Saudi Prince Didn’t Say Women Can Dress as They Want ‘Without Male Permission'

The Saudi Prince did not say anything about women being free to choose clothes without 'male permission'.

A misleading claim has gone viral with the false claim Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that women can dress however they want 'without male permission'.

(Source: Instagram/Altered by The Quint)

Social media users are sharing posts which attribute a statement to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, also referred to as MBS, claiming that he recently said, "Women can now choose what to wear, without male permission!"

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Instagram/Screenshot)

(Archived versions of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here, here, and here.)

Is it true?: The claim lacks important context.

• The Prince made a similar statement about women having the freedom to choose what they wanted to wear in 2018, as long as they were 'respectful' and did not say anything about women needing or not needing "male permission."

How did we find out the truth?: We ran a keyword search with the term 'MBS women can dress however they want'.

• This led us to news reports from March 2018, which carried information about similar statements from the Saudi Crown Prince.

• These reports by DW and India Today carried statements by the Prince, where he reportedly said that Sharia stipulates, "that women wear decent, respectful clothing, like men."

We found a report carrying a similar statement by MBS.

(Source: DW/Screenshot)

Both reports attributed his statements to an interview by American news organisation CBS.

India Today also reported on the interview.

(Source: India Today/Screenshot)

• Taking a cue from this, we looked for the interview, which was hosted by journalist Norah O'Donnell and was published on 19 March 2018.

• They spoke about terrorism, how the West viewed them as 'radicals', and the challenges of bringing about reform in Saudi Arabia, before coming to the topic about women and social freedom.

• It carried a statement by MBS, where he said that the laws of Sharia were "very clear" in stipulated that "women wear decent, respectful clothing, like men," and did not specify an abaya or head cover.

"The decision is entirely left for women to decide what type of decent and respectful attire she chooses to wear," he said.

The report carried a statement about women wearing "respectful" clothing.

(Source: CBS/Altered by The Quint)

• It did not make any mention of the women needing to do anything with or without male permission.

• We then conducted a further keyword search to check whether he made any recent statements about women's clothing in 2025, but did not find any credible reports.

Conclusion: A post which makes a misleading claim that Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud said that women did not need male permission to decide what to wear has gone viral on social media.

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