Princess Diana’s Former Assistant Calls Final Season of ‘The Crown’ ‘Upsetting’ and ‘Distasteful’
The wait is almost over for fans of Netflix’s The Crown as the countdown to the new and final season is on.
It’s no secret that season 6 is going to include one of the most unforgettable and tragic moments in the history of the royal family. As viewers prepare to grab a box of tissues and watch the series’ depiction of what happened on Aug. 31, 1997, someone who actually lived through it will also be watching. However, that former aide has slammed the new season as “upsetting” and “distasteful” for recreating the car crash that took Princess Diana’s life.
Princess Diana’s former butler has a warning for viewers about ‘The Crown’ Season 6
Paul Burrell began working in the royal household when he was 18 years old and became Queen Elizabeth II‘s personal footman. He was later moved to the household of then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana. After they separated Burrell stayed on the staff as the princess’s butler, a position he served in until her death, and ended up becoming one of Diana’s closest and most trusted confidants.
He recently shared his thoughts on The Crown‘s final season and had a warning for viewers.
Speaking on behalf of Slingo Burrell said: “It’s going to be very difficult because this series is my years of service. I started with the queen in 1976 and then went to Diana in 1987. I am going to find it very difficult to watch it and not be critical because this is a dramatization. But it is also representing the truth, and it can’t do both. I don’t think it is going to be truthful and I think viewers should take it with a pinch of salt … don’t think that did happen.”
Burrell continued: “I find it very upsetting that they have gone to great detail to create the exact vehicle where Diana died. We don’t need to see it. That scene could have been filmed in a very different way but to recreate it in great detail is wrong. It’s distasteful and upsetting, not only for people who were there and close to her but for the general public. We know what happened.”
He went on to say that he hopes the writers and everyone involved with the show “portray the princess in a good light because she was a good person. I hope that the producers are kind and that her character isn’t changed by misrepresentation. Yes, she was misunderstood in life, but I would hate for her history to be changed into something that wasn’t true.
“I am going to watch it because I want to know what they are saying because I am still here representing the memory of someone I love very much. William and Harry’s hands are often tied, and they can’t say anything because they are signed into a new generation of royals. But I am not. I’m still representing the past and making sure that people get the truth.”
Another Diana staffer said the previous season was more accurate than he thought it would be
Another person who was on the late princess’s staff and has watched moments in their life play out on screen is Patrick Jephson. He was Diana’s private secretary from 1988 to 1996. In 2019, Jephson worked with The Crown producers to “contribute first-hand perspective on what really happened.”
He wrote in The Telegraph that he attended an advanced screening of Season 5 before it was released in 2022 and was on “alert,” looking out for any “twisting of words” and other “lies” but he could not find any.
“I was on maximum alert, watching for malicious twisting of words and dishonest presentation of historical facts,” Jepsen explained. “I was looking out for lies and cruel falsehoods that would have allowed my inner critic to throw metaphorical tomato soup all over the picture the artists were painting. I didn’t find any.
“True, dramatic artifice was sometimes used to make a point more concisely than might have been the case in real life, and some chronology has been adjusted to cram years of events into the time constraints of a TV series. What I saw in the preview theatre created in my mind a story that chimed truthfully with the reality through which I had lived. And not just in my mind: there were scenes so real that I forgot to breathe, my heart thumped alarmingly, and my palms grew clammy with cold sweat.”
As for the sixth and final season of The Crown, Part 1 will be released on Netflix Nov. 16, followed by Part 2 which will be available to stream on Dec. 14.
