Heini Wathén-Fayed (née Wathén; born 24 February 1955 in Hanko,

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

) is a former model married to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

ian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed. She was an officer for The Ritz Hotel, London.

Modeling career

Heini Wathén signed with a modelling agency after winning several

beauty pageant A beauty pageant is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the Physical attractiveness, physical attributes of the contestants. Pageants have now evolved to include inner beauty, with criteria covering judging of Per ...

s in Finland at 17 years old. She graduated from secondary school in 1975 and joined her sister in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

as a model. She returned to Finland two years later to compete in the Miss Finland contest, but did not make it to the finals. During the Miss Finland contest Wathén met Dodi Fayed, who was looking for new models in Finland. Fayed arranged for Wathén to model for Pierre Balmain's fashion house.

Personal life

In Paris, Dodi Fayed introduced Wathén to his father Mohamed Al-Fayed, who began a relationship with her. Al-Fayed soon invited Wathén to live with him on Park Lane in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. The couple married in 1985, thus Heini Wathén-Fayed became a stepmother to Dodi Fayed. Wathén-Fayed has four children with Mohamed Al-Fayed: daughters Jasmine (born 1980) and Camilla (born 1985), and sons Karim (born 1983) and Omar (born 1987). Wathén-Fayed and Al-Fayed live in Surrey and at a mansion in Espoo, Finland.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wathén, Heidi Finnish female models 1955 births Living people El Fayed family