Princess Ashraf, twin sister of Iran’s last shah, dies at 96

Iranian Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, the twin sister of the country’s deposed shah whose glamorous life epitomised the excesses of her brother’s rule, has died after decades in exile. She was 96.

Before Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, many in the country believed Princess Ashraf served as the true power behind her brother, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and pushed him into taking power in a 1953 coup engineered by the US.

Immortalised in her royal years by an Andy Warhol portrait with bright red lips and raven-black hair, Princess Ashraf’s subsequent life resembled a Shakespearean tragedy. Assassins killed her son on a Paris street just after the Islamic Revolution, her twin brother died of cancer shortly after, while a niece died of a 2001 drug overdose in London and a nephew killed himself in Boston 10 years later.

Still, she always defended her brother’s rule and held on to her royal past. “At night, when I go into my room, that’s when all the thoughts come flooding in,” the princess said in 1983. “I stay up until 5 or 6 in the morning. I read, I watch a cassette, I try not to think. But the memories won’t leave you.”Reza Pahlavi, a son of the shah, announced his aunt’s death in a Facebook post on Thursday night. Her personal website said she died on Thursday, without elaborating.

Robert F Armao, a longtime adviser to Princess Ashraf in New York, said the princess died in Europe on Thursday, declining to elaborate on the cause of her death. He said there were no immediate plans for a funeral.

In Iran, local media reported her death relying on international reports. State television said she died in Monte Carlo and described her as being famous for being corrupt, something Armao criticised.

“Her Highness did an awful lot for her country, whatever her human faults,” he said.

Born 26 October, 1919, Princess Ashraf was the daughter of the monarch Reza Shah, who came to power in a 1921 coup engineered by Britain and was later forced to abdicate the throne after a 1941 invasion by Britain and Russia. The US helped to orchestrate the coup in 1953 that overthrew Iran’s popularly elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, over fears he was tilting toward the Soviet Union. Those events brought the princess’s brother to power and set the stage for decades of mistrust between the countries.