The term ‘jet-set’ could have been invented for Soraya Khashoggi, one of the most beautiful, certainly the most intriguing and, famously, one of the richest women of her generation.

The illegitimate daughter of a Leicester waitress, Soraya lived the kind of glitzy life that most of us only get close to in the pages of fat airport bestsellers.

This was a woman who, when married to controversial Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi, had three planes staffed with top chefs, and owned 17 homes and three yachts. She socialised with a glittering circle of friends including Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra. Later came an equally star-studded cast of lovers.

Iconic: Soraya Khashoggi was one of the most beautiful, certainly the most intriguing and, famously, one of the richest women of her generation

Throughout a long life in the public eye, however, she has rarely spoken about her remarkable story, and – until now – never in full.

Writer ANDREW WILSON came to know Soraya while he was researching a biography of her friend, the novelist Harold Robbins, which Wilson titled The Man Who Invented Sex.

And as they fell into conversation, he soon discovered that this fascinating woman could have stepped from the pages of one of Robbins’s own steamy bestsellers.

Today Soraya names for the first time the string of famous men she counted as her lovers, reveals the gripping truth behind a very public love triangle with Tory MPs Winston Churchill and Jonathan Aitken, and provides a quite astonishing denouement...

'I had started working as a photo-journalist, and one day in 1974 I was sent to photograph Jonathan Aitken. When I met him he’d been having a relationship with Antonia Fraser, who had a large family. I had lots of children too and I think he wanted a massive family.

At that time I had a house in Somerset – the children were at Millfield School – and he would come down and spend weekends with us and teach my sons to play cricket. We got engaged and we spent hours looking at Brides magazine. What did I love about Jonathan? He took charge and he decided on things.

BLACKMAIL - FOILED BY A BRA At the height of her fame in the mid-1970s, and following the collapse of her marriage to Adnan Khashoggi, Soraya embarked on a relationship with two of the most prominent parliamentarians of the day: the dashing Jonathan Aitken, and – simultaneously – Winston Churchill, grandson of the wartime Prime Minister. As she explains for the first time, she got a great deal more than she bargained for… Advertisement

The reason I didn’t marry him was because I met another man – Winston Churchill.

One day in 1975, I went out to dinner with Jonathan to the House of Commons. As we left the dining room, Jonathan and a couple of friends went to the cloakroom and I stood by myself admiring the beauty of the House of Commons at night.

Then out of nowhere, on the other side of the hall, I saw Winston. He asked me what I had been doing and I told him that I had been having dinner with Jonathan. He asked ‘Do you want to come to dinner tomorrow?’ and I immediately said yes. He asked for my address and said that he would pick me up at eight o’clock. I didn’t think it was a date as I had assumed that his wife, Minnie, would come along too.

The next day he was late and I was seriously considering cancelling. But then he arrived at my house in Eaton Square with a big bunch of flowers and my housekeeper let him in. He told me that he had booked a table at a restaurant called the White Elephant On The River in Pimlico and apologised for being late, but that he had just come from the hospital.

I asked: ‘Are you ill?’ No, he said, he had come from the hospital where Minnie had just given birth. I should have walked away then, shouldn’t I? But I thought it’s only an innocent dinner.

Later that night, on the dancefloor he kissed me and that was the beginning of everything. The relationship was intense and strong and we saw each other every other night. But I continued my relationship with Jonathan at the same time.

First love: Wearing a blonde wig, Soraya with Adnan Khashoggi at the 1992 wedding of their daughter Nabila (L). In her lifetime she also had a passionate affair with actor Warren Beatty (R)

In addition to the house in Eaton Square, I had a mews cottage and I remember there were two division bells, depending on who I was having dinner with that night. There was a bell in my dining room in Eaton Square for Winston and one in the mews cottage for Jonathan. I was juggling the two men in my mind.

Winston wanted to marry me, but his intention was to leave Minnie for me, and I didn’t want to break up his marriage. I kept trying to leave him, but the bond was too strong. And although Winston knew about Jonathan, Jonathan didn’t know about Winston.

The decision about what to do was taken out of my hands by three policemen who tried to blackmail me by saying that I had defrauded an insurance company – which of course I hadn’t – and threatened to go to the press with details of my relationship with Winston.

I went straight to the division of the police that investigates corruption within the force, and from that moment it felt like my life had turned into a movie. The police came and wired up my house, they ripped apart my beautiful Yves Saint Laurent evening bag and put wires inside it and set up this sting where I had to arrange to meet the blackmailer and give him a black bin bag full of cash.

I took a black cab to Heathrow – the driver was in on the operation too – and I was assured that I would be followed at all times and that I wasn’t in any danger. But when I arrived at the airport the blackmailer turned up in a red sports car and told me to get in.

Although I was a bit scared, I thought to myself: ‘At least they don’t have guns like they do in New York, so I should be safe.’ And I knew that the police were following and listening to our every word – my bra had been fitted with a wire too.

We drove miles and miles into the countryside and I was beginning to feel apprehensive. Thankfully I spotted a pub and I pretended I needed the loo. The blackmailer went and bought some drinks and when he returned to the table he said, pointing to my bag: ‘How do I know I can trust you? That you haven’t got a tape in there?’

Roman conquest: Soraya’s relationship with Macbeth director Roman Polanski (L) was ‘intense’ and ‘amazing’. She also had an impassioned affair with Sammy Davis Jnr (R)

I told him that he could trust me and I handed over the money. When he drove me back to Heathrow I discovered that the police had lost me, but at least now they had all the evidence – the secret tape-recording together with the delivery of the cash – they needed to prosecute the blackmailer and his two associates.

During the trial in 1979, it came to light that I had been having a relationship with a Mr X who was a famous MP.

It was funny because all the MPs were being asked by their wives ‘Is it you?’ and so Winston had to come out and say that he was the MP in question. What happened before the trial makes for an entertaining story but at the time it was awful.

THE GLITTERING ROLL CALL OF LOVERS The society photographer Norman Parkinson described Soraya as ‘the most naturally beautiful woman I have ever photographed’. Now at 73, her porcelain skin is unlined and she has lost none of the beauty that secured romantic expressions of interest from the most famous men of her day. ‘I often say to myself, in a half-joking way, that I should have been Byron’s mistress as I would have fitted in back then,’ she says. Advertisement

After that I decided to leave both Jonathan and Winston by running away to America. Winston followed me and told me that he loved me and that he wanted to marry me. But I didn’t want him to leave his wife, and so our five-year relationship came to a close.

It was then, in America, that I discovered that I was pregnant by Jonathan and, in 1980 I gave birth to my daughter Petrina. I knew who her father was, but I wanted to keep the information from her until she reached the age of 18.

Of course, she did ask, but I didn’t think it fair that the other two children not fathered by Adnan – Oktavia, born in 1982, and Nikolai, born in 1986 – didn’t know the identity of their fathers. So I decided to wait until all of them were old enough. I made that decision to protect them.

The question over Petrina’s paternity came to a head because she started to socialise with Victoria and Ally, Jonathan’s twin daughters with his first wife Lolicia. People were mistaking Petrina for Ally and so I decided to write to Jonathan.

A DNA test was done and then it all came out in the press. Nowadays, I have a great relationship with Jonathan, as does Adnan. He always says to me: ‘I’ll never understand why you didn’t marry that Jonathan Aitken.’

I had so much fun, and looking back it was a heady time – in fact they were all exciting times, particularly the 1970s and 1980s.

I’ll never forget Sammy Davis Jr, who I first met in the late 1960s. My friend Leslie Bricusse and his wife Evie set me up on a date with him at the White Elephant. I arrived early and he was sitting at the bar having a Pimm’s and we got on incredibly well from that first moment.

We went around the world together, to Las Vegas and Australia, but the relationship was fraught with difficulties as he was heavily into drugs. I don’t like drugs and have never done them.

MP No 1: Soraya was engaged to Jonathan Aitken, and they had a daughter, Petrina. Even Adnan thought they should have married. She also had a fling with James Hunt (R)

He was such a drinker too. I remember when we would wake up in the morning he would get a cup, pour whisky and Coca-Cola into it and then drink it – and that was before he had even brushed his teeth.

He was still married to his third wife Altovise, but I thought she was a really bad influence. For instance, when he came out of a clinic where he had been to get clean, she would greet him with a brandy. On one occasion we went to Paris, to Regine’s. The champagne came out and Sammy said: ‘Let’s dance.’

He was the best dancer in the world, but at that moment I didn’t want to dance because I felt embarrassed as I knew I wouldn’t be as good as him.

I asked him if we could wait for a slow dance, but he was so angry that I had turned him down that he picked up the table, complete with silver and crystal glasses, and turned it over.

I have danced with a king on a beach under the stars and once Frank Sinatra sang just for me. As long as I have love, laughter, my family and close friends, I know I will be happy

He accused me of being a racist – that I had not wanted to dance with him because he was black – which was just so preposterous. I had been married to Adnan and I have children who are mixed-race. But I could see that his erratic behaviour was a result of the drug-taking and finally I had to walk away. There was no big scene, I just moved on.

The next man in my life was Roman Polanski, whom I knew during the time he was making his film Macbeth in the 1970s. I met him in Tramp in London. He was sitting at the bar not speaking to anyone and just drinking Perrier. I moved over to sit by him and he asked me to dance. Towards the end of the evening he said ‘Do you want to come home?’ and I did.

He was an amazing man – the most intelligent man I have ever met apart from Adnan – and it was a very intense time. We would meet up whenever we were in the same town, whether that was London or Los Angeles.

At the same time I started having a relationship with Warren Beatty, whom I thought was beautiful. It didn’t last very long, but I would see him in LA or New York.

In the early 1980s I also dated James Hunt, whom I met after I had gone to take his photograph for a magazine. I had known him from Spain – he had lived in San Pedro when I had lived in Marbella. He was lovely, a real sweetie, but he led a complicated life and used to throw some really wild parties.

He was so funny too. I remember once when he lived in this enormous house in Wimbledon, he took me to a Dr Hook concert. He had been smoking pot and we were going to be late and so both of us piled into his car and he drove really fast across London.

As he was puffing away I noticed a police car behind us which put its sirens on and pulled us over. ‘Don’t worry,’ said James, winking, as he flung the joint out of the window. The problem was you could still smell the pot in the car.

I thought we were in real trouble when the policeman asked us to wind down the window. ‘Hello, Mr Hunt,’ said one of the policemen, sticking his head into the car. ‘Can we have your autograph?’ You can’t imagine the relief! Then the police whizzed us across London to make sure we got to the concert on time.

During my life I’ve met a whole cast of famous people such as Frank Sinatra, Liz Taylor, Sean Connery and Shirley Bassey, who is one of my best friends. I also got to know lots of Hollywood actors through Jackie Collins, whom I met in the late 1960s.

So close: Soraya with Petrina, her daughter with Jonathan Aitken

Adnan and I had a flat near Buckingham Palace and Jackie lived in the penthouse. I remember her, sitting on the floor, writing in longhand her first novel The World Is Full Of Married Men. Through her I met her sister Joan and we became great friends too.

I went on to meet Marlon Brando, Roger Moore and Tony Curtis, whose name was linked with mine although nothing happened between us. Our gang would move around the world together – Brazil for the carnival, summers in the south of France and winters in Gstaad.

Often all of us would stay in and play charades and I remember once thinking to myself: ‘I don’t believe this – I am watching Michael Caine and Tony Curtis acting. They do that for a living, so I should be able to get their charades!’

In July 1982, I married again, this time to the fashion designer Robert Rupley. We had met through Tony Curtis at a big party in New York. At the time Robert was the boyfriend of Britt Ekland. He was very handsome and we had a whirlwind romance.

On the day of our wedding in New York, one of his male friends came to my suite and said: ‘You can’t be married because Robert is gay. I am his lover and have been for years.’

I didn’t believe him – I thought he was jealous or something. I flew back to Britain, but when Robert joined me, friends started to tell me that they had seen him out at gay nightclubs.

I suppose I must have been incredibly naive – and in love – and a few years later we divorced. Even when he was dying – he died in 1993 of an AIDS-related condition – he was in complete denial. He never told me the truth of his sexuality and in the hospice in America he refused to accept it. He told people that he had cancer of the brain.

After his death, his grandmother who had brought him up asked me to go through his papers and I came across photographs of Robert with various sun-tanned, good-looking men. These were men he had told me were his brothers or cousins, but of course they had been his boyfriends. In the papers I found a note which read: ‘To Darling Soraya and the children – I am sorry.’

After Robert’s death I worked as an antiques dealer, a manager of a pop group, and in a flower shop. Eventually, after training at Paula Pryke [a floral artist in London], I went into partnership with one of my sons and bought a flower shop in a five-star hotel in London, which I still own. I have also nearly finished writing a crime novel, Bloom, which is set in a flower shop and which I hope to get published.

Of course, I no longer have the kind of wealth I enjoyed when I was with Adnan, but I consider myself rich in children – I have nine in total, five of them with Adnan – and in experience.

I have danced with a king on a beach under the stars and once Frank Sinatra sang just for me.