Was Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari, the beautiful wife of a former shah, a metafemale?

Question

Was Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari, the beautiful wife of a former shah, a metafemale?

Answer 1

It is unknown if the late ex-Queen Consort of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was a "meta-female. Granted the style and title Her Imperial Highness the Princess Soraya of Iran, their happy marriage was short lived, the imperial couple's marriage had disintegrated by early 1958 over Soraya's apparent infertility, for which she had sought treatment in Switzerland and France, and the Shah's suggestion that he take a second wife in order to produce an heir.

Read more about Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari's biography at http://www.bakhtiarifamily.com/soraya.ph...

Answer 2

The Shah divorced Soraya on April 6, 1958 because of infertility.  She had sought treatment in Switzerland and France without success.  According to a report in The New York Times, extensive negotiations had preceded the divorce in order to convince Queen Soraya to allow her husband to take a second wife, as was allowed by his Muslim faith. The Queen, however, citing what she called her "European principles" regarding the sanctity of marriage, stated that "she could not accept the idea of sharing her husband's love with another woman.

Granted the style and title Her Imperial Highness the Princess Soraya of Iran, the former queen moved to France.

Princess Soraya launched a brief career as a film actress, for which she used only her first name. Initially, it was announced that she would portray Catherine the Great in a movie about the Russian empress by Dino De Laurentiis, but that project fell through.  Instead, she starred in the 1965 movie Les trois visages d'une femme (Three Faces of a Woman) and became the companion of its Italian director, Franco Indovina (1932-1972).

After Indovina's death in a plane crash, she spent the remainder of her life unhappily, by her own admission, wandering through Europe, buying antiques and couture, appearing at social events in a desultory fashion.

Since Soraya's death in 2001 at the age of 69 while living in Paris, several young women have come forward claiming to be her illegitimate daughter, reportedly born in 1962, according to the Persian-language weekly Nimrooz; the claims have not been confirmed. The newspaper also published an article in 2001 which suggested, without proof, that Princess Soraya and her brother had been murdered.

The question of Soraya being a metafemale will remain a question until there is medical proof.

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