Dethroned!
Harrods owners give back Fayed’s ‘tacky’ Diana and Dodi statue
FOR 13 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 Britain’s most famous department store and returned to the Egyptian tycoon – who had hoped the memorial would stay there forever.
Harrods said the decision followed the announcement last year by Princes William and Harry to commission a new statue commemorating their mother on the 20th anniversary of her death.
Mr Fayed unveiling the bronze in 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 Knightsbridge store for a reported £1.5billion 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 Kenroyals.
‘Time to bring them home’
sington 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 AlFayed.’ 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... at Kensington Palace, 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 muchmaligned 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 ease the way to restoring relations between Harrods and the The shop lost its coveted royal warrants from the Queen, Prince Philip, the Queen Mother and Prince Charles in 2000 when relations between the Royal Family and Mr Fayed deteriorated.
In 2010 a courtier was quoted as saying: ‘I can’t see a member of the Royal Family resuming patronage while [the statue] remains in the store.’
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 has enabled millions of people to pay their respects and remember these two remarkable people. It is now time to bring them home.’