Somewhere within the rambling confines of Barrow Green Court in Surrey, an era is drawing to a close. Mohamed Al Fayed, the 92-year-old owner of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, former owner of Harrods department store and Fulham Football Club, and one of the most colourful figures in modern business history, is near the end of his life.
Despite a poverty-stricken childhood in the backstreets of Egyptian city Alexandria, Fayed has amassed a fortune of some £1.3 billion.
His children will inherit properties including the 17th Century Barrow Green Court, swanky apartment buildings that overlook Hyde Park, a Scottish castle and apartments in New York.
But the days when the ebullient Egyptian whooped it up on yachts and red carpets are long gone. These days, Fayed spends more time in the shadows of the private mausoleum he commissioned at Barrow Green Court.
There he can mourn his late son Dodi, former boyfriend of the late Princess Diana, who died alongside her in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
Before the feud: Mohamed Al Fayed with son Omar and daughter Camilla at a fashion show in 2006
The death of Dodi is not the only sadness Fayed has to contend with, however. For, as his powers start to fail, so does his hold on a family increasingly at war.
And now the fighting has spilled into the open with a series of poisonous claims and counter-claims in the High Court. At the heart of the dispute sit Fayed’s glamorous daughter, Camilla, 36, and Omar, 33, the youngest of his five children.
Omar is claiming £100,000 in damages for an assault he alleges was orchestrated by Camilla and her husband, the Syrian businessman Mohamad Esreb – claims they have denied.
For her part, Camilla has told the court that her brother is a heavy user of illegal drugs whose louche and irresponsible behaviour is an embarrassment to the family – allegations he rejects.
What no one doubts is that the dispute would not look out of place in the hit TV drama Succession, in which the dysfunctional family of an ailing media mogul jostle for control of the family business. Succession is very much to the point.
Today, Omar wants to fight back against his sister’s wounding allegations. He is not a drug-user, he says, merely the victim in the sort of sibling power struggle so often seen when the head of a family nears the end.
Claims: Camilla Al Fayed told the court her brother is a heavy drug-user
In short, he claims his older sister is trying to push him out.
‘It’s quite a common drama where there are families with an elder leader figure who is in his winter period of life,’ he reflects, speaking from his office in Lausanne, Switzerland.
‘I’m not vying for top-dog position. I am really seeking to encourage harmony.
‘Dad’s wish has always been that everybody at the family level is equal, does what they can and plays a part in organising the fortune that he has built.’ Omar says that his mother – Mohamed’s second wife Heini Wathen – has been able to keep the row between her children a secret from her husband by cutting out any pages from the newspapers that refer to the court battle.
Omar was thrust into the family business after his brother Dodi’s death, becoming a director of Harrods aged just 19 in 2006.
He was expected to take over as chairman but resigned in 2009, citing concerns for the future of the business and fears that Harrods was not the ‘ethical workplace’ he wished it to be. The Knightsbridge department store was sold a year later to the Qatari royal family for a reported £1.5 billion. Things look rather different now. Camilla claims her little brother plays no part in the family business as a result of his unreliable behaviour.
Although Omar disputes this, and claims to have roles helping run the family’s Scottish estate and the aviation company, there is no doubt he feels pushed to one side and that his sister is bent on taking control.
He believes that 36-year-old Camilla would like to become the de facto head of the family, along with her husband.
And with brother Karim, 44, and sister Jasmine, 41, apparently showing little interest in the Fayed business, it certainly seems to be Camilla who is coming out on top.
‘I don’t know if it’s also some kind of sibling rivalry thing,’ continues Omar. ‘Maybe it’s to do with lingering feelings from childhood, middle-child syndrome. Perhaps there’s been some subtle vying to be favourite. Some people derive great happiness from materialistic pursuits – all that vying for power and the prestige.’
Camilla, for her part, makes no comment on her brother’s speculation, other than to say her only motive has been what she chooses to describe as Omar’s appalling behaviour. ‘He has totally embarrassed my father’s legacy,’ she told The Mail on Sunday. ’
Omar’s older brother Karim, a photographer, appears to have taken himself out of the running by declaring he has no strong interest in business pursuits. He and Omar are close and get along well.
Camilla has certainly proved she can stand on her own two feet (with a little help from her father).
A familiar figure in newspaper diary pages, Camilla first hit the headlines in 2011 when she bought Issa, the fashion brand that dressed Kate Middleton for her engagement pictures. Friendships with the likes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and designer Julien Macdonald soon followed.
In more recent times, she launched her plant-based Farmacy restaurant in Notting Hill in 2016, later opening
