Incomplete Nick Hancock interview with Mo Al-Fayed in 2000

He was being investigated by the Monopolies Commission and his plan was to buy them back when the Commission had gone away. But you didn't sell them back to him, did you? You actually went on and bought Harrods yourself. Was he too upset about that?

What did you do in Harrods? How did you get your own back on Tiny Rowland?

Now he's your former PR man, Brian Bash. One day I went in and he said, 'Fine, you go ahead of Pete, you knew his private office.' I said, 'Well, I've just had a pee. I didn't want to pee.' He said, 'He's not going half pee.' So I went in eventually. We kind of almost forced into his private loo. And he had a lavatory seat made at huge expense. And there on it with it was the legend, 'I [__] on Tiny Rowland.' At the same time, Tiny Rowland was pissing in his, 'I hate Mohammed Al-Fayed.' I built six private in my luxury toilets with Tiny Rowland photographs just on the base of the toilet.

I stole? They are not allowed to. They don't pay a pound to go to user field job, just to enjoy [__] on Tiny Rowland. Did you have some move mate as well and use those? Yeah, I saw them in a car boot near his house in the country. His neighbours are [__] on us.

But it wasn't quite the end of the war, was it? Because in 1994, Tiny Rowland claimed that you'd been to see a US specialist. This is what he said about having a penis transplant.

Now a few years later, also Tiny Rowland claimed that you had opened his safety deposit box in the Harrods vaults. What was all that about?

I didn't know it's well known. He himself have done the whole job and then I don't know anything about it. Right. You think I will do this and destroy the reputation of a great institution? Of course it's hard to know what's going on in the vault, isn't it, if you're upstairs dressed as Father Christmas.

Now the Department of Trade and Industry, acting on information supplied by Tiny Rowland, suggested that you bought Harrods with money borrowed from the Sultan of Brunei, but it wasn't actually your own money. Is that fair?

Well, I do believe you that you have lots of enemies. But of course you have lots of friends too, many of them famous, and none of whom, as far as we know, work for MI5. And of course many famous celebrities come to Harrods, don't they? And they'd been pictured there. There was Tom Jones, of course, seen here with the grizzly bear. Just look at that enormous hairy brute. I'll give you back there. There was Tony Curtis, seen here at the opening of the short-lived in-store Greek restaurant. And here's you with the Queen, just pointing out to Her Majesty the husband is a homosexual Nazi prostitute. She wanted to couldn't come unfortunately, but she did send her knickers. And now I remember very well that Richard Gere came to as a visit of the store, I think to open up your sale, right? And I don't mention it because I also remember you were on live TV on Good Morning, I think it was with Anna Nicole, and they asked you how Richard Gere enjoyed his visit, Terrence, and you said what exactly?

In fact, Harrods is so well known. You like some of this ham, sir? We have now. Let's have a look at the Egyptian escalator at Harrods. This is part of a major refurbishment that you've done at the store. It's a big escalator decorated with sphinxes. And let's have a look at the faces of the sphinxes. Anything familiar about that face?

Now the designer of all this ancient Egyptian kitchen, Terrence, is a man called Bill Mitchell. And here he is. The first thing I did for him was a table. It was a glass table top, and we had a slight argument about whether the decoration I was doing which should go in the middle of the table or go around the border. And I said it would go around the border because anything you put on the table would obscure him. So anyway, I finished here. I took it, it wasn't inexpensive either, and put it down. And he looked at it. He said, 'But you put it in the middle.' I said, 'That's right, that's what you wanted.' Then the woman came along, really obviously tray reload with this bowl, and she put the bowl straight in the middle of the glass table. That decoration disappeared. And he said, 'Look at this donkey, look what you've done.' And I said, 'No, you Tommy, I know. But you know, it wasn't it was you, it was you.' And that's how our life was going on. But the last 25 years, yes. Yeah, although I get sacked often.

It seems a lovely man to say. Now you have a big home, he knocks dead. And sorry, where you live with your finished wife? That's your second wife and four children. Now Bill Mitchell also done some work on that house in Surrey, including your jacuzzi. What she tells us about the jacuzzi?

Pause piece of walk-in sculpture early. And it was in the old stables. And I left a piece of brickwork in the ground because I thought it would be a historical thing. And he asked me about it and said, 'Don't we want to get out?' And I said, 'I'm not taking it out.' He said, 'Well, who's gonna take it out?' I said, 'You are, if you want it out.' And he said, 'But I'm paying you for this.' And I said, 'Oh no, that's your privilege, isn't it?' You know, and that led to another.

That bells working fee at the moment isn't easy. 30 years work for me. You can't just how many times sacked? What, hundredth time now? When Bill Mitchell met you, you'd only just arrived in Britain. I wasn't quite sure how you got here, but then we found this photograph. Well, let's go right back to the beginning. You were of course actually born in Egypt in the Gounrock district of Alexandria, which isn't especially rich. But it was 1929. You are the eldest of three sons. No, no, 33, 1933. 130 Rowland birthday, please. We'll do that again. It was 1962. And you were the eldest of three sons of a school inspector. And here you are. And here's you later after a game of beach football. That's a resort, yep. And you were brought up in the finest British traditions with an English nanny and educated at the extremely posh Victoria College School, where you were regularly caned and stuffed full of crumpets by Oxbridge-educated English masters. Of course, if it was a real English public school, you'd have been stuffed full of something else. But now your enemies say that you never went there, that you were actually a door-to-door Coca-Cola sales boy, and that the headmaster has no record of you being there.

Well, I got your first break working for the super-rich Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi.

When Nasser came up, yeah, nationalized all shipping business, yeah. And I had to leave Egypt. And Egypt didn't have watchdog with an Robin Snow or anyone love. But with all those terrible setbacks and a young son to bring up on your own, did you ever feel close to giving up or throwing in the towel?

Now in 1964, you set out to make your fortune in Haiti, which was a very dangerous place in those days. In fact, the brutal tyrant Papa Doc Duvalier tried to have you killed. Is that right?

The CIA have claimed it precisely at that time a bogus 280 she calling himself Mohamed Al-Fayed fled from Haiti with 150 grands worth of money pinched from a government bank account. And that's why I pay a five million dollar fine. You lost five miles, yeah. So what's what is it with the CIA and you then? What do you why do you think they said things?

So you left Haiti in a hurry with nothing, as you claimed, or with a suitcase full of someone else's cash, as the CIA claims, to Britain in 1965. You were a hip young businessman in those days, often known as Mike Fayed, Batman with a polar net jumper and an open-top sports car. And here you are with David Niven. You didn't appear much in public in those days, and it's not really surprising in that shirt. You obviously keen want you to make your mark in traditional British society. Within just a few years of arriving, you'd brought a Scottish castle and hunting estate and had become a laird. Here's a picture. What's the Totten there? The Thornton is the Ross tartan, is it? I think you're ripped off. I think that's the McNugget. Now I don't wish to cast aspersions on your exceptionally good taste, but when you became the laird of Balnagowan, you added one or two little touches that, shall we say, challenge the traditional preconceptions of well-to-do Scotland. Mr. Fayed bought this castle and he's made a wonderful restoration job. The inside is magnificent. They spend a lot of money and it's beautiful. And I think also they spent a lot of money on the grounds. But these paint at the castle pink. It's be nice though region them. Kinda that's the original colour. Absolutely. I'll never think of Scots and stay away again.

Now just to clear one other thing up. Once after all, you've also had a lot of stick about your name, haven't you? People claiming that the 'al' in Al-Fayed is something that you made up to make you sound posh. It's not the case, no.

Now when you're a young man in Egypt, you used to enjoy playing football. And when you first came to Britain, you sometimes went to see Fulham Football Club. And that's now provided a new string to your bow, because you bought the club in 1997 and installed Kevin Keegan as manager. Before they get big Cup games, he came down and they saw him walking towards the dressing room with a load of gold bars of 20 or 30 piled up. And one all that said, 'Guys, this is unbelievable club, look what he's bringing in.' And I generally think they thought that they were real gold bars. And it was a chocolate that they do in Harrods. And it said a go home big gold bar. And he handed them out. And some of the lads sort of sheepy said, 'There are a bit disappointing, we thought they're gonna be real ones.' And he said, 'If you win in the next round, there'll be real ones.' And I had to go to him and say, 'You know, Mr. Chairman, you can't do that, you know, and get us thrown out the league.' But we drew much each night in the next round. And I do believe I thought if it's true, I do believe he was getting little gold bars made. They weren't quite the size the players was if cousin it cost too much. But I do believe had we beat Manchester United in what was to be my last game, he would have done that. So how'd you go about fixing the FA Cup draw? Now of course you famously gave Kevin Keegan to the country, didn't you, as a gift? So thanks a bunch.

Do you ever give the players and coaching advice yourself?

Well, Fulham player Simon Morgan certainly remembers some useful advice you have for the players just before that Cup tie against Manchester United. The club had taken us away to a leisure hotel for a few days to relax and unwind. And one morning we were training out on a pitch and suddenly helicopter comes down, lands on the golf course alongside on the 17th fairway, completely stopping everyone's game. A golf went there. The door opens, out gets the chairman, strides across across to the training field, stops a training completely. We've got Kevin Keegan in charge of that time as well. Gathers all the lads around, says, 'Right lads, no no drinking. That's they will beat Man United.' And that was it, he was off again. So what celebrities did you take down to Fulham?

Simon Morgan again. The biggest name he brought down is Michael Jackson. And we couldn't believe it when we heard the rumors that he was coming down. But sure enough, before the match, he brought Mark Jackson random pitch, introduced him to the crowd. And then afterwards, he brought him into the dressing rooms. And they opened the door, walked in, said to all the boys, 'Could be a Willie's boys, Michael Jackson's their copy Willie's.' And how did you persuade Michael Jackson to go down to the football?

Of course, what I follow his most famous players was George Best, who's been a frequent guest of yours at Craven Cottage. The last time he bought me a drink was that in the board room at Fulham. And I thought I could drink until he pulled me this this whiskey was visit but offer two gallons of whiskey. But of course, if Mr. Fayed tells you to have a drink, you have a drink. So I look for my pot, put it in, and I couldn't. So to finish, they left. Don't remember much about leaving the garage. He was a teetotaler till then, you know. Here's what you gave him when he asked you for a can of beer. Well, let's hope the future holds every success for you and a little bit for Fulham, and that someone somewhere gives you a passport. Now here you are in your 70s, probably the most famous shopkeeper in the world, and you become a bit of a British celebrity in recent years. In fact, you appeared on the Ali G show, where you were persuaded to join in your very own rap. We're gonna play out with that, ladies and gentlemen. Mohamed Al-Fayed.