Andrew Marr slams The Crown’s inacurate portrayals ‘grossly unfair and sadistic’
Andrew Marr warns The Crown’s ‘grossly unfair’ and inaccurate portrayals of the Royal Family could harm the monarchy – and demands Netflix adds a disclaimer warning viewers ‘it’s fiction’
- Andrew Marr joined of outraged critics demanding the series has a disclaimer
- Mr Marr said the show is so well acted that may watchers will believe storylines
- Show claims Charles conducted an affair through his relationship with Diana
- In fact, Charles had practically no contact with Camilla for 5 years after marriage
Andrew Marr has slammed The Crown’s inaccurate storylines about the Royal Family as ‘grossly unfair and sadistic’ – and has fears it could harm the monarchy.
The presenter has joined the swathes of outraged critics demanding the hit Netflix show include a disclaimer warning that many key scenes never happened or are distortions of the truth.
Mr Marr said the show is so well-acted that may eager watchers are accepting fake plots as historical fact.
For example, the show incorrectly asserts that Charles and Camilla conducted an affair throughout the Prince’s entire relationship with Diana.
In reality, Charles had practically no contact with Camilla for five years after his marriage in 1981.
Andrew Marr (pictured) has slammed The Crown’s inaccurate storylines about the Royal Family as ‘grossly unfair and sadistic’
The show incorrectly asserts that Charles and Camilla conducted an affair throughout the Prince’s entire relationship with Diana. Pictured: Emma Corrin as Diana and Josh O’Connor as Charles in The Crown
But Peter Morgan, The Crown’s creator, last week defended making up scenes, adding: ‘You sometimes have to forsake accuracy, but you must never forsake truth.’
Mr Marr told The Sun: ‘If they announced, “This is drama, it’s fiction, it’s entertainment”, you would say it’s brilliant.
‘But when you start to say, “This is the truth about these people’s lives”, it’s grossly unfair and really quite sadistic.’
He added: ‘If I was one of the Royal Family, I would be utterly, utterly horrified.’
The fourth series of The Crown covers the years between Lord Mountbatten’s assassination by the IRA in 1979 and the ousting of Margaret Thatcher in 1990.
Much of it focuses on Charles’s doomed marriage to Diana and supposed tensions in the relationship between the Queen and Mrs Thatcher.
The series wrongly suggests the affair between Charles and Camilla continued throughout his marriage to Diana.
Mr Marr said: ‘If I was one of the Royal Family, I would be utterly, utterly horrified.’ Pictured: The Queen in October
In a fabricated scene in the first episode, Lord Mountbatten writes to warn Charles he is in danger of bringing ‘ruin and disappointment’ to the family, while the third episode falsely depicts Mrs Thatcher being humiliated by the Royal Family at Balmoral.
Friends of Charles have accused the producers of the drama of ‘trolling on a Hollywood budget’.
Hugo Vickers, a leading Royal historian and author of The Crown Dissected, said it was ‘absolutely vital’ a disclaimer be shown at the start of each episode warning viewers the show is fictionalised.
‘Peter Morgan says he conflates incidents, which is understandable, but he also twists the facts and thus turns the truth into something so distorted that it becomes an out and out lie,’ he added.
Much of it focuses on Charles’s doomed marriage to Diana (pictured) and supposed tensions in the relationship between the Queen and Mrs Thatcher
The series wrongly suggests the affair between Charles and Camilla continued throughout his marriage to Diana
Lord Fellowes also questioned the way The Crown is depicting the Royal Family, saying: ‘I don’t really like commenting on other people’s work… but in this instance I can’t help feeling that the very brilliant programme makers sometimes forget that these are real people and they are leading real lives.’
The Tory peer supported calls for Netflix to make it clear that fact is being blended with fiction.
He said: ‘I don’t really understand why not because in many programmes based on truthful events there is a disclaimer at the beginning that says some events have been conflated and some characters have been invented for dramatic purposes. That’s very common – you see it at the front of many, many programmes.’
Princess Margaret is shown in one episode of the new series being rude to Mrs Thatcher and appears irritated in another episode when Diana’s entrance into a room interrupts her as she is telling a story.
Emerald Fennell is seen above playing Camilla in Netflix’s The Crown while Josh O’Connor plays Prince Charles
Cruel social media trolls have launched a tirade of abuse at Duchess of Cornwall after The Crown falsely suggested she had an affair with Prince Charles throughout his marriage to Diana. Pictured: Charles and Camilla earlier this month
Lady Glenconner, Princess Margaret’s lady-in-waiting between 1971 and 2002, has stressed that she has not seen the latest series but believes such a portrayal of her friend is ‘unfair’.
‘They just make up what they want and of course there is a lot of people who think it is true,’ she said.
The 88-year-old was depicted in a fictional scene in the third series which falsely showed Margaret meeting her future boyfriend Roddy Llewellyn at a swimming pool party.
They in fact met over tea at the Cafe Royal in Edinburgh.
Christopher Warwick, Princess Margaret’s authorised biographer, voiced fears that the current series could damage the reputations of Charles and Camilla.
Camilla has already become the subject of a vicious campaign of abuse on social media over the false suggestion that she had an affair with Prince Charles throughout his marriage to Diana.
Peter Morgan, The Crown’s creator, (pictured) last week defended making up scenes, adding: ‘You sometimes have to forsake accuracy, but you must never forsake truth’
During the confrontation with Lord Mountbatten, played by award-winning actor Charles Dance (pictured left), the Prince, played by Josh O’Connor (pictured right), hits back describing him as a ‘quisling’ – another word for a traitor
Angry viewers have started posting misplaced hate comments to the Duchess on the Royal Family’s Instagram page.
Commenting on a picture of Camilla, one cruel toll simple said they were ‘not interested’ in her.
Another harshly wrote: ‘Camila: The world hates you. Princess Diana forever.’
Several social media users shared tributes to the late Princess alongside the picture of the Duchess.
Many of The Crown’s audience have also been fooled by the depiction of Charles and Camilla’s close friendship on Twitter, with one writing: ‘I am loving this season of The Crown. I had no idea Charles’s affair with Camilla was happening during their entire relationship – dating/engagement/marriage… ugh. No wonder Diana was so miserable.’
Another expressed shock that Charles and Camilla had enjoyed a ‘fully fledged affair’ from the start of Charles and Diana’s relationship.
The fourth series, which launched on Sunday, covers Charles’s doomed marriage to Princess Diana, her eating disorders and his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, up to the end of Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister. Pictured: Gillian Anderson playing Thatcher
In fact, Charles and Camilla’s affair resumed in 1986 – by which time the marriage had, as the Prince himself famously put it in a TV documentary, ‘irretrievably broken down’.
One poster wrote: ‘Almost everything in The Crown is true. And there is even more that hasn’t been covered.
‘How they isolated Diana, how they laughed at her, made her feel crazy, Camilla playing hostess in Diana’s home.’ Another viewer said: ‘It’s been days since I found out Diana’s bulimia was brought on because of Charles and it still makes me SOOOO angry!’
One fan wrote: ‘I’m sorry most of The Crown is true, a few things were a little different but Charles cheated and married Diana for the heirs, he thought she was young and naive and would let him cheat… all the issues were from Camilla. Just think if that had not happened, Diana would be alive.’
Among other comments, Anna Gifty tweeted: ‘Prince Charles is trending because Gen Z and Millennials are (re)learning about the abuse Princess Diana was subject to. Harry and Meghan’s exit always made sense, but now watching The Crown, it morally made sense. Harry left to protect his family, the family he chose.’
Another gloated: ‘Enjoyed The Crown season four but absolutely loving everyone’s renewed hate for Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.’
