Life through a lens: Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in The Crown season 6. Photo / Netflix
The drama has always blended fact and fiction, but which bits are true and which are fabrications? Alexander Larman sifts through it, episode by episode
After the outraged response to many of the (at times egregious) factual inaccuracies in the fifth series of The Crown – “nonsense on stilts” and “an inaccurate and hurtful account of history” were two typical observations – the series has returned for its sixth and final season in unabashed form.
The show’s historical advisor, Annie Sulzberger, who has a team of five (presumably underemployed) researchers, has remarked of the invented moments of artistic licence: “These are not inaccuracies… they were decisions to deviate from history.” If you say so. Yet in the first four episodes of the new series of The Crown, there are numerous moments, from the trivial to the major, that will raise an eyebrow. Beginning with the show’s premiere episode, Persona Non-Grata, we’ve fact-checked the inventions, the exaggerations and the downright lies – as well as, in the interests of balance, observing where the show’s got it right.
The show’s tendentious commitment to accuracy might be exemplified, in miniature, by the very early scene of Diana and William singing along to Chumbawamba’s hit “Tubthumping” (Diana gets knocked down, but she gets up again) as they arrive at the Prime Minister’s country home of Chequers in early July; the song was not released until August 11. This is a small, if telling, detail. As depicted in the show, the meeting between Blair and Diana is warm and friendly, with the pair and their children playing five-a-side football (is that a foul throw from Diana?), and the Princess confiding to Blair that she wants to continue to maintain a space in the public sphere, which subsequently leads to a tense audience between the PM and an unmoved Queen.
Yet the scene at Chequers, although historically accurate in its outline (bar the five-a-side), runs counter to Blair’s account of the meeting in his autobiography, A Journey, in which he wrote that he raised the question of Diana’s relationship with Dodi al-Fayed, which he called “a problem”. Diana, he wrote, “didn’t like it and I could feel the wilful side of her bridling”.
It has, however, been suggested that Blair’s own account is inaccurate – Diana’s romance with Dodi had not begun by this point – and that The Crown’s presentation of events is closer to that given in an interview with Diana by Tina Brown in the New Yorker, in which the Princess stated of the new Prime Minister: “I think at last I will have someone who will know how to use me. He’s told me he wants me to go on some missions.”
“Persona non grata” refers both to the Princess of Wales and to Charles’s paramour, Camilla Parker Bowles. Even as Diana is snubbed by the wider Royal family, their treatment of Camilla is no kinder; Charles is shown as being desperate for his mother to accept his lover and to recognise her officially by attending the 50th birthday celebrations, but the Queen declines to attend, citing a long-standing engagement at a Rolls-Royce factory in Derbyshire, while commenting of Mrs Parker Bowles that she had broken up “two perfectly good marriages”.
The Queen’s initial antipathy towards Camilla was well-known – she refused to meet her in public until 2000 – and although there is no way of knowing whether the show’s depiction of a showdown between Charles and the Queen, in which he begs her to attend only to be rebuffed, has any basis in fact, the major facts are accurate, with one piece of likely exaggeration.
It is suggested that, although the rest of the Royal family boycotted the party, Princess Margaret attended, and later telephoned her sister to tell her to be more sympathetic towards Camilla for the sake of Charles’s happiness. There is no record of Margaret being present at the event – although she did know Camilla, and had been at her wedding to Andrew Parker Bowles – and the telephone call to her sister is almost certainly pure sentimental invention.
Mohamed al-Fayed’s involvement in the Dodi and Diana romance has been much debated. As presented in the episode, al-Fayed flew the Princess and her sons to his yacht in Saint Tropez, ostensibly so that she could relax (and avoid Camilla’s party), but in reality to create what he calls a “business opportunity” for his son by romancing Diana. As presented in the show, al-Fayed ignored his son’s engagement to the model Kelly Fisher – who is shown, humiliatingly, visiting her fiancé in France and being isolated on a smaller, if still lavish, yacht.
The facts remain murky. The show suggests Dodi and Fisher are three weeks out from their wedding day, but during his lifetime Dodi’s spokesman denied that he was engaged to Fisher, although he admitted knowing her and giving her presents. Shortly before Dodi’s death, Fisher - who has claimed they had set August 9 as their wedding day - sued him for loss of earnings, with her attorney Gloria Allred saying: “Mr Fayed needs to take responsibility for the woman that he ‘left at the altar’ and treated with such total disrespect.”
Yet the role of Mohamed al-Fayed – whether he was attempting to bring together his son and Diana out of altruism or a desire to further his own influence and obtain a British passport – has been much debated. The Crown’s interpretation is the most cynical, but many would agree with it. Certainly, the speed with which Dodi seemingly ditched Fisher and moved on to Diana suggested that his father’s machinations had been successful, and the show’s presentation of al-Fayed as a manipulator tallies with his controversial public persona. Michael Cole, a former spokesman for al-Fayed, has dismissed the idea as “total nonsense” and “beyond even his great talents”.
A brief conversation, observed by Diana, between William and Dodi saw the former talking about his love of the James Bond computer game GoldenEye, before Dodi suggests that he is involved in the production of the current film – presumably Tomorrow Never Dies, which was released late that year. Although it’s unclear as to whether Dodi is supposed to be lying to impress William or not, he was never involved with producing any of the Bond films; instead, the last picture that he had any involvement with was 1995′s Demi Moore flop The Scarlet Letter. Also, William would have been exceptionally fortunate if he’d had a copy of the N64 smash Goldeneye; it was not released until November 1997.
In August 1997, Princess Diana was notoriously photographed kissing Dodi on a yacht near Sardinia by the Italian paparazzo Mario Brenna, who made £250,000 selling the pictures to the Sunday Mirror. (Brenna made up to $5m worldwide for the images, all but retiring off the proceeds.) In the episode, this salacious incident is contrasted with Prince Charles and his sons being snapped having a thoroughly wholesome time in the Highlands by Scottish photographer Duncan Muir.
Brenna was indeed a legendary paparazzo, who already had a reputation for working with fashion houses such as Versace and for capturing high-society figures. One rival sighed around the time of the photos that “he’s a very smooth chap and, I expect, a very desirable one right now”. However, the show’s suggestion that Mohamed al-Fayed tipped him off to take the pictures has been the subject of debate. Some have said that Brenna happened to be near Sardinia on other assignments and took what proved to be a lucky, and extremely lucrative, punt on there being something of interest when he saw al-Fayed’s yacht, Jonikal. Tina Brown, however, has written that it was Diana herself that gave Brenna the nod.
But what of the homelier, humbler Muir? The man is a fictitious creation; the Highlands shoot was attended by a number of press pack photographers.
In the episode, the Queen’s private secretary Robert Fellowes – while allowing that it was Diana’s right “as a private citizen and a divorced woman” to have relationships with whomever she chooses – suggests that the Princess of Wales might be used as “leverage” in Mohamed al-Fayed’s bid for British citizenship. “That girl,” tuts the Queen. William, meanwhile, is shown to be hostile towards Dodi, who he describes as “weird”.
Although the Royal family have never commented publicly about the relationship between Dodi and Diana, Tony Blair’s comment in A Journey that Dodi’s relationship with Diana was “a problem” can be seen as representative of their wider opinion. So, too, were the Princess’s former butler Paul Burrell’s remarks in 2007 that he was unconvinced that she was in love with Dodi, repeating her comments that “I need marriage like a rash”. Yet there was certainly disquiet on all sides about the handsome, slightly shady playboy – and even more about his buccaneering and disreputable father.
Diana is shown wearing a Duran Duran T-shirt in one scene, which represents a dual call back - she is shown listening to their hit “Girls on Film” in the fourth series, and a poster for the band is seen behind her in the same season. It is widely believed that the princess was a great aficionado of Duran Duran; the guitarist John Taylor said that Diana used to drive William and Harry around while playing their 1984 song “Wild Boys”.
Their paths crossed during Diana’s lifetime, too; singer Simon Le Bon recalled how the two had been working out at the Chelsea Harbour fitness club. “I was on the running machine. I jumped off because one of my shoelaces had come undone and she wolf-whistled at me across the room and yelled, like a brickie: ‘Nice legs! I’d recognise that bum anywhere!’” A dose of that bawdy irreverence would have been extremely welcome in The Crown.
In a scene halfway through the episode, while he is collecting the boys, Charles and Diana have an amiable conversation about her forthcoming trip to Bosnia. He says warmly, “I’m so proud of you”, before commenting, “Even though we weren’t brilliant at being married, can we be brilliant at ‘all this’?’ – referencing their separation and their sons. Diana refers to Charles as “the friend of her dreams”. But the truce is shattered by Diana briefing “her favourite journalist” (ie Richard Kay) at the Daily Mail that Charles subsequently spent the weekend alone with Camilla instead of with the boys.
The briefing to Kay is accurate, but the rest is pure fantasy. It is not known as to whether Charles and Diana had any time together after their divorce was finalised in August 1996, and although their paths would undoubtedly have crossed during that final year, there is no record of an amicable and friendly conversation of this nature taking place; had there been, it would almost certainly have been leaked to the newspapers, or to Kay.
Diana is shown walking through a minefield in Bosnia before she gives a press conference, which is then interrupted by journalists commenting about “her new boyfriend” and asking whether he is a good kisser. While Diana’s visit to Bosnia is documented fact, and inspired some of the most iconic photographs of her – giving her a deserved reputation both for courage and for combining fine words with action – the detail of the press acting like a pack of over-excited teenagers is false. The photographs in the Sunday Mirror that alerted the world to her romance with Dodi did not appear until 10 August, after she had given her press conference in Bosnia the day before, and while there were rumours of such an entanglement already, it did not dominate the event the way the show suggests it did.
This is only a minor incident in the episode, but it’s a valuable reminder that the Princess had her moments of deep eccentricity. At one point in August 1997, she and Dodi took a helicopter to visit the psychic Rita Rogers, who Diana had already visited twice before, in the Derbyshire village of Grassmoor. Rogers later recounted: “She was the same age as one of my daughters and I was a bit of a mother figure for her. She used to tell me, ‘As soon as I hear your voice, Rita, it calms me down.’ I’d told her she would meet a man of foreign descent with the initial D, on water - and that the man would be connected with the film industry. Not long after, she rang me and said, ‘Rita, guess where I am? I’m on a boat with a man I’ve just met called Dodi Fayed.’ The prophecy proved to be accurate, and the rest, as they say, is history.
In an eventful episode, several facts are established before the ill-fated couple are finally alone together. Firstly, Diana is shown discussing her weariness in her relationship with Dodi with her therapist, Susie Orbach, and confirming her intention to return home as soon as she can, implicitly ending the fling with him. Secondly, Mohamed al-Fayed suggests to his son that if he marries Diana, “you would finally be my equal”.
On an ill-fated incognito trip to Monte Carlo, Dodi and Diana are pursued by well-wishers who recognise her, and duck – fortuitously – into a jewellery shop, where Diana remarks in passing on a lavish engagement ring, advertised with the sign “Dis-Moi Oui” (“Tell me yes”). Dodi does not buy the ring, however, so is press-ganged by his father into visiting the Parisian branch of the jewellers.
In reality, Diana and Dodi were not forced into the Repossi jewellery store in Monte Carlo while fleeing, but instead visited it in a leisurely fashion. CCTV footage confirmed that Dodi did indeed buy the Dis-Moi Oui ring in the Paris branch of Repossi, located close to the Ritz hotel, where the couple spent their final hours. However, given that the ring was kept at Dodi’s Paris apartment, rather than the Ritz hotel, it was extremely unlikely that he would have had the chance to give it to her, or that she would have been aware that he had bought it. This therefore makes the lengthy scene in which Dodi proposes marriage to Diana, and is compassionately rejected, nothing more than Morgan’s invention.
It has been widely accepted that the couple were not engaged at the time of their deaths, and that, even if Dodi had wished to present the Princess of Wales with a lavish engagement ring, he did not have an opportunity to do so. Richard Kay, the Daily Mail writer and Princess’s main confidant in Fleet Street, later recalled speaking to her on the day of her death, and said that she was in “quite a good place”, but also that “she was desperate to try and make a fresh start and do something different, to explore a different kind of royalty”. This could be interpreted as wanting to establish a new life with Dodi, or alternatively putting an enjoyable but reputationally dangerous summer fling behind her and getting on with the charitable activities that she enjoyed most.
Yet, if the couple were to separate imminently, it is hard to explain the obvious affection which Dodi was displaying towards Diana in the final CCTV footage of the two together, nor their apparent intention to leave the Ritz for Dodi’s apartment around 12.20am; a fateful decision with infamously tragic consequences.
One explanation for the crash that killed Diana, Dodi and the car’s driver, Henri Paul, was that Paul, an experienced chauffeur, was considerably over the alcohol limit when he drove the pair; he had 175mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, over three times the French legal limit, as well as drugs in his system designed to treat depression and – ironically enough – alcoholism. In the episode, Paul is shown enjoying what look like cocktails and flirting with a couple of bar patrons before Diana’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, summons him immediately; a close-up of empty glasses implies that he is in no fit state to drive, as the coroner’s report later suggested.
The reason why Paul was drunk has been one of the central tenets of conspiracy theorists, who noted that the driver was paid a modest salary yet had a considerable sum of money in various bank accounts, amounting to around £120,000, and even had just over 1,900 francs (around £200) on him; neither of these are in themselves crimes or even suspicious behaviour, but it has bred conspiracy theories galore. However, the episode suggests that Paul was not expecting to be summoned to drive Diana and Dodi and had therefore been relaxing as a guest of the hotel and that it was a tragic accident that he was driving in an unfit state, rather than at the behest of some sinister overlord.
Charles has often been given a bad press when it comes to his relationship with Diana, especially after her virtual canonisation posthumously, but one fact that is universally agreed upon is that, in the aftermath of his ex-wife’s death, he acted decisively and compassionately, overruling protocol to head straight to Paris to bring her body home on the royal jet. In Morgan’s two separate treatments of his behaviour, a different member of the Royal Family raises objections.
In The Queen, it is Elizabeth who demurs saying, “Isn’t that precisely the sort of extravagance they always attack us for?” This is accepted as being a broadly accurate presentation of what happened (confirmed by Kay). But in The Crown, it is Prince Philip who is depicted as being the more intransigent, arguing that Diana was no longer royalty at the time of her death and should therefore not be accorded the privileges that one of “the Firm” would have received. The subsequent depiction of his near-breakdown at the Paris hospital where Diana’s body was kept, incidentally, is accurate: Charles himself described it as one of the worst moments of his life.
It is thought that, although Diana’s funeral was eventually a lavish affair – and one of the most seismic events of the decade – there was opposition to it from the Royal family initially, on the grounds that the Princess should not receive the same treatment as an official royal. In The Queen, it is shown to be Tony Blair who persuades the Queen that Diana should be given full burial honours; in The Crown, it is Charles who says “the Prime Minister believes in a public funeral, a state occasion in all but name - and I agree with him”, after Prince Philip declares it a “Spencer family matter”.
However, this was vigorously denied at the time, after Channel 4 suggested that there had been a “blazing row” between Charles, Earl Spencer and the older royals about the arrangements for the funeral. Consequently, a press release was issued by Buckingham Palace that stated: “In the aftermath of the tragic death of the Princess of Wales, there has been a wave of speculation and inaccurate stories about the events leading up to, and subsequent to, the funeral. These stories need to be corrected.” Although it was admitted there had been “some minor differences over points of detail”, it was made clear that these differences had been “swiftly and amicably resolved”. Therefore, while the story in The Crown may be the one that most people believe, it is – according to Buckingham Palace, at least – nothing more than fiction.
Mohamed al-Fayed is not exactly a sympathetic figure in the final series of The Crown, however his grief at his son’s death becomes very moving, as does the contemptuous treatment directed towards him by the Royal family in the aftermath of the events in Paris. Although al-Fayed initially declares that “this tragedy [will] bring us together…I am their brother in sorrow”, he is soon made aware that there is to be no rapprochement between him and the family, with flowers and a letter of condolence being unacknowledged and a silver-framed poem of Dodi’s that he wished to have laid on Diana’s coffin being returned.
While the veracity of these details may or may not be accurate, al-Fayed was regarded with suspicion by the Royal family, despite his having sponsored the Royal Windsor Horse Show between 1984 and 1997. He attended Diana’s funeral but was seated a considerable distance from the Queen, Prince Charles and others – perhaps tactfully – and thereafter found himself cast out into reputational darkness, something that he responded to with increasingly hysterical and bizarre claims of conspiracy theories that would come to dominate the rest of his life.
Thanks to Rufus Kampa’s performance, one of the most affecting aspects of the episode explores Prince William’s reaction to the tragic accident that deprived him of his mother. By then sufficiently aware of the stiff-upper-lip protocols of the Royal Family, William is not shown overtly grieving in public, but, frustrated and distressed by Charles suggesting that he was “shy” and that “he’s a future king and has to behave like one”, at one point disappears off into the Scottish wilds for 14 hours, necessitating a search for him, before he reappears, safe but clearly emotional.
The scene is fictitious, and no doubt will do little to reconcile William with the makers of The Crown; he has firmly refused to watch the show, unlike his younger brother, who has happily admitted doing so. Yet the Prince of Wales did say in one interview in 2021, reflecting on his mother’s death, that “in the dark days of grief that followed, I found comfort and solace in the Scottish outdoors. As a result, the connection I feel to Scotland will forever run deep.” While this might not have had the same effect as going AWOL and worrying his family, it is at least an understandable, rather than cheap, extrapolation.
The Crown Season Six, Part One, is streaming now on Netflix
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