If I worked as a Netflix executive, I wouldn’t let anyone in the British media get one single advanced copy of The Crown. Salt Island media has been WILD about everything involving The Crown for three years now – I say, let them stew in their own toxic juices. But I guess the Netflix math is to allow advance screeners to be sent out because Netflix knows that the British media is going to overreact and cause a commotion. A commotion which will give the series so much free publicity. So it is this week, with frantic screeds being written in the Daily Mail, the Sun and other outlets. The Mail was downright hysterical when they saw the “lurid” fifth season. The Sun chose to focus on the fact that The Crown recreates parts of Princess Diana’s Panorama interview, the same one which Prince William successfully got buried. The interview will never be aired on British television again, with Diana’s firstborn son leading the charge to silence his “paranoid” mother. Well, The Crown dramatizes the interview… and not only that, they dramatize the then-teenaged William’s reaction to it.
A young William is shown watching the interview, and being asked by a teacher if he is all right. His father Charles is shown yelling as he watches, then crying. It was thought that streaming giant Netflix had slashed the length of the recreation to tiny snippets lasting just seconds. In fact, producers have taken the most inflammatory parts of Princess Diana’s hour-long 1995 interview and condensed them into a segment lasting four minutes, 23 seconds.
They include Diana referencing the “crowded marriage” she endured while Charles was having an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. She also says she wants to be “a Queen in people’s hearts” but does not think she will ever be queen herself.
An investigation later found interviewer Martin Bashir used forgery and deception to gain access to the Princess. But in a move that will spark widespread fury the streaming giant has exaggerated the language and made up huge sections of conversation.
Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine and friend of Diana, who died in 1997, said: “William will be furious. He said his piece when he said it should never be aired again. This is his mother and her memory they are doing this to. It must be very frustrating as he can’t say any more because it will just give Netflix more publicity. They should have listened to him. The interview has no credibility after the investigation. Everyone knows it has no legitimacy now.
“Charles will think they can say whatever they want about him but leave Harry and William out of it. He won’t give a stuff about how he comes across but just don’t attack his sons this way.”
The show’s tweaks and fabrications lay the blame for Diana’s plight squarely at the feet of the then Prince of Wales, and make the Princess, played by Elizabeth Debicki, sound more sympathetic. Charles, played by Dominic West, is seen yelling and swearing during the interview, as the Princess casts doubt on his ability to be King. The scene ends with him breaking down in tears as Camilla watches on helplessly by his side.
“The interview has no credibility after the investigation. Everyone knows it has no legitimacy now.” Again with this false argument that because Martin Bashir lied to Diana, the interview itself is somehow tainted, fruit of the poisonous tree. This is false because both things can be accurate at once: Bashir lied to Diana to secure the interview AND Diana meant every f-king word she said in the interview. Even the Dyson report (the investigation into how Martin Bashir scored the interview) emphasized that Diana was always going to tell her story to someone. She was always going to say all of that. It was just a matter of who gave her the platform.
“The scene ends with him breaking down in tears as Camilla watches on helplessly by his side.” Thus underlining every single thing Diana said in the interview – that there were three people in her marriage, that Charles would not be a temperamentally sound king, that no one in that bloody palace understood her or looked out for her.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Netflix, the BBC.
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- PRINCESS DIANA OF WALES, LADY DI. 1996 WASHINGTON DC PHOTO WAS ON THE COVER OF US NEWS MAGAZINE AND WAS THE BEST SELLING ISSUE IN 70 YEARS. . LADY DI . PORTRAIT. RETRATO. HEADSHOT,Image: 538725362, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World rights – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 sales@avalon.red, Model Release: no, Credit line: Look Press Agency/Look Press / Avalon
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- Diana, Princess of Wales Arriving at a British Sports Association reception, 13 Grosvenor Crescent, London,Image: 552324786, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Photoshot – sales@photoshot.com London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Florida: +1 239 689 1883 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: John Shelley Collection / Avalon
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- The Duke of Cambridge attending a reception of the Joint Ministerial Council at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. Picture date: Wednesday November 17, 2021. The Joint Ministerial Council is an annual meeting between UK Ministers and the leaders of the UK’s Overseas Territories that enables cooperation on a wide range of issues.,Image: 643725365, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- 25th April 2022, Whitehall, London, UK. HRH, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. ANZAC Day Cenotaph Wreath Laying Service and Parade, Whitehall.,Image: 685932986, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Supplied by AVALON – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: Photo by Amanda Rose / Avalon
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- Earl Spencer leaves after speaking at the Isle of Wight literary festival,Image: 208423546, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no
As I keep saying, furious is William’s default mode. That would be the case if Peter Morgan had never thought of The Crown.
I think Diana would be furious to know her eldest son considered her “paranoid”.
Yes, ‘silencing his paranoid mother’, wow.
It’s unforgivable in my eyes. Willy is an adult and knows full well how horribly his mother was treated by his own family and being hounded by the tabloids.
I don’t know how Peggy and Khate can claim to be supportive of mental health initiatives after Peggy went public with claims of his mother’s paranoia. No shame and no self-awareness, that one.
William and Kate CLEARLY do not care about mental health. William insults his mother’s own issues. Kate has an ED. William has anger management issues. Kate is mean to other women but a doormat to her wealthy husband, both of which stem from lack of self-worth. Neither of them expressed any sympathy for an in-law who was revealed to be suicidal. They are both bullies.
How do they get away with claiming to “care” about mental health? Is it a matter of simply repeating it often enough that people think it must be true?
“Charles will think they can say whatever they want about him but leave Harry and William out of it. He won’t give a stuff about how he comes across but just don’t attack his sons this way.”
THIS is a lie. He has never protected those boys, especially Harry. He cares only how he and the Rottweiler will come across. He has spent (wasted) decades sucking up the the Rota Rats to polish that turd…and now it all blows up in his face. Such a shame. s/
Charles is such a hypocrite he says nothing when that bower person says he wants to ruin meghan.
I was thinking about that this morning. The royals are bleating about a damn TV show when a member of the media issued a death threat yesterday that affects his son and his grandchildren. To say nothing about that is appalling to me. For the life of me, I don’t understand why no one in the British media seems to be talking about that. How is this possibly okay? I know people have bigger problems than some guy saying bad things about a woman in another country. But if this type of thing can go unremarked in a civilized society, then the UK has no claim to any kind of moral superiority. The royal family has no claim to any kind of superiority either. God save our gracious king? Puke!!
Well, it seems to me that if their print and electronic media is filled with “Meghan, Meghan” day after day (even though she lives in another country), and those same people make a tidy living from talking about her, then those same people can respond when someone says something so disgusting. Otherwise, it reflects really poorly on all of them.
Not only that, but now the viewing public will have a chance to hear Diana’s description of her ex-husband and compare them with the facts. It’s one thing to imagine how petty and ineffectual Charles might be, and another to see it confirmed (throwing a tantrum because his pen broke, the whole dumb Harry and Andrew banned and then not banned from wearing uniforms, and his continuing to be right out of touch with what people are going through).
I think the depiction of him screaming at the TV accompanied by Camilla is telling. And showing William at school, broken up by seeing the interview is actually a sympathetic telling – they could have shown him screaming, too.
Who at the fail got the amazing journalistic task of timing the exact amount of time ( down to the second) that Netflix spent on the interview? Now they are mad that the interview wasn’t shown in full? Lol, they had better be careful what they wish for or Netflix could just air the whole thing. Just because it can’t be viewed in Britain doesn’t mean the whole world can’t see it.
I would love Netflix to air the whole interview as a outtake separate from the The Crown. Something tells me that Netflix is showing exactly what they intended to show all along. There was no way a 53min interview was going to be shown in its entirety. They are just letting the Firm and the tabloids think that they made concessions.
I literally laughed out loud when I read that part. Beyond delusional.
“Won’t give a stuff about how he comes across but leaves his sons out of this?!?!”
Whaaaat? Someone typed those words about who? The King who has been briefing against his younger son from the moment his mother died? Pull my other leg.
Of course he will, is Prince William ever not furious or incandescent with rage over something?
Indeed. It is his default emotion.
Incandescent, even
‘
So now Charles cares more about how this will affect his children then how it will affect him, ha! If anyone believes that, I’ve got a lovely bridge for sale🙄
Yeah, I suspect that even Charles got a good chuckle out of that line.
I want to know if they will show William yelling at Diana and shoving her. That’s what Willy needs to worry about, being shown disrespecting his mother.
Seems to be a generational trait passed down from father to son. *inserts .gif of Louis giving his mother a very enthusiastic raspberry*
yeah, this idea that the interview has no legitimacy bc of how it was obtained is just so tiresome. Diana said what she said. I’m sure it was upsetting for William, and I’m sure Charles was enraged by it.
diana took control of her narrative and got her side out there and we see now that there isn’t anything really more damaging than that for the Windsors.
Exactly. It is tiresome. The note, written by Diana, on her stationery, was included in the Dyson report. Her written words, “Martin Bashir did not show me any documents, nor give me any information that I was not already aware of. I consented to the Panorama interview without any undue pressure and have no regrets.”. Her written note is not in dispute. So many things are based on what the Earl of Spencer, her brother claims after the fact. A brother who has proven to be a nefarious individual for $$$$$$. A brother, who has been paid by the DM for columns, after her death.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-power-and-paranoia-of-the-diana-interview
It’s hilarious that a few years ago they were all for The Crown. Did they really have so little foresight that they didn’t think that the show would cover the years that make them look terrible as well as ‘the glory days’??
Who cares about William being angry anyway? He’s always angry.
I hope Netflix publishes how often The Crown is viewed in Great Britain come November.
I hope the performances (and story lines) are great, and that there are lots of award nominations in the future. That way, we’ll get to see British heads explode again during award season. It’ll just be like the gift that keeps on giving.
“Charles will think they can say whatever they want about him but leave Harry and William out of it. He won’t give a stuff about how he comes across but just don’t attack his sons this way.” Seriously? Somebody wrote this BS with a straight face?
Yes, it’s Will’s mother and her memory and it’s HER interview. Interesting that he is so invested in silencing his mother. And, what they forget is that other things she said and other evidence backs up what she said.
A part of me do sympathize with him the interview that caused so much trouble/pain, these events being dramatized and brought to the public domain again it must be hard. At the same time the way he behaved these last few years he had no problem inflicting pain to his brother and sister in law so he’s a hypocrite and selfish man only his pain count. Only he get to complain. I’m tired of him.
He did not complain about his father’s damaging interview the tear before his mother’s. Charles admitted his involvement with Camilla which brought on the divorce of the Parker Bowles. And said he never loved will and Harry’s mother.
The interview is not what caused pain. Charles’ (and the whole system propping up the Windsors) treatment of Diana is what caused pain. I am sick of the narrative that people telling the truth about the horrible things that were done to them are the ones “causing pain.” It’s poison, and does nothing but enable more abuse.
Too bad William
Deal with it. Trying to censor his mother is not going to work. He is a sell out.
If I’m a Netflix exec I’m loving all the free publicity that the Crown gets in the UK. The funny thing about the press outrage is that the Crown is basically based on things that they reported. As usual their outrage is really about somebody else other than the press controlling the narrative.
Two Words:
Watch Party 💃🏾💃🏾💃🏾
I’ll bring the charcuterie board and wine!
So tired of this idiots incandescence.
Also why do we always have to hear about how these idiots feel about things, whilst H&M are continually lambasted for any feelings.
Anyone remember how much Meghan was absolutely torn apart for speaking about her feelings of su!c!dal ideation during her first pregnancy and then as a result of her op-ed after her miscarriage.
Because Bashir prevailed, we don’t know what lengths his competitors were going to in order to nab the Diana interview. The behind the scenes machinations don’t cancel what Diana said. Burger King knows this but the interview is probably a painful core memory for him, and he is flexing his power to make it go away when he should really just go to therapy and deal with his feelings .
“The interview is probably a painful core memory for him, and he is flexing his power to make it go away.”
I think this hits the nail on the head. The interview didn’t hurt William as a child because Bashir manipulated Diana, it hurt him because he saw the pain his mother had been through, and probably because he knew this was going to hurt his father, whom he also loved. I think he probably glommed on to the Dyson Report because it let redirect his own pain at Bashir, and imagine that his mother never would have said those things and didn’t mean them. It’s a fiction the Firm depends on, and he doesn’t have the spine to question it, because then he’d have to question EVERYTHING about his world.
People rewrite their own histories all the time without even being conscious of it. But William doesn’t get to rewrite his parents’ marriage, or erase Diana’s pain and courage, for the rest of us. And neither does Charles.
Ingrid gaslit Diana seems appropriate that she speaks for will when he sells out his mother Ingrid can call herself Diana’s friend since Diana is not around. Ingrid is no friend of Diana’s she gaslit Diana in books and articles after diana died.
It WAS pretty shocking to see the claim that Sewer was ever Diana’s friend. How does anyone write such a bald-faced lie with a straight face? Don’t know about anyone else, but my friends don’t talk sh!t about me in the press, then tell everyone they know me well and they’re my supporters when I’m not around. I’d hate to see how Sewer treats her enemies.
“He won’t give a stuff about how he comes across but just don’t attack his sons this way.”
He used his traumatized, grieving sons as human shields at their mother’s funeral, and has since thrown not only Harry, but Meghan and the kids as well, to the wolves. He’s literally been whining non-stop (through surrogates, admittedly) since the series began portraying his adult self. But sure, the man who throws tantrums over office supplies is a cool, detached, protective dad who is totally fit to rule, OK?!?!
Normal day for Normal Bill then.
Of course.
Ingrid Seward you were not Diana’s friend. She blamed Diana for Charles affair with Camilla. William sells out his mother so he and Ingrid would get along
I completely understand the reasons as to why William hates the interview. He is entitled to feel however he wants about it. I also understand why he wants it to be never mentioned again.
But the reality is that it has been public record for over 25 years now. Diana was a public figure. Therefore her life and any interviews she gave can and will be dramatised for years. Again, he can feel however he wants to about it but he also needs to understand/realise that it will happen even if it makes him extremely uncomfortable/happy.
That the interview makes him unhappy, but apparently he doesn’t care about the way his mother was treated, speaks volumes about Will. He’s gross.
@Pumpkin I totally agree. 🙂 Regardless of what I think of him it was his mother and father having a pretty viscous argument in front of the whole world. As a teenager it must have been awful for him to go back to school after both interviews. I completely understand why he wouldn’t want to re-live it all over again. However, my sympathy tapers off somewhat, when I see him using exactly the same tactics against his brother and his wife.
The best thing about The Crown being serialised on Netflix is that William (and his father) cannot interfere. Unlike when William bullied the Beeb into taking out the section in Princes and the Press, where it was found HE was leaking to the press about his brother’s poor mental health.
I have no pity for William. He is clearly siding with his father now.
Anybody is entitled to feelings. The only one whose feelings should matter in telling HER story is Diana. If she didn’t regret the interview and stood by what she said then she had the perogative to get her side out the same as Charles. Why are there never sources telling how disgusted PW is by KC’s behavior and his interview and trying to silence his side?
If William has such tender feelings about his mother speaking to the press about the state of her marriage, then shouldn’t William feel equally butthurt about Charles’ interview in the press? I’m not sure I buy his hurt feelings (certainly not as an adult) about Diana’s interview. His “incandescence” at not being able to stop it, yes, but not his hurt feelings. I think he’s become more detached than that.
Royals want to censor the truth about the bad actions of the royal family. Must be a day ending in “y”. I had to read so goddamn many Brit-penned books about what a great king and great man Henry VIII was — written in the late 20th century! There’s a millennia of censorship and smoke-blowing behind those gates, and I hope it’s all going to come tumbling out.
I do feel a bit dirty knowing I’ll watch it, tho. Mainly because I know Diana was tricked into it, and that her children suffered in that time as well. It’s kinda amusing to see William rage nowadays because he’s a p***k but I’m not sure Harry is all that comfortable with this either. This is close and personal for them.
Most of the interview was complaints about the media.
Those are not the parts being recreated.
They got off lightly as usual.
True, but I still find it tasteless. Diana was going through a lot, and eventually the media attention caused her death, and her two sons were way too young to lose their mum. It’s just ugh, the whole affair.
Which brings me to the fact I also worry they will depict her death scene too graphically, or at least the car chase. I don’t want Harry nor William exposed to that. Yes, I know they are adults, but some wounds never really heal. If they’re smart they won’t watch that episode, but the stills will probably be all over media (a common problem here), and I don’t wish that upon them nor anyone else.
@Nanny I think Netflix has said they won’t show the crash.
@Becks1 I hope you are right. But I meant not just the crash, but the whole evening that led to her death, especially the appearance of the paparazzi and the car ride (even without the crash itself). And I still hope Harry and William will be careful about watching it, for their mental health’s sake.
Well, we’ll see soon enough what they do with this accident.
@Nanny to the Rescue — If anyone is to blame for the crash it was Dodi. He insisted they leave the Ritz where they were supposed to stay. He was so stubborn about it Diana was in tears, she wanted to stay. So a driver and a car were found, the driver had been drinking and the car needed servicing. Dodi exhorted the driver to outrun the paps and rest is a very sad history.
@Jaded If all in the car either died or had amnesia, how do you have a clue what Dodi did or said? Reports also said that they used a different car from the one originally planned so they evidently weren’t staying. How about the bodyguard who supposedly has amnesia and yet claims the driver was drunk but let somebody he was paid to guard get in a car with a drunk driver?
Most of the reports that blame Dodi or the driver come from the paparazzi that night. So we have no idea if they were true.
(There’s a whole bunch of controversy about Henri Paul and French toxicologists showed that his analyzed blood samples don’t line up with his behavior that night. The car itself was recovered from a French junkyard and was faulty at high speeds and had faulty seatbelts even before the crash and why it was leased to the Ritz as a new car is the mystery. And it’s now in the possession of the French government).
@Equality — I wasn’t clear, so please bear with me. Photogs and other people milling about at the Ritz saw Diana in tears and looking very frustrated. Other drivers who chauffeured Dodi around said he was constantly asking them to speed up to evade the paps. Also, one of Diana’s therapists who was driven to the Paris airport by Henri Paul to catch a separate flight to Dodi’s yacht said he was such a terrifying driver she thought she wouldn’t make it — speeding like crazy, dodging in and out of traffic without signaling, cutting people off, etc. So there are others besides the crash victims who corroborated these details.
Al Fayed told Dodi to stay at the Ritz, and since his father was not there, DOdi decided to leave instead . What bothers me is that why the police were not summoned to disperse the crowd of paparazzi in front of the Ritz. This is something really odd to me.
Kes Wingfield, Diana’s bodyguard, was in the car at the same time as Myriah Daniels who told the story about Henri Paul driving dangerously and he rebutted what she said, stating Paul’s driving was fine.
@Nanny, she wasn’t tricked into it, she was misled as to why she should choose Bashir to do an interview. That’s it. She wanted to give an interview, she was going to give an interview to someone, Bashir just lied to get her to choose him as the interviewer.
I agree that obviously this must be painful for her children, but (1) they don’t have to engage with any of this hoopla if they choose not to. It’s just a tv show after all. It’s not like they’ll be forced to film live reactions to the show. I do think that for Harry, while anything to do with his mom would be painful, that at least this is depicting her side of the story, or at least a fraction of it. I think it would be worse if the Crown was doing what William and Charles want, which is to whitewash history and remove any instance of her speaking up or standing up for herself. It would be silencing her after death in an attempt to make the firm and Charles look better, and I think that would be way more disrespectful than including her own words for the world to see.
This seasons does not include her death. That would be next season, and I agree with Becks that I recall Netflix saying they weren’t going to show the crash. In any event, that’s a conversation for next season, which will probably be a year from now.
@Nanny- you do know that William and Harry don’t HAVE to watch, if they think it might upset them?
The Crown is VERY avoidable for those who won’t like it
The Royals help to keep Diana’s legacy alive by continually trying to bury it. By going all ape-dookey every time she’s featured in some medium, they’re attracting new interest.
[Longtime reader, new poster here. I’ve previously limited my social media participation to Twitter (as @lleepar). But not knowing Twitter’s long term viability under new ownership, I thought it is time to expand into other places I know and enjoy.]
Welcome!
Thank you.
Welcome 😊 I found you on Twitter and just followed you!
Thank you.
Welcome to the group!
Thank you.
Ape-dookey is new and going into my vocabulary. Thank you for that one, lleepar.
You’re welcome. I probably acquired it from someone else in the distant past. So I’m happy to pass it on.
I will never get over the fact that William called his mother paranoid. He’s a terrible person and a terrible son.
Diana said what she said. The process to secure the interview may have been dishonest, but the interview itself was Diana being unflinchingly honest about what she’d experienced in her marriage. Charles and Camilla caused her so much pain. In insisting that the interview not be shown, William is siding with his mother’s tormentors. I hope she haunts him.
Good. Let the fury begin (has it ever ended?)
William was furious with his mother after the interview because he was was mocked by his friends at ETON and a fragile teenager then. Harry asked who Camilla was! Diana needed to get her side out there and so glad she did because it backs up Meghan’s interview with Oprah about the way the Firm works and no help for those not deemed worthy or important to maintaining the Crown.
Must join Netflix and never have been on Twitter for Twits.
William is the nightmare son of every mother. Trying to silence her even in death and calling her paranoid. Like Ivanka and Jarred, he only cares about himself and has no higher calling/value than self. Sad and dangerous.