Leila Pahlavi

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Leila Pahlavi
Leila Pahlavi

Princess Leila of Iran (Leila Pahlavi) (Persian: لیلا پهلوی; ‎ March 27, 1970 – June 10, 2001)

Born in Tehran, Iran as Princess Leila Pahlavi, she was the youngest daughter of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, and his third wife, Farah Pahlavi. The family's titles and styles were declared to be abolished by decree of the Iranian government after the overthrow of the Shah. However the monarchy ended as an autocratic one and were not enacted by decree but by their birth right, Leila Pahlavi carried the rank of Her Imperial Highness and title of Princess of Iran.

She was nine years old when her family was forced into exile as a result of the Iranian Revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Following her father's death in Egypt from non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 1980, the family settled in the United States, where she graduated from Rye Country Day School in Rye, New York. She attended a state school in Massachusetts before going on to study at Brown University, graduating in 1992.

Pahlavi never married and spent most of her time commuting between her home in Connecticut and Europe. A onetime model for the designer Valentino, she suffered from anorexia nervosa, chronic low self-esteem, and severe depression[1] and spent much time being treated in clinics in the United States and Britain. She was found dead in her room in the Leonard Hotel in London, England, and was found to have more than five times the lethal dose of quinalbarbitone, a barbiturate, which is used to treat insomnia, in her system, along with a nonlethal amount of cocaine. According to a report about her death, which included information from an autopsy conducted by the Westminster Coroner's Court, she stole the quinalbarbitone from her doctor's desk during an appointment and was addicted to the drug, typically taking 40 pills at once, rather than the prescribed two.[2] Nevertheless, the possibility of foul play has not been ruled out and it is believed she may have been murdered.

She was interred near her maternal grandmother, Farideh Ghotbi Diba, in the Cimetière de Passy, Paris, France.[citation needed]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Iranian.com | Archive Pages
  2. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/07/26/nleil26.xml

[edit] External links