Princess Diana’s Former Private Secretary Says He Couldn’t Find Any ‘Falsehoods’ or ‘Lies’ in ‘The Crown’ Season 5
Ever since the first season of The Crown premiered on Netflix in 2016, fans have questioned just how accurate the historical drama really is. Some royal watchers have even called for a fiction disclaimer ahead of every episode so viewers don’t take everything they see as facts. But Netflix refused to add one which leads some to forget they are watching a drama, not a documentary.
The best way to find out what’s true and what isn’t is to hear from those who actually lived through what’s being depicted onscreen. None of the royals have commented on season 5, which was released on Nov. 9, but some who worked for the family during that time are talking about it like Princess Diana‘s former private secretary. The former employee said he was on the lookout for “falsehoods” and “cruel lies” in the new season but couldn’t find any. Here’s what he did claim was inaccurate.
Season 5 of ‘The Crown’ depicts Charles and Diana’s marriage crumbling further
Even if you haven’t streamed the latest season of The Crown yet, you can see from the trailer that it dives deeper into then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s turbulent relationship as their marriage crumbled. The show got into how rocky things became between the couple in season 4. It also depicted Charles’ affair and love for his mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles.
Someone who spent a good deal of time with the late princess and saw the events being depicted in the series actually unfold was Patrick Jephson. He worked as Diana’s private secretary from 1988 to 1996 and in 2019, worked with The Crown producers to “contribute first-hand perspective on what really happened.”
Diana’s former secretary was on the lookout for ‘dishonesty’ but said it was ‘so real’
Jephson was invited to an advanced screening of the final version of The Crown a few weeks back. The day before the new season became available to the public for streaming, he wrote a piece in The Telegraph about what he thought of the new season. In his article for the publication, Jephson admitted that he was on “maximum alert” looking out for any “malicious twisting of words,” and other “lies” but he could not find any.
He revealed: “I sat in a screening room to see the final version. I was on maximum alert, watching for malicious twisting of words and dishonest presentation of historical facts. 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.”
Jephson explained: “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.”
Jephson claimed where a certain conversation took place was inaccurate
So what chronology was adjusted in episodes due to the time constraints of the series?
Jephson pointed out, for example, there’s one scene where then-Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) have a tense exchange in front of guests on a yacht about going shopping. According to Jephson, that conversation did happen, just not on the yacht. The former secretary said it actually took place in “more damaging circumstances” during their official visit to the Middle East.
In his piece, Jephson discussed whether the fact that Charles and Diana’s disagreement happened on a different trip affected the integrity of The Crown.
He wrote: “Does that make it a damnable Crown lie — or a truth justifiably transposed to meet the demands of coherent and essentially accurate storytelling? If so, it has the incidental effect of mitigating the prince’s ill-judged jibe by shifting it from a very public setting, in front of royal hosts, to the relative privacy of a family holiday.”
