Royal Expert Claims Princess Diana’s Storyline on ‘The Crown’ Wasn’t Accurate and Didn’t Go “Far Enough”
The Crown’s fifth season has come under a lot of criticism for being more historically inaccurate than usual—to the point where former Prime Minister John Major (and…Judi Dench?) have spoken out. But when it comes to Princess Diana’s storyline in particular, royal expert Nick Bullen says the show actually could have gone further.
“Look, it’s drama. It’s fiction that’s somewhat based on fact,” Bullen told Us Weekly, explaining that the show could have been more accurate when it comes to Martin Bashir unethically obtaining Diana’s Panorama interview.
“Virtually all of it was—certainly—sort of widened the mark. I think they didn’t even go far enough in looking at how Bashir got the interview,” he said. “I mean, they sort of touched on it, you know, it was incredibly fraudulent what went on there. I think in the initial days after [the interview], she really felt she’d got her voice out there. She also believed what Bashir had told her about the security services listening to her and what was going on. I think as more clarity set in, it became more and more apparent it was a huge mistake.”
Bullen also noted that Diana “absolutely” regretted doing the interview and added, “To be fair, what The Crown did get right was the fact that Charles Spencer, her brother, had started to have misgivings about Bashir before the interview and had tried to persuade Diana this perhaps wasn’t the right way to go about it.”
A few other moments Bullen took issue with? The Crown depicting Charles using the royal yacht after a trip to Hong Kong, which he says is “simply not true.” Also not true: Diana meeting Mohamed Al-Fayed at the Windsor Horse Show, not to mention Princess Margaret and the Queen “having a stand-up round about Peter Townsend.”
Noted!
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