Netflix drama The Crown is set to reveal the truth about the late Princess Diana’s death, and production insiders reveal that Queen Elizabeth and Buckingham Palace are on the warpath.
The warts-and-all series has been praised for its intimate, realistic portrayal of the Queen Elizabeth’s early years. Though the first season of The Crown portrayed the young Queen in a sympathetic light, future episodes of the script have raised alarms in Buckingham Palace and senior palace staff have objected to the way scandals will be presented to the public.
Palace advisors demanded to see spec scripts of future seasons of The Crown, and the Netflix production has been threatened with legal action unless the show “drastically changes” future episodes dealing with Royal Family scandals.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
“They are worried it looks like Queen Elizabeth has Diana’s blood on her hands,” said a production insider. “They have threatened to cut us off from filming on location, which would be the end of the show.”
According to In Touch magazine, the Queen worries that the series will expose “more” of the secrets and most outrageous “scandals” from recent years of the royals over the six seasons.
“There’s the Diana-Camilla love triangle. And even more embarrassing, when a topless Sarah Ferguson was photographed having her toes sucked by [American finance manager] John Bryan. This could be the Queen’s nightmare,” the magazine quoted a source as saying.
But production staff claim it is the handling of Princess Diana’s death that is responsible for the impasse between Queen Elizabeth and senior producers. The monarch has gone to war with producers, demanding serious alterations to scripts – or else.
“She’s on the warpath, threatening to derail the series, threatening to destroy us in court unless we bow to her will.”
The Queen’s character is understood to refer to Princess Diana as “the problem” during the season that delves into her tumultuous relationship with Prince Charles – and senior Palace advisors believe the narrative suggests the Royal Family were responsible for her death.
The Queen and Palace staff are insisting that one particular line of dialogue must be removed at all costs. In the scene, the Queen is speaking quietly to her private secretary:
“I have decided that we must purge this family of the problem whilst protecting my future heirs. This puts me in a very delicate position.”
Producers of The Crown insist they are not attempting to fuel conspiracy theories but are merely providing an accurate reflection of the position Princess Diana held in the family and the problems she was causing them before her death.
“To gloss over this episode would lose us all credibility, we can’t pick and choose what to airbrush out of history.”
To date the program has been working closely with the Royal Family. Permission to film on location was a major coup for the production and allowed viewers a fascinating glimpse behind the Royal curtain.
Unless the producers make sweeping changes to the script, the hit Netflix series will lose access to Buckingham Palace, Balmoral and Downing Street. Consultants from the Royal Palaces and British government, who have worked closely with production staff to ensure accuracy, will also been banned from providing expert guidance to the production.
The Queen, who granted her approval for the production to film on location after reading the first season’s script, is understood to feel betrayed by the direction the producers plan to take the drama in upcoming seasons.
