Dodi Fayed’s proposal to Princess Diana: the truth about The Crown season 6’s engagement scene, from the ring at his Paris flat to what his dad, Harrods’ Mohamed Al-Fayed, once claimed
- The Crown season six, episode three shows Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) getting down on one knee and presenting a ring to Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) – but did this ever happen in real life?
- Fayed did buy a ring that Diana singled out days before their deaths – but a friend recounted her saying ‘I need marriage like a rash on my face’ after her divorce from then Prince Charles
After spending their summer basking in the Mediterranean sun far away (or so they thought) from the eyes and camera clicks of the lecherous paparazzi, Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) head back to London by way of Paris.
In a hotel room at the Ritz, Fayed puts on Diana’s favourite song (“When You Tell Me That You Love Me” by Julio Iglesia), pulls out a ring and gets on one knee.
“I have a question I want to ask you, to which I hope you will indeed tell me yes,” he says before Diana cuts him off.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Debicki’s Diana replies. “Stop, I can’t bear it. It’s madness. Please get up.”
A heartfelt conversation followed between the pair, who agreed they shouldn’t marry. Diana had been divorced for just a year while Fayed had been engaged to someone else just weeks earlier.
So the question “will you marry me?” is never outright asked, allowing room for The Crown to work inside the shades of grey over whether the real Diana and Fayed were engaged when they died.
Here’s everything we know.