Jayne Amelia Larson ferried a group of Saudi women around Los Angeles for seven weeks. The burkas came off as soon they landed. (EPA)
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The Saudi royal family has generated its fair share of scandal in recent years.
In 2010, one prince made international headlines when he was caught on tape viciously beating his servant — and alleged male lover — to death at a five-star hotel in London. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison but faces harsher punishment back home, where homosexuality is considered a crime worthy of the death penalty.
That same year, WikiLeaks uncovered an alleged “raucous underground” culture of the Saudi royal youths where alcohol, drugs and prostitutes run rampant. And this year, a member of the royal entourage received a 10-year prison sentence in New York for rape at the Plaza Hotel.
There are 22,000 royals in Saudi Arabia, with about 7,000 princes — making the ratio about 1 royal per 1,000 non-royals — and not all are like the examples above.
Still, tales of lesser indulgences, of not living a life of Islamic piety, trickle out regularly. In New York City in 2010, Saudi royals bought $15 million in designer goods; in 2008, a Saudi prince shocked the locals of a sleepy Minnesota town while awaiting treatment at the Mayo Clinic with his massive entourage.
Now American actress and part-time chauffeur Jayne Amelia Larson offers another look at the life of the royals in “Driving the Saudis” (Free Press). Larson was hired by a branch of the Saudi royal family during a visit to Los Angeles, tasked to drive around a group of women who likely had never driven themselves.
“I feel that hypocrisy is a common human flaw and the Saudis do not escape it,” Larson says. “It’s a complicated situation, even though you come from a pious society, we all have human inclinations and desires, especially if you have a billion dollars at your fingertips.”
Modern Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 and named after the House of Saud, descendents of the 17th century emir, who had deep ties to the founder of Wahhabism, a fundamentalist belief in a literal interpretation of the Koran. Saudi Arabia is home to the two most important Islamic cities in the world: Mecca and Medina.
Though an absolute monarchy, the country’s ties to Wahhabism continues to this day. Saudi Arabia is governed by Islamic or Sharia law. There’s no penal code; instead the law is interpreted and exacted by ulema, religious leaders and clerics, and the mutaween, known as “the vice police.” Punishments include beheading, lashing and stoning.
Saudi King Abdullah is reportedly worth $18 billion, making him the third-richest royal in the world. His family has the wealth to travel the world. And because they have total control over the media, what happens abroad stays abroad.
Larson knew immediately that hers would not be an ordinary assignment. Especially since the first question asked of her was, “No Jew in you? We wouldn’t want to find out later.”
The caliber and sheer number of fancy cars awaiting their arrival, 40 cars from Porsches to Bentleys, were jaw-dropping. They were all there in wait for Princess Zaahira (not her real name, Larson uses aliases), her children and their entourage, who were all in town to shop. One prince also took extension classes at UCLA.
The arrival was even more astonishing to Larson, who was assigned to drive only the women of the group.
“Could a flight from Rio have come in the same time as theirs?” she asked herself, expecting to see veiled women exit the plane. Instead they were decked out in Prada, Gucci and Versace, looking like “a bunch of Brazilian hotties going nightclubbing.”
The only covered women were the servants, heads low, trailing reverently behind the royals.
Later, one woman explained to Larson why the Saudi women didn’t cover themselves: “We do not like to capture attention or discrimination, especially since the unfortunate tragedy of September 11.”
Larson didn’t buy this line of reasoning. “Then why have servants covered? That just seems like creative rationale.”
But maybe you don’t need a lot of rationale when you arrive with a literal chest full of dollars — $20 million in $100 notes. And when your mission is to spend all of it.
Trips to the plastic surgeon’s office were made as lightly as picking out which restaurant to dine. Liposuction, breast implants, vaginal rejuvenation surgery (which Larson says was “startlingly popular”), they get it all — and many get multiple procedures.
“It was like an episode of The Real Housewives of Riyadh,” Larson quipped.
And shopping. Saudis reportedly buy 75% of the world’s haute couture, and this doesn’t seem outlandish once you hear what Larson saw firsthand. Bags of Jimmy Choo shoes, armloads of Christian Dior dresses and Hermes Birkin bags in every available color. A van trailed them and would make periodic runs back to the hotel to drop off their goods. Servants always took care of the bill because the royals never handled cash.
“The Saudi women were no different from the Los Angeles women I saw walking down Melrose Avenue with huge balloon-shaped breasts and stiff silicone-enhanced monkey lips. They were all doing the same exquisite dance to maintain their value and a happy household and hopefully their husbands’ good favor,” she wrote.
The family stayed for seven weeks — and each day was more demanding than the next for Larson. She was on-call 24/7 with the express mission that she should be “seen and not heard.”
Larson, a quick study, became the “go-to girl.” There were urgent requests for the new iPhone, missions to find an obscure brand of cigarettes and one order to find 27 bottles of the depilatory cream “Hair Off” which forced Larson to visit 20 stores in search.
She dealt with bratty teenagers who in between asking her about Paris Hilton and Kanye West ordered her around like a dog.
She tells the story of how one royal passed out after getting butt-implant surgery. As she tried to move the woman’s 180-pound body into her car, she called out to the woman’s relative for help to no avail. The other woman was on the phone with her son and could not be bothered to end the conversation.
Though she had minimal contact with the royals, she spoke often and freely with the servants, most of whom were from East Asia and North Africa.
Larson took these women to the local 99-cent store, where each picked out trinkets for their families at home and gawked at condoms. One woman even picked out a sexy push-up bra to wear during her wedding night when she returned home.
But Larson was dismayed at how the Saudi royals treated their servants, more like “24/7 slaves, as if they have no needs or desires of their own.”
According to the World Health Report, 1.5 million migrant workers are excluded from Labor Laws and are forced to work 15 to 20 hours a day, and “frequently endure forced confinement, food deprivation and severe psychological, physical and sexual abuse.”
One servant managed to escape in the middle of the night to defect with an American boyfriend, Larson writes. Another up and disappeared while waiting to board an airplane with her employer.
But are these the early stirrings of the 99% rising up against the royals? Not likely, experts say.
First, most Saudis are ignorant of the royal family’s scandals and excesses. And more importantly, Saudi Arabia, a welfare state in which 70% of government revenue relies on oil, takes care of its people financially.
Though there have been protests — mainly by the Shiites in the eastern provinces — they have been tamed in comparison to Syria and other neighbors.
“Saudi Arabia has largely been able to avoid the Arab Spring because the king has created public-sector jobs and benefits for young Saudis,” said Jonathan Paris, a London-based Mideast expert and senior fellow with the South Asian center of Atlantic Council.
The day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, King Abdullah announced economic benefits package worth more than $130 billion, including aid for the unemployed, housing loans, pay increases and funding to offset inflation.
This September, King Abdullah also launched a huge expansion for the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, according to their state news agency. The total price tag was not released, but Saudi officials say that just appropriating the land for the project will cost the royals $6.6 billion.
Meanwhile, protesters continue to be jailed and new laws were introduced in 2011 making freedom of expression and assembly illegal. Lashings are still common, women are still treated as minors and people are still arbitrarily arrested and tortured.
Still, experts argue that it could be a lot worse.
“While you do have 22,000 princes, there are some bad apples, but by and large the family is well-respected and loved by the Saudi people,” Paris said. “While we can criticize their Islamism and lack of democracy and treatment of women, we have to say that they’re far better off than any alternative tribe that could replace them.”
Though there are small changes afoot for women in Saudi Arabia — King Abdullah recently announced that women will be able to vote in their next elections (if they get permission from a male guardian) and women may soon be allowed to appear in court representing other women — it clearly isn’t happening quickly enough for women who are educated outside their home country. Such is the case with one of the teenagers that Larson drove.
“I would like to stay here very much. I would like to study here. I am studying philosophy,” said the teen royal, who had just completed a summer season at Berkeley College.
But that was impossible because she had an arranged marriage awaiting her at home — she was set to be the third wife of her father’s colleague.
“All my family will celebrate. It is time. It is unavoidable. I will make my family proud. For this I am happy. I am very happy,” she said, crying softly.
Larson never learned what happened to the teenager — but she ehrself was headed toward her own unhappy ending.
After all the sleepless nights, the 400-mile drives and the Hail Mary missions — culminating with her final assignment to track down 60 $500 Chantilly bras — the Saudi family finally left her with the envelope of tips she was working toward all this time.
She had heard that other men in her position — even less liked than her — got over $10,000.
She waited until the end of the day to open the envelope, and did it slowly to take it all in. One thousand dollars. She counted again to be sure.
“I was so disappointed. I was just stunned. And it dawned on me, I’d been a fool. Of course, it couldn’t be any other way. I’m a woman! What did I expect them to get Westernized overnight and treat me right?” said Larson.