Rumors have surfaced about the private life of Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad, painting a portrait of a leader more engrossed in personal escapades than in the challenges facing his nation. Allegations suggest that Assad was deeply preoccupied with sexual pursuits, aided by a close confidante who facilitated encounters with the spouses of his top officials.

Within the confines of Damascus’s palace walls, a complex image of Assad emerges—one of a leader distracted by vanity, caught up in amorous liaisons, and preoccupied with trivial distractions like smartphone games. These behaviors seemingly pulled his attention away from the critical task of stabilizing his faltering regime.

In a move that raised eyebrows, Assad distanced himself from the seasoned experts who had served during his father’s reign, opting instead for younger, less experienced individuals who were part of his inner circle. Among these was Luna al-Shibl, a former journalist with Al Jazeera who quickly became one of Assad’s most trusted advisors and, according to several accounts, his lover.

Al-Shibl allegedly played a significant role in Assad’s personal life, purportedly arranging encounters with the wives of top Syrian military officers. Her influence also extended to crafting the exclusive and disdainful atmosphere of Assad’s court, further distancing the regime from the everyday concerns of its citizens.

The intrigue surrounding al-Shibl took a darker turn with her untimely and mysterious death. In July 2024, she was discovered lifeless in her BMW on a highway near Damascus, leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions and speculation about her role within Assad’s inner circle and the circumstances of her demise.

Then came her mysterious death. In July 2024, she was found dead in her BMW on a highway outside Damascus. 

State media claimed it was a traffic accident, but the details were strange – the car was barely damaged, yet her skull had been smashed. Rumours swirled that Iran had ordered her killing for allegedly leaking targeting data to Israel.

Others tell a darker story – that Assad himself ordered her death after she began feeding intelligence to Russia and hedging her bets as his power waned.

Bahsar al-Assad ruled Syria for 24 years, but his regime was toppled in December 2024 

Luna al-Shibl was said to have procured other women for Assad, including the wives of senior Syrian officers

The truth remains murky, buried in the opaque world of Syrian and Russian intelligence. 

Dozens of former courtiers and officers have also described Assad as obsessed with video games, particularly Candy Crush, while Syria crumbled around him. 

According to one former Hezbollah operative, Assad would spend hours glued to his phone, retreating into games rather than confronting spiralling military and political crises.

While Syria convulsed after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, Assad remained largely silent – even as Israel launched strikes across Syria and Lebanon, killing key allies, including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

According to Lebanese politician Wiam Wahhab, Assad’s silence fuelled suspicions in Tehran that he was secretly feeding information to Israel, deepening fractures within the so-called Axis of Resistance.

When rebels began advancing on Aleppo on November 27, Assad was in Russia, where his son was scheduled to defend his doctoral dissertation. 

As Aleppo’s defenses collapsed, Assad remained in Moscow, to the astonishment of his commanders at home. 

He appeared to hope that Putin would save him, but when the Russian president met him briefly, he made clear that Russia could not fight the war on his behalf. By the time Assad finally landed in Damascus, Aleppo had already fallen. 

The atmosphere inside the palace was reportedly one of decadence and denial rather than urgency.

Even as foreign ministers phoned with offers to stabilise his rule, Assad refused to answer, reportedly sulking at the suggestion he might have to compromise or share power.

But as rebel fighters advanced in Damascus on December 7, Assad was still projecting confidence.

According to those inside the regime, he reassured aides that victory was imminent.

That same evening, an official statement insisted he was at the palace carrying out his ‘constitutional duties’.

In reality, the Syrian strongman was already gone. Under the cover of darkness, Assad slipped onto a Russian jet and fled the country, telling almost no one.

According to The Atlantic, Assad had emerged from his private quarters in the dead of night and told his longtime driver that he would need vans.

He gave orders for the staff to quickly pack up their belongings as a group of Russians waited outside his residence.

Under the impression that he would be fleeing war-torn Syria alongside his long-time employer, the middle-aged driver allegedly asked Assad if he was really leaving them behind.

Staff were told there was no space in the vehicles to take them along as they fled the country. 

Looking back at the driver, Assad asked him: ”What about you people? Aren’t you going to fight?’. 

The exiled president then turned and went out into the night, leaving behind long-time allies and workers with the expectation that they would lay down their lives in the name of loyalty to him.

Some of Assad’s closest loyalists only realised the truth when celebratory gunfire erupted across the capital, and militias surged forward. 

Left behind, senior officials scrambled to escape as the state they had served evaporated overnight.

The betrayal stunned even hardened regime insiders. Loyalty curdled into fury, with former supporters suddenly claiming they had always despised him.

Yet the collapse was not merely the result of geopolitics, as many analysts initially suggested. 

Images of Assad wearing Speedos generated ridicule on social media following the fall of his regime

One picture shows Assad in nothing but white pants and a vest, clearly posing for the camera

Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma al-Assad pose during a visit to the Great Wall of China at Badaling on June 22, 2004

While Russia was tied down in Ukraine and Iran was distracted by Israel, a more sordid explanation has surfaced from palace insiders. Assad simply stopped caring.   

The deposed ruler, branded the ‘Butcher’ for killing his own people, is now said to live in three apartments in a luxury 1000ft tower with a mall downstairs in Moscow City district, a glittering business centre in the heart of the Russian capital.

The skyscraper penthouse is ‘lavishly decorated – cream-coloured wardrobes with gold trim, crystal chandeliers, and wide sofas reminiscent of Middle Eastern palaces’.

The ostentatious complex, where his family owns around 20 apartments worth more than £30million across three floors, is attached to a shopping mall, which he sometimes visits.

The brutal dictator fled to Russia after a lightning offensive led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in December brought to an end a 13-year civil war and six decades of the Assad family’s autocratic rule.

He now lives with his cancer-stricken British wife, Asma Al-Assad, sons Hafez and Karim, aged 24 and 21, and 22-year-old daughter Zein. 

Asma, who was born in London and married into the brutal autocratic dynasty in 2000, is described as being in a ‘serious’ condition from her leukaemia.

She has become accustomed to a life of luxury, with reports that she spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on home furnishings and clothes during her husband’s reign of terror.

Their plush Moscow pad provides similar opulence, with a 20 metre high lobby flooded with light and decorated with modern art. There are sofas, partitions, and a welcome drink for visitors. 

They have a huge heated bath in front of a 13ft window in a 990ft skyscraper, which enjoys one of the finest views in Moscow. The bathroom is made entirely of Carrara marble. 

‘On Victory Day on May 9, you can watch the fireworks from the bathtub with a glass of champagne,’ Natasha, who sells penthouses in the same tower in the Moscow City district, told De Zeit last year.

The Assads ‘are in a good place and are enjoying the money they stole. The Syrian people mean nothing to them,’ the German newspaper, citing Syrian sources, reported at the time.  

Assad is said to be able to move freely around Moscow but spends hours playing online video games and also often stays in his country villa outside of the Russian capital. 

He has been provided with bodyguards from a private security firm paid by the Russian government. 

Assad’s younger brother, Maher, reportedly stays at the Four Seasons Hotel in Moscow and spends his time drinking and smoking hookah. 

His son, Hafez, 23, who studied in Moscow, previously told of the family’s escape from Damascus after Putin’s military pulled them just before they were engulfed by the revolution.

He admitted the downfall of the regime had come as a shock.

Exiled Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad reportedly spends his days playing video games in his luxury Moscow flat

‘There was never a plan – not even a backup – to leave Damascus, let alone Syria,’ he admitted in a video, now deleted.

‘After consulting with Moscow, base command informed us that our transfer to Russia had been requested.

‘Some time later, we boarded a Russian military plane bound for Moscow, where we landed that same night.’

Assad remains a wanted man by the new government in Syria, which issued an arrest warrant on charges of premeditated murder, torture, and incitement to civil war.

A friend of his family told the Guardian in December: ‘He’s studying Russian and brushing up on his ophthalmology again. 

‘It’s a passion of his, he obviously doesn’t need the money. Even before the war in Syria began, he used to regularly practise his ophthalmology in Damascus’.

He trained in ophthalmology in London in the early 1990s, but was recalled back to his home nation following the unexpected death of his brother in a car crash in 1994.

Shortly after, he entered a military academy and took over as the heir apparent to the regime. 

The friend said he now lives ‘a very quiet life’, adding: ‘He has very little, if any, contact with the outside world. He’s only in touch with a couple of people who were in his palace, like Mansour Azzam [former Syrian minister of presidency affairs] and Yassar Ibrahim [Assad’s top economic crony].’