Farah Pahlavi

Farah Pahlavi (née Diba) is the widow of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and the last Empress of Iran. Born into a prominent family — her father Captain Sohrab Diba was an army officer, her maternal family the Ghotbis were of Gilak origin — she studied architecture at the École Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris before marrying the Shah in 1959.

As Shahbanou she was a patron of the arts, culture, and education, overseeing numerous museums and cultural institutions. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, she accompanied the Shah into exile, living in Egypt, Morocco, the Bahamas, Mexico, and Panama before settling in the United States after the Shah's death in Cairo in 1980.

She divides her time between Washington, D.C. and Paris, remaining active in exile politics. During the 2022–2023 Woman, Life, Freedom protests, she publicly supported the movement. Her son Reza Pahlavi is a prominent opposition figure who advocates for a secular democratic Iran. Her cousin, Mohammad Ali Massoud Ansari, was the father of historian Ali M. Ansari.