Dodi Fayed's ex-girlfriend lives with 'burden' of Princess Diana's death
Dodi Fayed's ex-girlfriend lives with the "burden" of Princess Diana's death.
Ex-model Annie Cardone dated entrepreneur Dodi months before he went public with his romance with Diana and called things off when she suspected he was having an affair with the royal, but she has always wondered if giving him another chance could have prevented their deaths in a 1997 Paris car crash.
She said: "One decision I made in that moment, in early summer 1997, right before they went public. If I’d given him another chance, would things have been different? Would history have changed? That’s a burden of responsibility that I feel I have."
Anne – who has since been married five times – added when she split up with Dodi he was "begging for another chance" and she still gets emotional when she thinks about the day they split but insisted that she and Diana were "both very, very lucky to have been on the receiving end of his love" because "not many women were."
She told The Sun newspaper's Fabulous magazine: "When I last saw him, he was begging for another chance. He was crying. He was sobbing. He was telling me he loved me and it was incredibly hard to see him like that. I still get choked about it. But there was definitely an overlap."
Annie also believes Diana – who was married to the now-King Charles and had Princes William and Harry with him before they divorced in 1996 – would have continued her relationship with Dodi had they survived and gone on to have more children, with him naming the late royal as "The One" for him.
She said: "I think they would have had children, had a family, because their goals and purposes were aligned."
Anne said she initially watched the Netflix series 'The Crown' but gave up before the more recent arrival of Princess Diana in the series and insisted the scenes depicted in the show were less glamorous for her in real life.
She said about life with Dodi: "We would go to Harry’s Bar, he’d have the truffles, then we’d go to Tramp and go back to his place with a bunch of losers. I’d try and get an early night because I had to get up in the morning. He’d come to bed a bit later. We’d have a bit of hanky panky for a few hours.
"I’d get up at 6am and have to borrow one of his Ralph Lauren polo sweaters to wear on the walk of shame to work. So yeah, it was really glamorous! I don’t trust 'The Crown' to have done an accurate portrayal and it’ll just annoy me."
Annie had quit modelling by the time of Diana and Doddis deaths and worked in public relations, but now has a career as an author.
She spoke ahead of the release of the Channel 5 documentary, 'Dodi: Last Days Of A Playboy', which focuses on the life and death of the son of billionaire businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed.
The show is on Channel 5 on Wednesday (07.12.22) at 9pm.
