The 'Dynasty' actress recalls watching her friend being told to 'go away' by guards when attempting to invite the late Princess of Wales and then-boyfriend Dodi Fayed to dinner.
- Feb 18, 2023
AceShowbiz - Dame Joan Collins and her friends were shooed away by gun-wielding security guards when they attempted to invite Princess Diana to dinner. The 89-year-old actress was relaxing on a yacht next to a vessel owned by the father of the late princess' then-boyfriend Dodi Fayed - who died alongside the royal in a car accident in 1997 when her pal decided to ask the couple to join them, but the invite never made it to the couple.
"Being on a friend's yacht in France, next to Mohamed Al-Fayed's yacht where Princess Diana and her lover Dodi were vacationing. Somebody from our boat zoomed up to them on a jet ski to invite them for dinner and was greeted by three security guards, brandishing Uzi guns and telling him to 'Go away,' " Joan told the Daily Mail newspaper's Eden Confidential column when asked to reference a stand-out moment in her life.
The "Dynasty" actress may have had a bad encounter with Diana's security team, but she recently praised the "perfect manners" of Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and revealed she was thrilled to receive a copy of "Her Heart for a Compass", the romance novel written by Prince Andrew's ex-wife. She said, "I've known Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, since she was 33. She sent me a copy of her book, in fact, which was great! She's wonderful. She has perfect manners."
Sarah - who has Princess Beatrice and Eugenie with Andrew - attended Joan and her husband Percy Gibson's 20th wedding anniversary bash last year. Percy admitted at the time the pair didn't expect to receive gifts. He said, "It was very sweet that people were giving us gifts. It was surprising to me as it's not like a wedding, so we weren't expecting anything!"
