Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary (Persian: ثریا اسفندیاری بختیاری, romanized: Sorayâ Esfandiâri-Baxtiâri; 22 June 1932 – 25 October 2001) was Queen of Iran as the second wife of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whom she married in 1951.

Soraya was the elder child and only daughter of Khalil Esfandiary-Bakhtiary (1901–1983),[1] a Bakhtiari nobleman and Iranian ambassador to West Germany in the 1950s, and his Russian-born German wife Eva Karl (1906–1994).

[6] Originally the couple had planned to wed on 27 December 1950, but the ceremony was postponed due to the bride being ill.[7] Although the Shah announced that guests should donate money to a special charity for the Iranian poor, among the wedding gifts were a mink coat and a desk set with black diamonds sent by Joseph Stalin; a Steuben glass Bowl of Legends designed by Sidney Waugh and sent by President of the United States, Harry S. Truman and Mrs. Truman; and silver Georgian candlesticks from King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

[9] The bride wore a silver lamé gown studded with pearls and trimmed with marabou stork feathers,[10] designed for the occasion by Christian Dior.

[13] Soraya's marriage was troubled as Mohammad Reza's mother and sisters all saw her as a rival for his love just as they had with his first wife Princess Fawzia of Egypt, and continually snubbed and inflicted petty humiliations on her.

[12] Much to her revulsion, Perron visited her and made a series of what she called very "lewd" remarks and vulgar questions about her sex life with the Shah, which led her to throw him out of the Marble Palace in her fury.

[12] In August 1953, Soraya followed the Shah when he fled to Rome, and complained the Iranian ambassador to Italy failed to arrange for a place for them to stay while the royal couple were constantly harassed by the paparazzi.

[14] On 19 August 1953, Soraya remembered how a glum Mohammad Reza was talking about moving to the United States when he received a telegram announcing that Mosaddegh had been overthrown, leading him to shout with joy.

[12] As Soraya was brought up in Europe, Iran was a "strange" country to her, which the Iranian-American historian Abbas Milani argued explained her attitudes towards ordinary Iranians, which he called borderline racist.

[12] Soraya described as Queen having to visit "hospitals, orphanages, charities, the people's quarters with their djoubs open to the sky, with streams of dirt water which supplied their dwellings, having first served washerwomen, tramps and dogs.

[12] In October 1954, Mohammad Reza told Soraya he was concerned about the fact that she had not given him an heir and suggested that they visit the United States to seek the help of American fertility doctors.

[17] Unaware of what the doctors had revealed to Soraya, Newsweek sarcastically wrote "even the Shahanshah (King of Kings), Vice Regent of God, Shadow of the Almighty and Center of the Universe deserves a vacation....They [the imperial couple] have spent this winter in a private visit to the U.S...physical check-ups in New York hospitals, sight-seeing in San Francisco, dancing the mambo in Hollywood, skiing in Sun Valley, water-skiing in Miami Beach".

[17] During her time in Los Angeles, Soraya met her favorite stars who were Grace Kelly, Lauren Bacall, Bob Hope, Esther Williams, and Humphrey Bogart.

[17] Soraya was widely condemned for the immorality of wearing her swimsuit, which was not considered a proper dress for a Muslim, and the photo was banned in Iran in an attempt to silence the criticism of the ulema.

[17] Though the wedding took place during a heavy snow, deemed a good omen, the imperial couple's marriage had disintegrated by early 1958 owing to Soraya's apparent infertility.

[20] The Shah's domineering mother hated Soraya and was pressuring him to divorce her, telling him it was his duty to father a son to continue the House of Pahlavi.

[20] Mohammad Reza persuaded Soraya to leave Iran while he promised he would call the "Council of Wise Men" to change the constitution.

[20] Despite this promise, Soraya sensed her husband had turned against her, and before she left Iran one courtier remembered she had "systematically put her house in order".

[24] On 21 March 1958, the Nowruz, a weeping Shah announced his divorce to the Iranian people in a speech that was broadcast on radio and television; he said that he would not remarry in haste.

According to a report in The New York Times, extensive negotiations had preceded the divorce in order to convince Queen Soraya to allow her husband to take a second wife.

"[26] Soraya was well rewarded for the divorce with the Shah buying her a penthouse apartment in Paris that was valued at $3 million US, paying her a monthly alimony of $7,000 US (that continued to be paid until the Islamic Revolution overthrew Mohammad Reza in 1979), together with various luxuries such as a 1958 Rolls-Royce Phantom IV, a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, a Bulgari ruby, a Van Cleef & Arpels brooch and a Harry Winston platinum ring with a 22.37-carat diamond that after her death was sold at the estate auction for $838,350 US.

[24] After the divorce, the Shah, who had told a reporter who asked about his feelings for the former Queen that "nobody can carry a torch longer than me", indicated his interest in marrying Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy, a daughter of the deposed Italian king Umberto II.

In an editorial about the rumors surrounding the marriage of "a Muslim sovereign and a Catholic princess", the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, considered the match "a grave danger".

[28] After her divorce, Soraya was in a relationship with the director Maximilian Schell and the industrial heir Gunter Sachs and also lived briefly in Munich.

Initially, it was announced that she would portray Catherine the Great in a movie about the Russian empress by Dino De Laurentiis, but that project fell through.

[32] After Indovina's death in a plane crash, she spent the remainder of her life in Europe, succumbing to depression, which she outlined in her 1991 memoir, Le Palais des solitudes (The Palace of Loneliness).

[citation needed] In 1979, Soraya wrote to Mohammad Reza as he was dying of cancer in Panama, saying she still loved him and wanted to see him one last time.