According to a recent claim from The Times UK, a personal friend of the late Queen Elizabeth is speaking out against the upcoming season of “The Crown.”
On November 9, the fifth season of the Netflix series about the royal family will begin, focusing largely on the dissolution of the marriage between King Charles III and Princess Diana.
Royalists and individuals close to the royal family have repeatedly denounced the show. Judi Dench recently demanded in an open letter to The Times UK that a disclaimer be inserted to the beginning of the Netflix series to make it plain to viewers that it is fictitious.
Netflix added a warning to the trailer for season five stating that the show is a “fictional dramatization” that is “inspired by real-world events,” while the show’s creator, Peter Morgan, has stated numerous times that the series was not designed to be historically accurate.
According to The Times, as the series premiere approaches, more people close to the monarchy are coming out against it, including a close friend of Queen Elizabeth who attended her majesty’s committal service at Windsor Castle in September.
According to a friend of Queen Elizabeth, she would not have enjoyed the upcoming season of “The Crown.”
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The unnamed acquaintance told The Times, “I’m appalled by what’s happening on Netflix and how they’re defaming the royal family.” “It is cruel. They appear to be attempting to destroy the royal family.”
The same acquaintance believes that the Queen’s reaction to the series would have been, “it would have crushed her.”
Elizabeth Debicki and Dominic West will play Princess Diana and King Charles in the 1990s, as featured in the trailer for season five. Imelda Staunton will play Queen Elizabeth. The season will feature dramatizations of Princess Diana’s interview with the BBC and the Queen’s “annus horribilis” speech, in addition to a scene in which then-Prince Charles asks Prime Minister John Major to compel his mother to abdicate.
A representative for Major told The Times UK that “The Crown” is a “damaging and spiteful fabrication” and “a barrel of garbage peddled for no reason other than to achieve maximum and utterly fake dramatic impact.”
The Queen’s anonymous friend did not specify what about the upcoming season would have displeased the late monarch to The Times. She did warn, however, that Prince Harry is in a “invidious position” because he and Meghan Markle inked a production deal with Netflix that involves a delayed docuseries about them.
“If my family was maligned in that manner, I wouldn’t accept a dime from Netflix,” she told the site.
But the Duke of Sussex recently told James Corden that he feels “far more comfortable with ‘The Crown’” than with articles published about his family or wife since it is “loosely based on the reality” but many tabloid stories are not.