Fawzia, who was known as the "sad queen" in the press, lived in isolation and silence after the 1952 Egyptian revolution and never published her memories of the court of Iran and Egypt.

In addition to her sisters, Faiza, Faika and Fathia, and her brother, Farouk,[8] she had two half-siblings, Fawkia and Ismail, from her father's previous marriage to Princess Shwikar Khanum Effendi.

[10] The marriage of Princess Fawzia to Iran's Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was planned by the latter's father, Rezā Shāh.

[13] The Pahlavis were a parvenu house as Reza Khan, the son of a peasant who entered the Iranian Army as a private, rising up to become a general, had seized power in a 1921 coup.

[16] At the same time, Maher Pasha was working on plans to marry off Farouk's other sisters to King Faisal II of Iraq and to the son of Emir Abdullah of Jordan, intending to forge an Egyptian-dominated bloc in the Middle East.

[22] The contrast between the Crown Prince Mohammad Reza, dressed in the simple uniform of an Iranian officer, and the lavish opulence of the Egyptian court typified by the famously free-spending Farouk in his expensive suits, was much remarked upon at the time.

[26] Fawzia disliked Reza Khan, whom she described as a violent and thuggish man prone to attacking people with either his whip or riding crop.

Soon after her husband's ascent to the throne, Queen Fawzia appeared on the cover of the 21 September 1942, issue of Life magazine, photographed by Cecil Beaton, who described her as an "Asian Venus" with "a perfect heart-shaped face and strangely pale but piercing blue eyes.

[31] Fawzia's relations with her mother-in-law and her sisters-in-law were notably tempestuous as the Queen Mother and her daughters saw her as a rival for Mohammad Reza Shah's affections, and the women constantly feuded with each other.

[32] Popular rumor had it that Fawzia for her part had an affair with her minder, described as an athletic, handsome man, though her friends insist that this was merely malicious gossip.

[33] Fawzia's son-in-law, Ardeshir Zahedi told the Iranian-American historian Abbas Milani in a 2009 interview about the rumors: "She is a lady and never veered from the path of purity and fidelity".

[33] From 1944 onward, Fawzia was treated for depression by an American psychiatrist, as she stated her marriage was a loveless one and she desperately wanted to go back to Egypt.

[35] On the other hand, CIA reports claim that Princess Fawzia ridiculed and humiliated the Shah due to his supposed impotence, leading to their separation.

[20] Fawzia left Iran for Egypt, and despite numerous attempts on the part of the Shah to persuade her to return, she remained put in Cairo.

In another official statement, the Shah said that the dissolution of the marriage "cannot affect by any means the existing friendly relations between Egypt and Iran.