Thursday 10 November 2022 10:26 PM EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Oxford graduate Princess Haya of Jordan seeks peace in ... trends now

Given the ‘campaign of intimidation’ she suffered at the hands of her husband, it’s understandable that Princess Haya of Jordan wants to get away from it all. And I hear she’s found just the location . . .

I can disclose that the Oxford graduate, 48, who received one of the largest divorce settlements in history last year, has bought a secluded rural hotel in Wales that she plans to turn into a home.

The former wife of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum is said to have fallen in love with the family-run hotel, tucked away on a substantial estate. I am not naming it to protect her security.

After the High Court last year ordered Sheikh Mohammed to pay his wife a lump sum of £251.5 million, plus £5.6 million a year for each of their two children, she has been seeking another property in this country.

She fled to Britain in 2019 when the sheikh divorced her. Haya has sole custody of their son and daughter, after a judge ruled she had been subject to a ‘campaign of intimidation’.

During the proceedings, it emerged that the billionaire had attempted to buy an estate in Windsor overlooking a property owned by the Princess’s family, which was described as a ‘deliberate’ act.

It’s thought this apparently abusive behaviour was one of the motives for her wanting to find a retreat without any possibility of disturbance. 

Haya, who is the half-sister of Jordan’s ruler King Abdullah II, married Sheikh Mohammed as his second wife in 2004. By the time he divorced her — without notice on the anniversary of the death of her father, King Hussein of Jordan — she had become suspicious of his controlling behaviour. 

He had already orchestrated the abduction of two of his daughters by another woman, and both are now thought to be held against their will in Dubai.

Determined to escape his grasp, Haya came to England with her two children. It was claimed the sheikh had posted a poem on Instagram in Arabic and English accusing her of betrayal and treachery. This followed her affair with her British bodyguard.

Last year, the High Court agreed that agents working for the sheikh had used the Pegasus spyware system to hack into his ex-wife’s phones.

 The Crown jewels: Helena rakes in £11m

Screen stars are richer than royalty these days. I can disclose that Bafta winner Helena Bonham Carter, who played Princess Margaret in two series of Netflix hit The Crown, has amassed £11.4 million in assets at Orlando, the company she uses to channel her earnings.

Accounts filed this week report that the business made a profit of £833,277 in the year to March.