In 1948, Soraya was introduced to the recently divorced Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Soraya married the Shah at Marble Palace, Tehran, on 12 February 1951. The couple’s marriage had disintegrated by early 1958 owing to Soraya’s apparent infertility. On 21 March 1958, the Iranian New Year’s Day, a weeping Shah announced his divorce to the Iranian people in a speech that was broadcast on radio and television.