Even princesses don’t like paying their bills.
Saudi Princess Maha bint Mohammed bin Ahmad al-Sudairi attempted to skip out on massive tabs after shopping at ritzy Paris boutiques and occupying 41 rooms for five months at a five-star hotel.
Sudairi and her entourage tried to slip out of Shangri-La Hotel at 3:30 a.m., ducking a $7 million hotel bill in 2012.
According to Vanity Fair:
After a tense standoff that involved calls to high-ranking diplomats and officials, she was allowed to leave, whereupon she checked into the nearby Royal Monceau, owned by Qatar, a friendly neighbor of Saudi Arabia.
After a monumental $20 million shopping spree in Paris boutiques in 2009, Sudairi told an assistant to give the merchant a document saying “Payment to follow.” Some outstanding debts may have been repaid by the Saudi Embassy, reports Vanity Fair.
In 2013, a French judge ordered Sudairi’s possessions to be seized as repayment, taking purchases from storage units.
The stash reportedly included clothes, hats, handbags, jewelry, artworks, bathing suits, designer eyeglasses, cartons of cigarettes, gold-plated serving dishes, about a thousand pairs of women’s shoes, and some framed photographs of the princess posing in a tiara and a carnival mask.
Despite the difficulty of dealing with customers like Sudairi, Paris merchants don’t want to lose the business of wealthy Saudis.
Some of the princess’ debts may have been paid by one of her ex-husband’s full brothers, possibly current Saudi King Salman, in order to avoid a scandal.
Sudairi, in her 50s, was the third wife of her cousin, Nayef bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. They divorced in 2012. According to a source who spoke to Vanity Fair, the shopping spree incident led to Sudairi being at odds with Saudi Arabia’s then-King Abdullah.
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