A desolated Farah Diba bade a final farewell to her daughter, Leila Pahlavi, over the weekend, with almost three thousand people attending the funeral in Paris of the young Iranian princess.
Leila Pahlavi, 31, was found dead in her room at an exclusive London hotel on June 10. Although she was based in the United States, she travelled extensively in Europe and was popular on the social scene. However, her mother acknowledged that she suffered from depression, never having recovered from the family’s exile from Iran when Leila was just nine, or the subsequent death of her father, the Shah.
After the arrival of her remains in Paris, the princess’ body was taken to Bagnolet. From there, the funeral procession made its way to the cemetery of Passy, in the capital.
Farah Diba, her eyes covered with huge sunglasses, but her grief unmistakably etched on her face, was accompanied by her son Reza, the Shah-in-exile and his wife.
During the Muslim funeral, Prince Reza took a handful of Iranian earth from a silver receptacle and scattered it over his sister’s casket. The family brought the earth with them when they were exiled in 1979, and use it for solemn occasions.
The cemetery was decked with thousands of bouquets, and hundreds of mourners, both close family friends and members of the Iranian community in Paris, came to pay their last respects to the young princess.
The grief of the former Empress is worsened by the fact that her daughter cannot be buried in Iran, or alongside her father, who was buried in Egypt, the country where he died in 1980. Instead, Leila will rest alongside her maternal grandmother, Farideh Diba, at Passy.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
