Both the director, Peter Morgan, and Netflix have made it clear from the beginning that ‘The Crown’ is a series that is based on real events but incorporates elements of fiction, allowing themselves temporal and creative licenses.
Some moments seen the sixth and final season of the series were not witnessed by anyone, forcing the screenwriters to imagine how they happened.
Although always approached with respect, the nature of fiction sometimes leads to inaccuracies, which we will discuss in this article.
The Crown: Season 6 part 1
The first four episodes of the sixth and final season of ‘The Crown’ focus on the last days of Princess Diana’s life.
In addition, the plot offers an interpretation of Lady Di’s relationship with Dodi Al-Fayed, her father’s alleged dark intentions, and Charles’ struggle to get Camilla accepted by both her mother and the public. But what is true and what is fiction?
Did Lady Di meet Tony Blair weeks before she died?
Yes, although it’s not exactly the way it’s told. In the fiction, Princess Diana visits, together with William and Harry, the then Prime Minister at his country house, Chequers. The reason was to find a role for her so that she could continue to carry out her work of representation and solidarity.
However, according to the official version, Diana went alone with William. The Princess was upset, as Blair had had to postpone her appointment, dated for June, to meet first with Charles.
Was Dodi about to get married when he started with Diana?
Yes, Dodi was then in a relationship with American model Kelly Fisher.
According to Fisher, they were getting married and she found out about the romance between her fiancé and Lady Di when she saw the photographs that the ‘Sunday Mirror’ published on August 11, 1997, in which they appeared kissing on the deck of a yacht.
Fisher decided to file a lawsuit against Dodi for having pressured her to leave her career, offering her 500,000 dollars, of which she only received 60,000.
Did Dodi’s father call the paparazzi to photograph the couple?
No. The official version is that Mario Brenna was just near Sardinia doing another assignment and that she was lucky to see that the Al-Fayed’s boat, the Jonikal, was there.
It is also not true that Charles only called a photographer for his photo shoot in Balmoral with his children. The character Duncan Muir, the traditional photographer, is invented.
Did Diana walk through a minefield in Angola before she died in the car accident?
Yes, Diana took that walk to raise awareness of the importance of ending anti-personnel landmines. However, in the series, they add a totally fictionalized scene in which Lady Di gives a press conference and the journalists present there ask her about her love story with Dodi Al-Fayed. This never happened.
Did Diana visit a witch to learn more about her relationship with Dodi?
Yes. In the summer of 1997, on a Harrods plane, Diana traveled with Dodi to the village of Grassmoor to meet with a trusted psychic, Rita Rogers, whom she already knew from previous consultations.
Dodi had been so impressed by Rogers’ accurate readings that he was eager to have a meeting of his own.
Rogers revealed to Diana that she would meet a man of foreign descent with the initial D, on the water, and that the man would be related to the film industry.
Did Dodi propose to Diana?
It is unknown. In ‘The Crown’ it is narrated that, during a getaway to Monte Carlo, Dodi and Diana end up hiding from the paparazzi in a jewelry store. There Dodi tells Diana to choose a piece of jewelry, Diana chose from a ring from the Dis-Moi Oui (Say Yes) collection.
It is not certain that Dodi and Diana visited the Monte Carlo store, but there are images of Dodi buying the ring in Paris, although it is believed that he never got to give it to her, as they died that same night. Experts say that, at his death, the couple was not engaged.
Was Diana a fan of Julio Iglesias?
No. In the series, when Dodi goes to propose to Diana, he plays a Julio Iglesias song, “because you like him a lot.” However, there is nothing to confirm that the Princess was a fan of the Spanish singer.
The Crown: Season 6 part 2
The last six episodes premiered on December 14 and with them came to an end the epic saga of the British royal family.
In this second part of the final season, topics such as the beginnings of the romance between Prince William and Kate Middleton, the complicated relationship between Prince Harry and his brother, the wedding of Charles and Camilla, or whether the popularity of Prime Minister Tony Blair really worried Elizabeth II. What is true and what is a lie?
Did Prince William accuse his father of being an accomplice in his mother’s death?
In the series, the current Prince of Wales confronts his father with a conspiracy theory about Lady Di’s death. The prince believes there could be an involvement of his father in Lady Di’s death. Charles, dismayed, denies any culpability and takes offense at his son’s accusation.
The truth is that there is no basis for this accusation, nor has Prince Harry, who has previously hinted that there are aspects of his mother’s death that cannot be explained, ever suggested that his father or any other member of the British royal family was involved in the tragic accident.
Did William receive piles of fan letters when he was studying at Eton?
In a poignant scene in the series, when a grief-stricken William returns to school shortly after Diana’s death, he is shown receiving hundreds of letters of support from his classmates. And indeed, he did. More than half the school (some six hundred pupils) wrote to the young royal to express their condolences.
Was the relationship between William and Charles bad after Diana’s death?
In The Crown, William is furious on a private family ski trip to Whistler in early 1998 when asked to participate in a photocall with journalists, William complains that he hates the press and crowds.
It’s impossible to know for sure if all this is true or not, but news reports at the time do tell us that while Charles and Harry greeted people upon their arrival in Vancouver, William went straight to his hotel. So, there is some truth to it.
Was Elizabeth II irritated by Tony Blair’s popularity?
The fantastic opening scene, in which the queen imagines Blair crowned in a new British republic, sets the tone, although the series’ suggestion that American newspapers dubbed him “King Tony” is fiction.
However, did he really believe, as the program implies, that Blair’s popularity would surpass that of the royal family, causing a possible crisis for the institution? The veracity of this information cannot be verified, but it seems to be proven that Blair and his wife Cherie were never liked by the monarch.
It is also an invention of the scriptwriters that the politician, a convinced monarchist unlike his wife, suggested radical reforms of the Crown to the horror of Elizabeth II. Blair himself has described his storyline as “garbage”.
Did Kate ever meet Diana?
No. Kate never met her late mother-in-law in 1996. The Scene in which William and Diana are selling copies of Big Issue, to raise money for the homeless, is fiction.
Did William date a girl named Lola Kincaid before Kate?
In the series, William dated an aristocrat named Lola Kincaid, but this is all pure fiction, although Lola may be a version of the real girlfriend, Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, whom he dated briefly during his college days.
The description of Kate’s romance with fellow student Rupert Finch is fairly accurate, but the appearance of Lola, insulting photographers as she and William leave a screening of Pedro Almodovar’s ‘All About My Mother,’ a film released in August 1999, more than two years before the action is set, is pure fantasy.
Did Kate Middleton’s mother pressure her romance with William?
Carole Middleton has never spoken publicly about such rumors, but in Tina Brown’s book ‘The Palace Papers’, she writes: it is unlikely that Kate would be where she is today without her mother’s astute help in negotiating a royal romance.
For many, Kate was manipulated by her mother into attending St Andrews rather than her first choice of university, Edinburgh.
Did William and Kate start dating after she appeared in a see-through dress at a fashion show?
The series gives us the impression that William and Kate fell in love after she appeared in a see-through dress at a student fashion show, and kissed for the first time before William’s escort was forced to interrupt him to tell him that the Queen Mother had died earlier that day.
However, they were now an official couple, and William appears reunited with Kate’s family on the Golden Jubilee weekend, before rushing back to Buckingham Palace to stand next to his family on the balcony.
Did Prince Harry dress up as a Nazi for a masquerade costume party?
Yes. In 2005, Harry attended a “colonial and native” themed masquerade costume party dressed as a member of the Afrika Korps, and photos of him in that outfit were sold to newspapers by another guest.
Harry later described what happened as one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
However, it is pure fiction that the prince’s friend Guy Pelly dressed up as his grandmother at the same party and at one point went on stage to sing Queen’s ‘I Want to Break Free’.