Reza Pahlavi is the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, and his wife Farah Diba. Prior to the Iranian Revolution in 1979, he was the crown prince and the last heir apparent to the throne of the Imperial State of Iran.
Pahlavi is the founder and leader of the self-styled National Council of Iran, an exiled opposition group, and is a prominent critic of Iran's Islamic Republic government.