Diana and Dodi relationship explained: Did he really propose?

But how did Diana and Dodi's relationship really play out, and did he really propose to her the night they died, as seen in the show's third episode?

Read on for everything you need to know about the true story behind Diana and Dodi's relationship.

How does Diana and Dodi's relationship play out in The Crown?

In the first episode of The Crown season 6, Diana, William and Harry visit Mohamed Al-Fayed in St Tropez, on his invitation.

While she is there, Mohamed tells Dodi he must also visit, hoping to match them up and get Dodi away from his fiancée, Kelly Fisher.

Diana and Dodi do eventually strike up a relationship, and he ends his engagement with Kelly. Throughout this, Mohamed pushes Dodi to continue pursuing Diana, hoping that they will marry and he will be ingratiated within the heights of British society.

Wanting to please his father, Dodi does just that, and the press become obsessed with the new couple. Mohamed hires Mario Brenna to take papparazzi shots of the couple together, which are then published around the world.

After a summer holidaying together, the couple travel to Paris, where Dodi proposes to her, on the night when they later die in a car crash.

Diana doesn't accept his proposal, telling him she doesn't want to be married again. Dodi tells her about the pressure from his father, and when speaking on the phone with him in front of her, tells him that "an agreement was indeed reached between two people tonight".

He hangs up, and that is the last the time they speak with one another.

How did Diana and Dodi's relationship really play out?

In reality, as in the show, Diana and Dodi got to know each other properly in the summer of 1997, when Mohamed Al-Fayed invited them to spend time on his yacht in St Tropez. Diana visited the yacht along with her sons, Princes William and Harry.

She also returned to the yacht later in August without the children, and she and Dodi were photographed kissing by papparazzi. They continued holidaying in the region before then flying to Paris.

On 15th August 1997, Kelly Fisher held a press conference and announced she was suing Dodi, saying that they had been engaged and he had promised her $500,000 in premarital support for sacrificing her modelling career.

The Al-Fayed family said at the time: "We are content to leave it to the good sense of the British and American people to judge this development for what it is." Fisher dropped the lawsuit "out of respect" following Dodi and Diana's death.

Did Dodi really propose?

There are conflicting reports as to whether Dodi really did propose to Diana in Paris.

We do know that a ring was found in Dodi’s flat after he had died, with a receipt for an engagement ring dated to the day before.

There was an inscription on the ring which said Dis-moi Oui, which means "tell me yes". This is also the title of the third episode of The Crown season 6.

Meanwhile, Mohamed Al-Fayed's press spokesman insisted that the couple were engaged, saying that Dodi had given him "the strongest indication that he was going to marry Diana".

However, a friend of Diana’s, Lady Annabel Goldsmith, told the inquest that she had asked Diana whether she was doing to "do anything silly like rushing off and eloping or getting married", to which she had said, "I would need marriage like a rash on my face."

The Crown season 6 part 1 is streaming on Netflix from Thursday 16th November 2023. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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