Ali Reza was educated at prestigious institutions, including Princeton University, where he studied music and philology, and later obtained advanced degrees from Columbia University and Harvard. He had a strong interest in Persian culture, history, and literature and was passionate about preserving heritage. In exile, Ali Reza struggled with depression, compounded by the challenges of living far from his homeland and the loss of his sister Princess Leila Pahlavi who also had died by suicide, in June 2001. Close family friends say that Ali Reza became very depressed after the death of his sister to whom he was very close and being forced into exile in 1979 was very “traumatic” for him and that he had experienced a “loss of identity” in exile.
