New Harrods owners ‘gift’ statue of Dodi and Diana back to Fayed
FOR years, it has stood in Harrods... intended as a permanent memorial to Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed.
Sandwiched between two escalators, the controversial life-size bronze – titled The Innocents – was supposed to ‘keep their spirits alive’.
But the sculpture – commissioned by ex-store owner Mohamed Fayed – has often been seen as a ‘tacky’ reminder of the couple’s tragic death in 1997.
Now the artwork is to be uprooted from the famous department store and returned to the Egyptian tycoon.
Harrods said the decision followed the announcement last year by Prince William and Prince Harry to commission a new statue commemorating their mother on the 20th anniversary of her death.
Mr Fayed unveiled the bronze in
‘Time to bring them home’
2005, calling the piece Innocent Victims ‘because for eight years I have fought to prove that my son and Princess Diana were murdered’. When the billionaire, 88, sold the London store to the Qatari royal family in 2010, it is understood that he begged them to keep it in place. But yesterday a spokesman for Harrods said they had made the decision to return the memorial ‘to its original owner... and he has accepted it’.
A new statue commissioned by the Princess’s sons in the grounds of Kensington Palace is due to be unveiled sometime next year. It was, therefore, said Harrods, ‘the most appropriate time to gift the memorial back to Mr Al-Fayed.’
Michael Ward, managing director of the store, added: ‘We are very proud to have played our role in celebrating the lives of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed at Harrods and to have welcomed people from around the world to visit the memorial.
With the announcement of the new official memorial statue to Diana... we feel that the time is right to return this memorial to Mr Al-Fayed and for the public to be invited to pay their respects at the palace.’
The bronze, showing Diana in a dress slit to the thigh dancing with Dodi in an unbuttoned shirt, was erected after they both died in a Paris car crash in 1997.
Unveiled by Mr Fayed eight years after the tragedy, he claimed it was a more ‘fitting’ memorial than the much-maligned Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park, which he branded ‘a sewer’.
For some, the Harrods sculpture did become something of a shrine – but many also lambasted it as vulgar and tacky. The couple can be seen dancing in Mediterranean waves beneath the wings of an albatross – often mistakenly referred to as a seagull – to symbolise ‘freedom and eternity’.
Opening the memorial, Mr Fayed said: ‘This is a statue to stay here forever. I wanted to keep their spirits alive.’
Its removal could help restore relations between Harrods and the British royal family. The shop lost its royal warrants from Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip and Prince Charles in 2000.
A spokesman for Mr Fayed said last night: ‘We are grateful to Qatar Holdings for preserving the Dodi and Diana memorial at Harrods until now. It enabled millions of people to pay their respects to these two remarkable people. It is now time to bring them home.’