Following the marriage, Soraya headed the family charity in Iran. Soraya's marriage was troubled as Mohammad Reza's mother and sisters all saw her as a rival for his love just as they had with his first wife Princess Fawzia Fuad of Egypt, and continually snubbed and inflicted petty humiliations on her. Soraya hated Ernest Perron, the Shah's best friend and private secretary. Soraya called Perron a "homosexual who detested women, all women" and who "spread poison around the palace as well as our own quarters". She wrote that Perron was a "cunning, perfidious and Machiavellian" man who "roused hatred, stirred gossip, reveled in every intrigue". Much to her disgust, Mohammad Reza was "fascinated with this diabolical Swiss" who professed to be a "philosopher, poet, and a prophet"; the two men met every morning to discuss all the affairs of state in French as Perron was the man whose advice the Shah valued the most, and, as Soraya soon learned, other matters were discussed as well. Much to her revulsion, Perron visited her and made a series of what she called very "lewd" remarks and vulgar questions about her sex life with the Shah, which led her to throw him out of the Marble Palace in her fury.