Harrods’ Qatari owners spark anger with plans to remove Diana and Dodi statue
LONDON: Plans by the Qatari owners of Harrods to remove a memorial statue of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed have prompted shock and sadness from visitors to the luxury department store.
The bronze statue was installed in 2005 by the London shop’s previous owner and Dodi’s father Mohamed Al Fayed.
The memorial is a popular attraction, with many visitors signing a condolence book and leaving private messages to Diana and Dodi who died in a Paris car crash in 1997. The statue will be returned to Mohammed Al Fayed, who sold Harrods in 2010 to the investment arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund for around $2 billion.
One English family said the plan was a “real shame” as they stopped to pay their respects on Sunday.
A couple visiting from Leicester also expressed their disappointment as they paused to write a condolence note.
Many international tourists were unaware the statue was to be moved. An American group from California were shocked.
“How could they do that?” Roody, a member of the group, said. “Just dump it, to where? Out of sight? Diana was loved in the States as much as in the UK. It’s so sad.”
Michael Ward, the store’s managing director, said it was time to return the statue to Mohammed Al Fayed as princes William and Harry have commissioned their own tribute to Princess Diana at Kensington Palace.
The statue was designed by Harrods artistic design adviser Bill Mitchell, and depicts the couple dancing beneath the wings of a seagull. It is unclear when exactly the store will remove it, with Harrods information staff unaware that it would be taken away.
A spokesman for the Al Fayed family told The Times newspaper it was “grateful” to Qatar Holdings for preserving the memorial of the couple, adding: “It is now time to bring them home.”
But not all visitors were fans of the memorial, which is located on the basement level of the luxury store.
Iver from north London said: “It’s a ghastly thing! It’s an awful statue, but still, it’s very sad what happened to them, and it shouldn’t be moved.”