A MODEST home near the Werribee Racecourse is probably the last place you’d expect to find someone professing royal connections.
But Her Imperial Royal Highness, Princess Liala Farouk, Grand Duchess of Alexandria, Egypt, said she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’m a human being like anyone else,” said the 49-year-old. Remarkable though it may seem, the princess, known to her friends simply as Liala, said she discovered only about 12 years ago her links to various European and Egyptian royal families.
Her mother, an Italian princess, was believed to have been killed in a Nazi concentration camp, but survived with a new identity, she said. And her father was King Farouk Fuad, the last ruling king of Egypt, who died in exile in 1965.
“I met him only once, when I was seven, and I remember him as a very large man who gave me lots of presents,” she said.
Her mother gave birth to her in Australia and always kept her real background secret, Liala said.
“I understand how people have a hard time believing that someone with royal blood would choose to live here, but I grew up around here and it’s still my home,” she said.
Liala said a royal family member revealed her true heritage after tracing the “lost daughter of King Farouk” to Australia.
“I was devastated at first because I had grown up and I wasn’t who I thought I was,” she said.
Liala has blended her contrasting lifestyles since discovering the news that most little girls only dream of.
She married for the third time last February ín Williamstown, to businessman Graham Innes, who has his own Scottish royal connections, she said.
Her wedding DVD shows the ceremony as a glitzy affair, with sash-wearing men and tiara-clad women Ä all European royals, she said.
One of her uncles even knighted several guests during a lavish reception at the Werribee Mansion.
She said she was hurt by media reports at the time doubting what she insists is the truth.
“It was the best day of my life despite all the newspapers,” she said.
Earlier this year, the newly married couple toured Europe with members of the Imperial Military Order of Constantine the Great and of Saint Helen, an international group whose aim is to develop new communities of knights and dames around the world.
The group’s first visit was to Zamora , an autonomous area of Spain with about 200,000 residents, where they enjoyed banquets and ceremonies in the royal throne room.
“I kept thinking ‘this is amazing’ but if I chose that life I’d have to be glamorous all the time,” she said.
Liala says she is happier concentrating on charity work.
She has stacks of letters from grateful benefactors for her past efforts, mainly with children’s charities.
The reluctant royal said she is also sponsoring disadvantaged Werribee families, mainly single mothers and their children.
“I give the mothers things to help them feel glamorous because they’re the ones who miss out,” she said.
She said she also donates money from the psychic readings she now performs at The Centre for Mind, Body and Spirit in Werribee.
She counts Hollywood stars as her clients and has done predictions for various publications, including Women’s Day magazine.
“I’ve had the psychic powers since I was a little girl and I always knew I would have an interesting life,” she said.
