A jilted model is suing her millionaire ex-boyfriend Dodi al Fayed, claiming he gave her an engagement ring and a $200,000 rubber check, then started making tabloid headlines with Princess Diana.
A breach-of-contract suit filed by Kelly Fisher, who has appeared on the covers of Elle, W and other magazines, seeks $440,000, legal costs and other damages.It alleges that Fayed offered Fisher $500,000 to cut back on her modeling career so she could spend more time with him, but all she got was $60,000 and a check that bounced.
Fisher, who met Fayed in Paris in July 1996, dabbed her eyes throughout a news conference Thursday while her mother and her attorney denounced Fayed, an international jet-setter who co-produced the 1981 film "Chariots of Fire."
"Kelly loved him, trusted him, and has been treated very cruelly," said Fisher's mother, Judith Dunaway, who added that she gave permission for the marriage at another daughter's wedding Nov. 1, 1996.
Lawyer Gloria Allred said the lawsuit, filed in Santa Monica Superior Court, contends Fayed wanted Fisher "to put her career in second place behind him and to spend more time with him and less on her modeling career."
A wedding date supposedly was set for Aug. 9.
Allred also contends Fayed told Fisher he bought a home they would live in at Paradise Cove, an exclusive section of Malibu.
Pat Kingsley, Fayed's spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said he does not own any Malibu real estate and didn't buy Fisher a house there.
"He did know her and they had seen one another, but according to the best of my knowledge they stopped dating earlier in the year. And as far as he was concerned, the relationship was one of friendship," Kingsley said.