Depending on who you ask, “The Crown” on Netflix is either universally adored or detested. The show, which is currently in its fifth season, has extensively addressed a number of areas of the British royal family’s lives that they may have personally wished to never have to worry about again.
The late Princess Diana, who wed into the family in July 1981 after dating King Charles for six months, is the main subject of the fourth and fifth seasons of the show. Diana was incredibly well-liked by the general public but less so by her own family. In the last years of her life, Diana was frank about the psychological, emotional, and even physical problems she faced.
Because of this, the “The Crown” production crew has had enough of material to draw from when it comes to depicting Diana’s narrative. They don’t always get things quite correct, which is unfortunate, but we all know that the show is a fictional account of a family’s history. Here are all the facts about Princess Diana that “The Crown” got wrong.
King Charles and Princess Diana did not share a post-divorce breakfast.
Season 5 of “The Crown” devotes a great deal of time to Princess Diana and King Charles’ infamously turbulent marriage. The couple is shown having breakfast together in the episode “Couple 31” after finalising their divorce and settlement agreement. Diana is seen preparing eggs for Charles while they converse about their failed marriage. Charles exits the apartment as Diana sobs as a result of a series of events.
It’s difficult to say for certain if such a scene ever happened, but as the New York Post noted, there isn’t a record of it. After their separation and divorce, Diana and Charles were not known for spending a lot of time together. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much time to get to know one another as coparents when Diana passed away suddenly in 1997. (via Vogue).
Whether Princess Diana actually forewarned Queen Elizabeth of her interview is uncertain.
The fifth season of “The Crown” is jam-packed with controversies, which is only fitting given that it depicts one of the most dramatic eras in the history of the modern royal family. As many people are aware, Martin Bashir of the BBC’s “Panorama” interviewed Princess Diana in 1995. When it came to discussing King Charles’ affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, Diana disclosed more in the interview than anyone dared to think. It was a bit cramped because there were three of us in this marriage, Diana famously said in an interview, as noted by the New York Post.
Diana is shown in the show as requesting a meeting with Queen Elizabeth to inform her about the interview before it is made public. Diana, who is visibly upset, complains to the ruler that she has never felt supported by the royal family and that she has always been treated as if she never existed. Elizabeth responds by defending her and her family, telling Diana that they have just been trying to keep her safe. Diana is about to call off the interview entirely but decides against it.
Personal audiences with Elizabeth were not documented, according to the New York Post, and Diana and Elizabeth are no longer with us to confirm or deny such a claim. Therefore, it is impossible to tell whether such a meeting did place.
The vacation to Italy with the family wasn’t seen by Princess Diana as a second honeymoon.
Part of the first episode of season five of “The Crown” focuses on a vacation that Princess Diana and King Charles take with their young sons. The vacation is referred to as a “second honeymoon” in the press in an effort to appease them and show that Charles and Diana’s union is legal. Diana was not deluded in real life as she is depicted in the series as being open to this branding and perhaps even optimistic that it would be true.
It’s quite unlikely that Diana herself would have referred to this time of her marriage to Charles as anything resembling a honeymoon, royal commentator Kinsey Schofield told Insider. If Diana had ever referred to the marriage in such a way, as Schofield phrased it, it would have been in reference to the time before Prince Harry was born. It was a more better moment for the couple than William’s pregnancy, she remarked.
In a number of audio recordings utilised in the documentary “Diana: In Her Own Words,” Diana herself substantiated this assertion. Diana describes the weeks leading up to Harry’s birth as “the closest we’ve ever, ever been and the closest we’ll ever be” in one of the letters (via Insider).
The first visit by Princess Diana to Balmoral wasn’t successful.
In the second episode of season four of “The Crown,” Princess Diana travels to the royal estate Balmoral. Diana had just joined the family and had just begun to date King Charles. While the episode presents the episode as a great success and suggests that the trip was a factor in Charles’ decision to propose to Diana, the truth is that Diana’s trip was anything but simple.
Diana stated that her first visit to Balmoral was difficult in Andrew Morton’s book “Diana: Her True Story – In Her Own Words.” As she stated, “By the third day, they are once more sapping me. There are so many toxic environments. One is drained dry by that mansion.” She also acknowledged that, despite developing relationships with Prince Philip, Prince Andrew, and Princess Anne, the rest of the family did not accept her as warmly as the television show suggests (via Brides).
Princess Diana and James Hewitt had a sustained friendship.
James Hewitt and Princess Diana first connected during a gathering in 1986. After Hewitt started teaching Diana how to ride a horse, the two started spending time together. Things between the two swiftly changed from cordial to amorous, and they allegedly had an affair at the same time that Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles were developing their own relationship.
The connection between Diana and Hewitt is briefly depicted in “The Crown,” although in actuality, it lasted for five years, from 1986 to 1991. Hewitt was able to connect with Diana in a way that Charles was unable to, according to Diana’s former security guard Ken Wharfe, who stated to Marie Claire that the two “usually met at an old cottage in Devon belonging to Shirley, Hewitt’s mother, where the creaking bedroom floorboards told the story more loudly than any confession.”
Hewitt ultimately travelled to the Middle East during the Gulf War, which is said to have enraged Diana. Diana was upset by the violation of Hewitt being interviewed by author Anna Pasternak for her book “Princess in Love” in 1994. She told Martin Bashir the following about Hewitt in 1995: “Of course I loved him. I did have feelings for him. But I felt incredibly let down ” (via Marie Claire).
King Charles was introduced to Princess Diana by her sister.
The way she and King Charles first met is possibly one of the strangest details of Princess Diana’s life that “The Crown” gets wrong. This happens inadvertently in Season 4 of the programme, when Charles shows up at Diana’s family’s mansion to meet Sarah, her sister, whom he was seeing at the time. Diana happens to enter the space where Charles is waiting, and despite her request that he pretend she wasn’t there, the two end up talking.
In actuality, Sarah was the one who suggested Diana and Charles as suitable partners. Sarah made the following remarks in an interview with The Guardian after Charles and Diana’s engagement was announced, albeit she didn’t go into great detail: “I welcomed them. Cupid here.” The same interview gave some insight into the interaction between the couple as married partners because Charles admitted to the source that they were 12 years different in age “Other than anything else, I believe Diana will keep me youthful. I expect to be worn out.”
Princess Diana didn’t require any more training to be a princess.
Princess Diana is seen needing lesson after lesson in how to become the ideal royal bride in Season 4 of “The Crown.” Diana practically knew how to behave in society and in the royal family from birth because she was a member of a long-established aristocratic family. Lady Fermoy, Diana’s grandmother, instructs Diana on how to bow in one scene, but as Insider notes, Diana would have previously learned how to bow throughout her upbringing.
This is supported by the author Hugo Vickers, who said in his book “The Crown Dissected,” “It is absurd that the Diana figure would make so many gaffes of ‘protocol’ on entering the Queen’s drawing room, knowing she had been brought up in royal circles.” Vickers does acknowledge that Diana probably needed dance lessons, but that is all the royal author permits.