Following the release of Season 5 of “The Crown” earlier this month, a longtime friend of Queen Elizabeth II slammed the show.
Lady Anne Glenconner, a maid of honor at the late Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in June 1953, spoke to BBC Radio 4’s “Woman’s Hour” on Thursday about the hit Netflix drama, describing it as a “complete fantasy,” according to People.
Lady Glenconner, who also served as Princess Margaret’s lady-in-waiting for over three decades, said:
“[It’s] so unfair on members of the Royal Family.”
She noted:
“The trouble is that people, especially in America, believe it completely. It’s so irritating. I don’t watch ‘The Crown’ now because it just makes me so angry.”
Glenconner, 90, expressed her displeasure with certain scenes in the series, including one involving the death of Prince Philip’s sister, Princess Cecile of Greece, in a plane crash in 1937.
The incident was depicted in the second season as the late Duke of Edinburgh urging his sister to board the doomed flight, which Glenconner claimed was “completely false.”
She added:
“And I think to say something like that about people is terribly hurting. Nobody wants to have their relations trashed like that.”
Glenconner also blasted the show’s depiction of Princess Margaret making crude rhymes with President Lyndon B. Johnson and debating the qualities of various eligible men, claiming that this “never happened” in real life.
Glenconner was also critical of Helena Bonham Carter’s portrayal of Princess Margaret. She played the role for two seasons and even went to Glenconner for advice.
Glenconner said:
“She came for about two hours. I told her how Princess Margaret smoked, how she walked.”
She continued:
“I saw Helena after she’d been in ‘The Crown’ and she said, ‘What did you think?’ And I said, ‘Well, rather disappointed.’ And she said, ‘I know. But the thing is, I’m an actress, and I have to do what’s written for me.'”
Glenconner’s comments came after several high-profile figures criticized Netflix’s “The Crown.” In October, Dame Judi Dench wrote an open letter to the U.K.’s The Times, arguing that it would be “cruelly unjust” not to preface each episode with a statement stating that the show is a work of historical fiction.
Following the backlash, Netflix promoted “The Crown” as a “fictional dramatization,” with a disclaimer that the show is “inspired by true events.”
True Royalty TV editor-in-chief Nick Bullen recently claimed that some storylines about Princess Diana and King Charles on the show were inaccurate.
The royal expert told Us Weekly:
“Look, it’s drama. It’s fiction that’s somewhat based on fact. Virtually all of it was — certainly — sort of widened the mark.”
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