She was born into the opulence of the Peacock Throne, the younger daughter of the last Shah of Iran, but died alone and desperate in a London hotel room. There was no clear explanation for the death of 31-year-old Princess Leila Pahlavi when she was discovered in her suite at the Leonard Hotel near Marble Arch last week. Early reports suggested a drugs overdose, but a preliminary autopsy failed to determine the cause.

“For the past few years, Leila was very depressed. Time had not healed her wounds,” her mother Empress Farah said from her Paris home. “Exiled at the age of nine, she never surmounted the death of her father, to whom she was particularly close.”

When she spoke to Hello! two years ago at the same hotel where she was to spend her last, tragic days, Leila talked at length of how she missed her father. “He was such a calm, serene man, such a soul, such humanity – and he adored us,” she said.

Leila said she was close to her whole family – yet she seemed unable to live with the images of the lost innocence of her youth and the loss of a birthright and country to which she’d never return.

For the full story and pictures, see this week’s issue of Hello!, on sale now.