Who is Iran’s exiled prince, who has recently grown into protests? – Nationally
He has been in exile for nearly 50 years. His father – the shah of Iran – was so hated that millions took to the streets in 1979, forcing him to take power. Nevertheless, Iran’s Prince Reza Pahlavi is trying to position himself as a player in his country’s future.
Pahlavi encouraged protesters to take to the streets on Thursday night as the protests in Iran escalated. Initially prompted by the Islamic Republic’s ailing economy, the protests have become a major challenge to its democracy, which has been hit by years of nationwide protests and a 12-day war in June launched by Israel that saw the US bomb its nuclear enrichment facilities.
What is not known is how much real support Pahlavi, 65, who is in exile in the US, has in his country. Do the protesters want to return the throne of Pigogo as his father’s kingdom was known? Or do the protesters want anything that is not the religion of Shiite Iran?
Pahlavi issued calls, which were rebroadcast by Farsi-language satellite news channels and international websites, for Iranians to return to the streets on Friday night.
“In the last decade, Iran’s protest movements and opposition society has been growing literally,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, an expert on Iran for the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which faces sanctions from Tehran.
“When the Islamic Republic fails the most, it has the courage to protest. … The success of the crown prince and his entourage has been to show the stark contrast between the normality of what was and the promise of what is possible, against the nightmare and dire reality of many Iranians.”
Pahlavi’s profile rose again during President Donald Trump’s first term. Still, Trump and other world leaders have been reluctant to welcome him, given the many alarming stories in the Middle East and elsewhere about Western governments putting their faith in exiles who have long been estranged from their homelands.
Iran’s state media, which had for years ridiculed Pahlavi as missing and corrupt, blamed “terrorist masters” for Thursday night’s protests where cars were set on fire and police stations were attacked.
Born on October 31, 1960, Pahlavi lived in a luxurious world as the crown prince of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Get the latest country news
For news that affects Canada and the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you as they happen.
Mohammed Reza had inherited the throne from his father, a military officer who seized power with the support of the British.
Mohammed Reza’s rule was strengthened by a CIA-backed coup of 1953, and he cooperated closely with the Americans, who sold the dictator billions of dollars in weapons and spied on the Soviet Union from Iran.
The young Pahlavi attended the Reza Pahlavi School, which was built within the walls of the Niavaran Palace in northern Tehran. His father’s biographer noted that his prince played rock music in the palace during the New Year’s Eve visit to Tehran by former US President Jimmy Carter.
But the fall of the Peacock throne was evident.
While he successfully drove up oil prices in the 1970s, deep economic imbalances developed during the shah’s reign and his feared SAVAK intelligence agency became notorious for harassing dissidents.
Millions across the country took part in protests against the shah, including nationalists, trade unions, professionals, students and Islamic clerics. As the crisis reached a fever pitch, the shah was condemned for his indecisiveness and poor decisions while secretly battling terminal cancer.
In 1978, Crown Prince Reza left his homeland to attend flight school at the American Air Force Base in Texas. A year later, his father fled Iran when what became known as the Islamic Revolution began. Shiite clerics squeezed out other groups that opposed the shah, setting up a new theocratic government that killed thousands after the uprising and to this day remains one of the world’s top killers.
After his father’s death, the exiled royal court declared that Reza Pahlavi assumed the role of shah on Oct. 31, 1980, his 20th birthday.
“I understand and sympathize with your suffering and internal torture,” Pahlavi said, addressing the Iranian people in a speech at the time. “I am shedding tears that you must hide. However, there is, I am sure, light beyond the darkness. In the depths of your hearts you can be sure that this nightmare, like others in our history, will pass.”
But what followed was almost fifty years in exile.
Pahlavi tried to gain influence abroad. In 1986, the Washington Post reported that the CIA gave the prince’s associates “a small television transmitter to be broadcast secretly for 11 minutes” to Iran by Pahlavi who intercepted the signal of two channels in the Islamic Republic.
“I will come back and together we will pave the way for the nation’s happiness and success through freedom,” Pahlavi is reported to have said on the radio.
That didn’t happen. Pahlavi lived abroad in the United States in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, while his mother, Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi, lived in Paris.
The circles of Iranian hardliners in exile have long harbored dreams of a Pahlavi dynasty returning to power. But Pahlavi has been hindered from achieving wider appeal by several factors: painful memories of his father’s rule; the idea that he and his family are not related to their country; and repression within Iran aimed at silencing any dissenting sentiments.
At the same time, the younger generations in Iran who were born in the decades after the end of the shah’s rule have grown up under a different experience; social restrictions and brutal repression of the Islamic Republic and economic chaos under international sanctions, corruption and mismanagement.
Pahlavi has been vocal in videos on social media, and Farsi-language news channels such as Iran International have highlighted his calls for protest. The station also broadcast QR codes that led to information on members of Iran’s security forces who wanted to cooperate with him.
Interactive map of protests in Iran from December 29, 2025, to January 5, 2026. (AP Digital Embed).
Mahmood Enayat, general manager of Iran International’s owner, Volant Media, said the station was using Pahlavi’s ad with others “on a robust basis” as “part of our mission to support the Iranian community.”
In discussions in recent years, Pahlavi has raised the idea of a constitutional monarchy, perhaps with an elected one instead of a hereditary ruler. But he also said it was up to the Iranian people to choose.
“This regime is simply irreversible because its nature, its DNA, is irreversible,” Pahlavi told The Associated Press in 2017. “People have given up the idea of change and think that there should be a fundamental change. Now, how this change can happen is the big question.”
He also faced criticism for his support for Israel, especially after the June war.
“I am very focused on liberating Iran, and I will find any way I can, without compromising the country’s interests and independence, with whoever is willing to give us a hand, whether it is the US or the Saudis or the Israelis or whoever,” he said in 2017.
