King Charles thinks ‘The Crown’ is ‘muckraking over events’ from 30 years ago

Over the next few weeks, if the past is prologue, we’ll see King Charles throw the full weight of Buckingham Palace behind an effort to… whine about The Crown. When he did that same thing in 2020, it caught me off-guard, but now I’m expecting it. In 2020, Charles arranged for surrogates to blanket the British media, complaining about how everything in The Crown is fiction and how Diana was no victim and no one should pay any attention to any of this ancient history. There will be much more pointed criticism this time around, I would imagine. Especially since Peter Morgan has made it perfectly clear that he is using Diana and Charles’s own words, from the interviews they did and the books they had written. In any case, for Season 5, Charles seems to be leaning into the “it was a painful time for everyone involved, why dredge up the past” argument.

The new series of The Crown is set to dredge up every painful detail of King Charles’s marriage to the late Princess Diana — just as the nation rallies around the new monarch. It rakes over some of the most intimate aspects of their crumbling marriage in the early 1990s and portrays the then Prince of Wales as petty, cold and deceitful.

The fifth series, which starts on streaming giant Netflix next month, is also likely to upset Prince William who is seen, along with brother Prince Harry, being caught in a psychological tug of war between their royal parents.

A TV insider said: “This couldn’t have come at a more delicate time for the new King and his Queen Consort, particularly as they’re riding high in the minds of the public. There’s a sense that Netflix are muckraking over events that took place 30 to 40 years ago, but are still raw for those involved. The worst element for the royals is that millions of people around the world will view this series and view it less as a drama and more as a documentary. And attention on the Windsors couldn’t be higher as it’s been just a few weeks since Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral and is in the run-up to the King’s coronation.”

Netflix had considered delaying the launch date of series five out of respect for the Queen following her death last month but decided to press ahead.

[From The Sun]

Netflix literally never considered delaying Season 5. The British media keeps repeating that, trying to make it so. It is false. All Peter Morgan did was delay filming for a few days immediately following QEII’s death. Here’s the thing about Peter Morgan too – he’s not even going as hard on Charles as he could have done. There are tons of historical records about Charles’s treatment of Diana which Morgan doesn’t even use. I get why, because Morgan is focused more on the broad strokes of institutional power and family dysfunction. But still, Charles should be f–king grateful that Morgan isn’t going harder. As for the term “muckraking” and whether The Crown is an exercise in muckracking… no, I don’t think so. It’s just not ass-kissy, which these people mistake for “muckraking.”

As for Harry and William… Harry has already said that he’s fine with The Crown and clearly, Netflix wants to “package” the Sussexes’ docu-series as some kind of companion piece alongside The Crown. Harry told James Corden that he views The Crown as “fictional, but it’s loosely based on the truth. Of course it’s not strictly accurate” and that he is “way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing stories written about my family or my wife.” Just FYI, people will put words into his mouth, so those are the quotes. I expect Charles will also try to convince William to say something about The Crown too.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.