Netflix's The Crown delivered its most sensational season yet with its fourth chapter, which followed the reign of Queen Elizabeth II from the years 1977 to 1990. Fans got to see the tense relationship between Margaret Thatcher and the Queen, but the most awaited arc was the marriage between Princess Diana and Charles.
The show brought alive history on screen with the depiction of the whirlwind courtship between a relationship with his former flame Camilla Parker-Bowles despite having the most loved woman in the world as his wife. The Crown depicted most of Diana's history accurately, and some not so much.
Wrong: The First Meeting
The showrunners took some creative license while showing Diana and Charles' first meeting. In the show, the ill-fated couple met in the Spencer House when Charles came to meet Diana's older sister (whom he was dating at the time). Diana was dressed like a wood sprite for a play she was performing in, and they peered at each other through trees rather romantically.
In reality, Diana met Charles in a "ploughed field" when he was hunting on the Spencer Estate when she was 16 years old, and Charles seemed impressed with the exuberant young girl.
Right: She Met Camilla
Audiences were shocked and saddened to see the awkward lunch meeting between Diana and Camilla, suggested by Charles when he left for an Australian tour and further spurred by a note sent by Camilla to Di right before their wedding. The cruel lunch was not a fabrication, and it happened in real life too. In the show, they met at a restaurant called "Ménage à Trois", and while there's no confirmation about the original location of the meeting, a restaurant by that name used to exist in London.
Just like in the show, the real Princess Diana had been told by Charles initially that Camilla was just a friend. She found out later that she was his ex. While nobody really knows the minutes of the meeting, Diana had stated in interviews that there were a lot of pointed questions that were asked by Camilla about Highgrove, with less than clean intentions.
Wrong: The VHS Tape
The Crown showed Diana put up a surprise performance to Billy Joel's Uptown Girl for Charles on his birthday at the Royal Opera House, which displeased the Prince greatly. In reality, this performance did happen, but for the different occasion of honoring Royal Ballet dancers. The real Princess had prepared a surprise dance for Charles which he disliked.
However, the VHS tape that Diana gifted to Charles on their anniversary seems to be fictitious, where she sang "All I Ask Of You" from Phantom of the Opera on camera for her husband so he wouldn't have to feel ashamed about a public display like earlier. While Anne Sulzberger, the head of research for the show insists that this happened because Diana was spotted visiting the set of the musical several times, there is little to no proof that she ever recorded a performance on camera.
Right: The Bulimia
The Crown did a stellar job tackling Diana's mental health issues and bulimia. The scenes were developed with the help of an eating disorder organization called The Beat for a sensitive yet revealing insight into Diana's state of mind. With her level of celebrity, the Princess struggled privately with her binge and purge disorder which stemmed from her isolation and lack of acceptance in the Windsor family.
According to Princess Diana herself, the disorder began a week after her engagement to the Prince of Wales, when he made a comment about her chubby waist. While this detail was omitted from the show, their depiction of her health struggles was real.
Wrong: Her Relationship With Princess Margaret
The period drama showed Margo (played by Helena Bonham Carter) empathetic to Diana's struggles with trying to find a place in the frigid and nepotistic Royal Family, and she was even seen warning the Queen Mother and the Queen that the Princess might break if things were to continue as they were. However, the show didn't shed much light on the actual relationship between the Queen's sister and Diana.
In real life, Diana and Margaret were very affectionate and friendly with each other. The People's Princess spoke very fondly of the monarch, and they were photographed together several times. However, when Diana interviewed on Panorama on the BBC and spilled the toxic nature of her marriage and the family, Margo cut all ties after writing a scathing letter to the Princess.
Right: Her For HIV/AIDS
In Episode 10: "War," Diana was seen on a solo trip to New York, where she visited an HIV ward and spontaneously hugged a young boy inflicted by the disease. This one moment, while fictional, attempted to highlight Diana's lifelong allyship of AIDS patients and their well-being. In fact, she opened the UK's first dedicated AIDS ward in London.
On April 19, 1987, Princess Diana used her celebrity to do away with the taboos of making physical with somebody who had HIV-AIDS by shaking the hand of a dying man without gloves on. The move created ripples in the social fabric of the world and was done intentionally by the Princess to end the misconception that AIDS spreads by touch.
Wrong: The Story Behind The Ring
Princess Diana was one of the few royals whose engagement ring received as much attention as herself and her outfits. In the show, she is presented with "a special box of chocolates", which was a box of glittering rings, where she first picked a Burmese ruby ring from the royal collection but then chose her world-famous Ceylon sapphire ring.
In the scene, Charles and Elizabeth wonder why she picked that particular ring, but Diana says that it reminded her of her mother's ring. The story behind the choice of ring is shrouded in mystery, with s that say that she picked it because it matched her eyes, or because it was the biggest, or that it reminded her of her mother. Some even suggest that the Queen picked it, and there really is no clarity on this historical picking of the ring.
Right: She Found The Bracelet Days Before Her Wedding
Another heartbreaking incident on the show actually happened in real life, and that was the discovery of the "Fred & Gladys" bracelet that Diana got wind of just days before her wedding. While she found sketches of the lapis lazuli bracelet on The Crown, Princess Di found the actual bracelet in real life with the initials F and G on it.
In Diana's own words, Charles had the bracelet made, which he hand-delivered to Camilla just two days before his wedding on a Monday, and on Wednesday Diana was his wife. The Prince brushed it off as a farewell gift to a former love, but the public soon knew just how close he was to Camilla.