Yahoo Finance Princess Diana's Brother Says He's Worried Viewers of The Crown "Forget It Is Fiction"
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As millions binge the fourth season of The Crown on Netflix, Princess Diana's brother Earl Charles Spencer would like to remind fans that there's a fine line between fiction and fact. With the compelling characters and realistic depictions of royal life, it's sometimes difficult to remember that the drama is just a scripted television program, which is a concern for Spencer.
During an appearance on Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh, airing on Sunday (Nov. 22), he voiced his opinion on the topic, explaining to the host: "The worry for me is that people see a program like that and they forget that it is fiction. They assume, especially foreigners, I find Americans tell me they have watched The Crown as if they have taken a history lesson. Well, they haven’t.”
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He went on to explain that the show features "a lot of conjecture and a lot of invention."
"It is very hard, there is a lot of conjecture and a lot of invention, isn’t there?" says Spencer. "You can hang it on fact but the bits in between are not fact." The Crown's creator Peter Morgan previously admitted Spencer's accusations are true, revealing that private moments between the family had to be written through "educated guesses."
— Charles Spencer (@cspencer1508) November 7, 2020
As to why he's so passionate about correcting any inaccuracies that come to light in the show, Spencer explained that he has an obligation to honor his sister's memory. "I feel it is my duty to stand up for her when I can," he said. "She left me, for instance, as guardian of her sons, so I feel there was a trust passed on. And we grew up together. If you grow up with somebody they are still that person — it doesn’t matter what happens to them later."
RELATED: Everything The Crown Got Right (and Wrong) About Princess Diana
Emma Corrin, who depicts the late princess in the series, recently said that she understands the concern.
When asked about the criticism by the royal family during an interview with Tamron Hall, she explained: "It's a difficult one. I think for everyone in The Crown we always try and remind everyone that what we are, the series that we're in, is fictionalized to a great extent. Corrin added, "Obviously it has its roots in reality and in some fact but Peter Morgan's scripts are works of fiction."
