The ruler of Saudi Arabia "bombarded" Boris Johnson with emoji-strewn WhatsApp messages, it has been claimed.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is said to have sent a "worrying" number of messages to the UK Prime Minister, according to the Mail on Sunday.
And Mr Johnson's team was left baffled by the royal's frequent use of emojis to get his point across, the newspaper claims.
It comes after claims that the Crown Prince hacked into Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos' phone through a video sent directly to him on WhatsApp in 2018.
Intimate details were later published about Bezos' private life by the National Enquirer.
Saudi Arabia denied claims it was behind the hacking this week as "absurd". The Saudis' US embassy said: "We call for an investigation on these claims so that we can have all the facts out."
But forensic analysis obtained by the Guardian said it was "highly probable" the hack was triggered by the malicious file.
The alleged hack came five months before the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, who worked for the Washington Post newspaper which Bezos owns.
Reports emerged earlier this week that Boris Johnson had also communicated with the Crown Prince on WhatsApp.
Now the Mail on Sunday reports he received frequent messages after swapping numbers with the royal when he was Foreign Secretary.
Security sources told the newspaper the level of communication was "worrying" and "testing" the relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Downing Street refused to comment on whether the pair had any communication over WhatsApp.
