Season 5 of “The Crown” is coming under fire ahead of its Nov. 9 debut, with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesperson calling the Netflix series’ depiction of a secret meeting between Prince Charles and John Major “complete and utter rubbish.”
The series is expected to portray a 1991 meeting between Charles and John Major — Blair’s predecessor — at Highgrove in which the pair discusses conspiring against Queen Elizabeth II. “The Crown” is also expected to drag Blair into the plot when Charles tries to gain Blair’s support after the 1997 general election as Charles secures his plan to marry Camilla.
“[It] will be profoundly hurtful to a family who are still grieving for the very person on whose life the entire drama was founded,” Major wrote in a letter to the Daily Telegraph Friday. “Fiction should not be paraded as fact.”
Major has previously been critical of the series’ depiction of the real-life events, most recently calling the show’s portrayal of his time in office a “barrel load of nonsense.”
Despite Major’s comments last month, Netflix defended the fifth season as “fictional dramatisation” and noted that it “imagin[ed] what could have happened behind closed doors during a significant decade for the royal family – one that has already been scrutinised and well-documented by journalists, biographers and historians.”
Netflix did, however, elaborate on the subject by noting that the season is “inspired by real events” on the trailer for the upcoming season, though these details do not represent an official disclaimer.
“I gather Netflix continues to refuse to put out a disclaimer at the top of the opening credits, on the basis that ‘everyone knows this is a drama series,’” Major wrote in November. “But this is simply not good enough. If everyone knows, why not acknowledge that?”
The ex-prime minister also warned that without such a disclaimer, “many millions – around the world – could still be influenced by a damaging and fictional script, which claims ‘authority’ by being interspersed with historical fact.”
“Entertainment is a great and glorious industry that brings enormous pleasure to many millions,” he concluded. “Netflix should not demean it with portrayals which are both injurious and untrue.”
The upcoming season is also said to portray the controversial Princess Diana interview with journalist Martin Bashir in which she spoke of Charles’ infidelity and famously said, “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”
