Go Beneath ‘The Crown’ With True Story Of Princess Diana Before Charles

Netflix
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has once again got the whole world talking with Season 4 of The Crown, which thrusts the royal family into the 1980s and introduces one Diana Spencer into the mix.

In the early episodes of Season 4, viewers get a fictionalized version of Prince Charles and Diana’s courtship and wedding, thus turning Diana Spencer into Princess Diana, one of the most enduring and popular royal figures of all time.

While The Crown’s rather unflattering depiction of Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles has led to controversy in the U.K., the show is, of course, a fictional drama.

But for those who want to compare the scripts to real-life events, Netflix has introduced a handy companion series, Behind The Crown, on YouTube, looking at the history of the events shown in Season 4.

Particularly of note is the episode titled “The True Story of Young Diana”, which looks at the courtship between Charles and Diana. It turns out that Charles did in fact date Diana’s sister, Sarah Spencer, first. And a jealous Diana—then just 16—apparently had a poster of her future husband on her wall. Talk about manifesting your dreams.

The Beneath The Crown series has more behind-the-scenes episodes should you wish to delve into the true history of the royal family, including more about Diana and Charles’ trip to Australia and Diana’s 1989 visit to New York, both of which are covered in Season 4.

While fans have been eating up the “Diana Years” on The Crown, in Britain, there has been criticism of the unfavorable light that Charles, who continued an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles while married to Diana, has been shown in.

Queen Elizabeth II’s former press secretary Dickie Arbiter told the BBC: “It’s a hatchet job on Prince Charles and a bit of a hatchet job on Diana. “You have to ask, is it necessary?”

“It’s just sensationalising, making Charles and Camilla out to be the villains. Charles is portrayed as vicious. He’s not vicious,” added Arbiter.