Iranian Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, the outspoken and glamorous twin sister of the country’s deposed shah, has died at age 96.
Reza Pahlavi, a son of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, announced Princess Ashraf’s death on Facebook on Thursday night, without offering a cause.
A longtime adviser to Princess Ashraf in New York could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.
After her brother’s 1979 overthrow in Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Princess Ashraf shuttled between homes in Paris, New York and Monte Carlo. The French press dubbed her “La Panthere Noire,” or the Black Panther.
An undated photo of Iranian Princess Ashraf (Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
She published a memoir and remained outspoken immediately after the overthrow, but gradually faded from public view in later years.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this,please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
