdoch–owned tabloid News of the World. She made explosive claims, including that she had sex with Dodi on one of his yachts just hours before he left to meet Diana on another of his boats anchored nearby.
Did Diana know? Famed society reporter Dominick Dunne wrote in Vanity Fair that it was unlikely: “I think it is safe to say that Diana didn’t know that Kelly Fisher was on another family yacht, waiting for furtive visits from Dodi, with whom she had been in a relationship for nearly a year. Diana had already played that scene in her marriage to Prince Charles.”
After Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed’s fatal accident, Fisher withdrew her suit. However, details about the dramatic end of their relationship reemerged in 2008, when a transcript of a phone call between Fisher and Dodi was released at the Royal Courts of Justice during an official inquest into Princess Diana’s death: “You even flew me down to St. Tropez,” Fisher told Dodi, “to sit on a boat while you seduced Diana all day and f***** me all night.” She continued to confront him throughout the call: “I don’t understand,” she said, “how one day we’re in love and then…. Why are you doing this to me?”
“Will you stop it? We broke up, Kelly,” Dodi responded.
In 2007, Fisher testified to the court that even to that day, she still felt painfully deceived: “I am tired of people saying I am a liar. I felt very betrayed. It is humiliating to have to prove that someone wanted to marry you,” she said.
While it’s never been officially proven just how much overlap there was between Fisher and Diana, it’s clear that The Crown’s creator, Peter Morgan, very much took this season six plot point from real-life accusations of affairs and unfaithfulness—making an already tragic situation just that much more so.
