Denae

Jill Dodd was 21 when billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi wrote “I love you” on her arm in his own blood. Weeks later, she says, he offered to pay for everything under a five-year contract to become one of his “pleasure wives.” “You will be at my beck and call 24 hours a day.” Dodd was an American model working in Paris when she met him at a party on the French Riviera. She remembers being shocked by the blood on her arm. She also thought the gesture was funny and strangely cute. The next day, he invited her aboard his yacht. It had its own hospital, cinema and disco. Other models were there too. In the video below, she explains what happened after she accepted his offer. Khashoggi already had a wife. Dodd lived among several other women, each with separate accommodation. He would visit her cottage, or she would spend time alone with him in his rooms. At first, she says, she barely thought about what sharing him would mean. Asked how naive she had been, her answer is immediate: “Extremely.” The interviewer asks whether she loved Khashoggi himself or the money, power and extravagance around him. “I believe I was in love with him.” She describes days spent behind closed doors together, taking cocaine and having meals brought in by a chef. They slept when they wanted. Sometimes they stayed awake for days. He also offered to pay her tuition at a design college. Years later, she would help create Roxy. But one detail stayed with her: his book of women. She remembers a notebook filled with headshots and body shots, which she thought might have come from a modeling agency. “It was like he was shopping for girls.” After two years, she no longer wanted to share him. She had fallen in love with someone else, and her view of the arrangement was changing. “I was starting to see through the facade.” She left before the five years were up. Decades later, she still describes their relationship with affection. She says she loved him, believes he loved her, and has no regrets.