Netflix’s ‘The Crown’ Should Include Disclaimer That It’s Fiction, U.K. Culture Official Says

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden told The Mail On Sunday that the series should be more transparent that while many of the plotlines are based on actual events, The Crown’s creators took creative liberties when portraying private moments of the royal family and other important British officials, like Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

“Netflix should be very clear at the beginning it is just [fiction],” he told the newspaper.

The Mail On Sunday reported Dowden will likely send a formal letter requesting the streaming service to add a “health warning” at the beginning of each episode of The Crown.

While it triggered a backlash among some social media users who questioned if this was the best use of a Parliament official’s time, he’s far from the only person to have criticized The Crown since the latest season was released about two weeks ago. 

Princess Diana’s brother Charles Spencer told British broadcaster ITV last week he thought the show should come with a warning, saying, “I find Americans tell me they have watched The Crown as if they have taken a history lesson. Well, they haven’t.“

Dickie Arbiter, a British commentator who worked as a press officer at Buckingham Palace during part of the time covered by the fourth season of the show, said the portrayal was “a hatchet job on Prince Charles and a bit of a hatchet job on Diana,” in an interview with the BBC. “You have to ask, is it necessary?“

“We do our very, very best to get it right, but sometimes I have to conflate [incidents],” The Crown creator Peter Morgan once said in 2017 of writing the show. “You sometimes have to forsake accuracy, but you must never forsake truth.”