Last weekend, the United States and Israel launched air strikes on Iran, attempting to topple the 47 year Islamic Republic, and killing Ayatollah Khomeini.
While, at the time of writing, the current regime is still clinging to power, the exiled Iranian royal family is the closest it has been in decades to returning to the throne.
So who exactly are they?
Thus let me introduce you to the Insta-loving Pahlavi family, proud owners of millennia-old titles, season passes to St Barts, well-used GHDS and a passion for gender equality.
Iran has a royal family?
It does indeed. Like in the UK, the monarchy goes back millennia with different factions having jostled for the throne.
In 1921 military commander Reza Khan ousted the last ruler of the Qajar dynasty and crowned himself as the Shah (King or Emperor).
In 1941, given his fondness of Hitler and Mussolini, the Brits and Russians teamed up to depose him and installed his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as Shah.
This Reza then did his best to put Louis XVI in the Versailles shade, managing to combine both unthinkable opulence and the violent repression of his people.
In 1959 he met his third wife Farah, an Iranian architecture student studying in Paris.
Three weeks after they announced their engagement they wed, with the bride wearing a Yves Saint Laurent wedding dress and a specially made tiara featuring a 60-carat pink diamond and matching necklace.
She faced something of an Anne Boleyn moment, the pressure piled on to produce a son, luckily welcoming their son named, you guessed it, Reza in 1960.
In 1971 the Shah kicked his spending up a gear, throwing a $1.4 billion party (in today’s money) building a veritable city in the middle of the desert to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian empire.
The Shah had thousands of scorpions and snakes within 30km area exterminated, flew in the entire team of Maxi’s in Paris, 30kg of caviar 15,000 trees and 50,000 songbirds and also built a 18-hour golf course, sixteen hair salons and four beauty parlours for guests who ate roasted peacock.
However ruining this fairytale story was the fact that the Shah was also big on brutal and bloody quashing of any opposition and ran secret police that spent a lot of time disappearing dissidents and buying cattle prods.
After the party to end all parties, decades of poverty and a ruler serving roast peacock to Princess Anne, the Iranians threw themselves a revolution and the Shah, dying of cancer, and his family fled to the US.
In 1980, he died, making his son Reza the heir apparent.
Insta royalty
In 1986 Reza married wife Yasmine, who is also Iranian but grew up in the US.
Yasmine was, and is no shrinking demure, violet-ish princess, but is a children’s rights lawyer who used her 2018 diagnosis with breast cancer to fight the massive stigma around the disease back in Iran.
The couple have three daughters and until 2024 lived in a seven-bedroom house outside Washington, now splitting their time between the US and Paris, where the 87-year-old Empress Farah lives.
If the Iranian monarchy is ever re-installed the current queens of the world won’t know what hit them when the uber glam Yasmine and her wardrobe of miniskirts turns up.
She, like her three daughters, is on Instagram, combining glamorous content with passionate rallying cries for the women of Iran.
Gen Z and Gen Alpha princesses
The couple’s three daughters are all big fans of social media, five star Cote D’Azur hotels and highlighting the struggle of brave Iranians.
Looking at their feeds, the sisters seem close, regularly posting about one another, committing to matching PJs and finding time to squeeze in drinks together in Paris.
The eldest is Princess Noor, 33, and if her father ends up being to make some triumphal return to Tehran and the monarchy is returned, she will one day be Empress.
In the meantime, she has kept herself busy getting a psychology degree from Georgetown, an MBA from Colombia and becoming a venture capitalist.
In devastating news for Kate, The Princess of Wales, Noor could give her a serious run for her money in the flowy, dreamy hair stakes.
Noor’s two million followers are treated to plenty of delicious morsels showcasing exactly the sort of life you might imagine.
Trips to St Tropez and St Barts, cocktails and speedboats, a suite at the Plaza in Paris, skiing, black tie galas and drinks in Las Vegas have all featured.
She’s also used her online presence to passionately advocate for women’s rights in the French senate.
Next we get to Princess Iman, who made a splash becoming the first princess to wed in a New York courthouse while toting a towering cup of Starbucks.
Last year, the now 32-year-old wed Jewish businessman Bradley Sherman, first in Manhattan and then in a lavish Paris re-run that was covered by Vogue.
She works for American Express and according to her social media activity also appears to like shopping, drinks and Paris.
Finally, the youngest of the three is Princess Farah, 22.
Sadly little is known about Farah aside from the fact she has 400,000 Insta followers and she and I have been to the same beach in Mallorca.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.news.com.au ’
