Kelly Fisher built a genuine modeling career at the top of the fashion industry, appearing on some of the biggest magazine covers in the world, before a single relationship made her a footnote in one of the most written-about tragedies of the twentieth century. Her actual career deserves more attention than that footnote usually gives it.
A Louisville Model on the World Stage
Fisher was born Kelly Ann Fisher in Louisville in 1966 and went on to a modeling career that put her in advertising campaigns for Calvin Klein, Victoria’s Secret, Armani, and La Perla. She appeared on the covers of Vogue, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, W, and Elle, a run of major placements that few models from anywhere, let alone Louisville, ever achieve. Her career unfolded largely in New York, Paris, and Milan, the industry’s three biggest markets, at a time when the supermodel era was at its commercial peak.
The Fayed Relationship
In 1996, Fisher began a relationship with Egyptian film producer Dodi Fayed, son of Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed. By the summer of 1997, unbeknownst to her, Fayed had also become involved with Diana, Princess of Wales, during a Mediterranean holiday. Fisher, represented by attorney Gloria Allred, filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Fayed that August, claiming the two had been engaged with a wedding date set for later that month.
She withdrew the suit on September 1, 1997, the day after Fayed and Diana were killed in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris, a tragedy that made headlines around the world and swept Fisher’s name into a story far larger than her own life.
The relationship and its aftermath made Fisher a recurring name in coverage of Diana’s death for years afterward, and more recently she was portrayed by actress Erin Richards in two seasons of Netflix’s The Crown, introducing her story to an entirely new generation of viewers who were not alive in 1997.
Life After Modeling
Fisher moved on from both modeling and the public spotlight that followed 1997. She married Russian pilot Mikhail Movshin in 2007, taking the name Kelly Movshina, and the two settled in Aiken, South Carolina, with their daughter, after meeting in the Central African Republic.
She has built a second career there in property development, a long way from both Louisville and the tabloids that once followed her.