Karim Al-Fayed is one of the three sons born to the now-late Billionaire philanthropist Mohamed Al-Fayed. His father, who was worth an estimated $1.9 billion and ranked at no. 1,512 in the world as of November 2022, passed away in August 2023. According to reports, the business mogul passed away due to old age.
His death has triggered interest among netizens as many look on to see what happens to the tremendous Al-Fayed wealth. When it comes to the distribution of such wealth, family and kids get the most priority, so many are now more curious about the late mogul’s kids and how they’re dealing with his death.
Karim Al-Fayed is one of Mohammed’s kids and our focus in this article. Keep reading to learn more about him and the unusual life he lives despite his wealthy origins.
Who Is Karim Al-Fayed?
Karim Al-Fayed was born in September 1983 in London, United Kingdom. His parents are the Egyptian-born businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed and former model Heini Wathén. Including Karim, the couple has a total of four children.
They are Camilla Al-Fayed, Jasmine Al-Fayed, and Omar Al-Fayed. Karim is the second child the late Mohammed and his wife welcomed. Given how wealthy his father is, there are some stereotypes Karim is expected to fit into. However, things are different with him.
For example, his early life was filled with learning how to communicate instead of playing around or partying. As an adult as well, he stays grounded and is a big fan of normalcy rather than fame and popularity. He owes this profound difference in his life to the fact that he has grown up deaf.
Unlike some people who would have accepted their deafness as a disability, Karim has worked to surpass it and is on the verge of helping more people learn to do it, too. He is currently engaged to a model named Brenda Costa. The two have no kids together yet.
Why Did Karim Al-Fayed Lose His Hearing?
Karim is completely deaf in both ears. This happened as a result of him contracting meningitis when he was a toddler of two years.
Life as a deaf child was not an easy one for Karim. In his early years, he was primarily exposed only to family, but as he got older and needed to start school, he had to learn to adapt to the outside world.
He has admitted that as a schoolboy, one of the things he worked the hardest on was his self-confidence. As a result of his disability, he developed shyness, which meant Karim was never the type to enjoy celebrity parties or things nepo-babies got up to for fun.
Karim once said: “Learning to speak was an essential part of my life.” To learn, Karim would repeatedly watch his favorite television shows with his mother until he’d gotten the exact facial movements and could recreate the words himself.
He said: “I’d watch for hours until I knew exactly what people were saying. Then, I could study their mouths and work it out. I’ve overcome this, and life is completely normal, but I have had to work hard.”
Karim now functions as if he has no hearing impairment, which is a testament to how much work he put into surpassing his limits.
How Old Is Karim Al-Fayed?
Karim Al-Fayed was born in September 1983 in London, United Kingdom. As of 2023, he is 40 years old.
What Does Karim Al-Fayed Do?
Even though he was born into a wealthy family, Karim Al-Fayed knows what it means to work hard to achieve a specific goal.
He once shared in an interview: “My father has always said that we have to work. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve got; you still have to work to understand the value of it.”
Given such a mindset, it is obvious Karim has also gotten busy in the past. According to some sources, he was appointed the director of Fulham Football Club in 2005, where he remained until he resigned in 2013.
In 2015, he became the managing director of Faymodo Properties Limited. He held the position until about a year later. Afterward, he focused on his role as the director for Harrods Aviation (Stansted) Limited, a position he got in 2011.
Karim resigned from the post in January 2023. Currently, he is the director of Lonely Rock Productions Limited, a role he took on in 2012.
Aside from his business endeavors, the handsome man has some productive hobbies. He runs the Karim Fayed Hearing Center, a one-stop clinic for people with mild to severe hearing loss, which offers free tests and manufactures bespoke hearing aids.
Karim has stated that half the profits from the hearing center will go to the Mary Hare school, the school he was sent to as an eleven-year-old boy. It is unclear how Mohammed Al-Fayed’s demise will affect Karim’s life, but all eyes are on the family as they deal with their patriarch’s death.
The only other death the family members have had to endure was the demise of Karim’s half-brother, Dodi Al-Fayed. Dodi passed on along with Princess Diana in a car crash, and their father, Mohammed, never got over his death.