Princess-Marine love story ends

Cultural, religious differences ruined romance with Muslim beauty

By Richard Lake

Jason Johnson suspected that someday his personal life might once again capture the attention of the world, but he was surprised anyway Monday afternoon when he found himself talking about how it all went wrong. "Oh my God," he said, shaking his head. "I knew it would get out sooner or later, but this was really fast."

Johnson's was the kind of love story usually told only in Disney movies. It was a tale of an American Marine so dazzled by the beauty of a young royal princess that he risked everything for her. That Romeo and Juliet-like love affair, once dubbed "The Princess and the Marine" in a made-for-TV movie, has ended now, set against a backdrop of Las Vegas nightclubs, an international assassin and a spurned love that continues to endure, if you believe Johnson. "It was what she wanted," he said simply of the couple's recent divorce filing.

Source: [Review Journal]

Back in 1999, Johnson was a Marine stationed in Bahrain, an island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia. He'd been a Marine for 2 1/2 years and had hoped to make a career of it. While in Bahrain, he met Meriam Al-Khalifa, the beautiful teenage princess related to the country's royal and ruling family.

He was a Mormon, she a Muslim, but to them, the differences did not matter. They fell in love. The relationship they formed was forbidden by her family, so Johnson worked out a scheme to spirit his young princess off to America when his tour ended. He disguised her in a flannel shirt and a New York Yankees ball cap, and he forged her military identification to get her to the United States.

The plan worked, and after a drawn-out fight with immigration authorities, the couple married at the Candlelight Wedding Chapel on the Strip. He was 23, she was 19. Their story made worldwide headlines. In addition to the TV movie, the couple made the TV talk show rounds, including an appearance on "Oprah."

Johnson was demoted a rank for his misdeeds, and eventually was discharged from the Marines, with the special condition that he not be allowed to re-enlist, he said. He and his new wife, whose name is spelled Maryam in official documents, got jobs, and they went about living their lives.

But, said Johnson, a valet parker on the Strip, things were never as rosy as the stories made them seem. There was constant tension with her family, he said, and there was even one time the FBI told him they'd intercepted a Syrian national who said he'd been paid $500,000 to assassinate her.

That incident, together with the couple's religious and cultural differences, further widened a gulf that Johnson said his bride's powerful family tried to widen time and time again. "The royal family made me look really bad," he said. No one answered the door at Al-Khalifa's apartment Monday afternoon, and she is not represented by an attorney in the divorce proceedings.

As the tension in the marriage mounted, Johnson said, his wife got sucked into the Las Vegas nightlife. He said she began partying with her friends and ignoring him. She became particularly interested in Arabic-themed nightclubs, and in the gay clubs that cluster around the Hard Rock Hotel on Paradise Road, he said. He noted they used to frequent those clubs as a couple and enjoyed the atmosphere.

"She's gone off the deep end," he said. About a year ago, Johnson said, his wife left him. "I had tried to work it out with her last year," he said. "But that's not what she wanted."

He resisted her urgings that they get a divorce, he said, but ultimately realized there was nothing he could do. They filed for divorce jointly on Nov. 17, the day after their fifth wedding anniversary. The paperwork says they are "incompatible in marriage."

"Deep down inside, she knows that I loved her more than anything in the world," Johnson said. "I can say I enjoyed every minute I spent with her." He is living in Summerlin now with his stepmother, who also is getting over a broken relationship.