AS fans of The Crown tuned in to the final instalment earlier today, one royal expert believes the "tawdry" and "unnecessarily cruel" series shouldn’t have seen the light of day.
According to Jennie Bond, the sixth season of the Netflix series is a "tasteless" depiction of the royal family in recent times, and will have left Prince William and Prince Harry feeling deeply upset.
The latest series focuses on the final months of Diana's life, including her relationship with Dodi Al Fayed who died alongside her in the 1997 car crash in Paris.
Jennie exclusively told Fabulous: “I think it must be incredibly hurtful for both William and Harry to know that the single most traumatic, dramatic and tragic event in their lives – the death of their mother – is now a drama to be enjoyed by millions.
"Remember how Harry said when he was made to shake people’s hands immediately after his mother’s death that he couldn’t understand why they were crying because they didn’t even know her, and now their private grief is being dramatised and made public again for the entertainment of the masses.
“I think The Crown should have ended with the last series. The death of Diana is simply too recent.
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"If people want to know what happened, they can look at the news reports of the time. How would anyone feel about having their mother’s final, difficult days dramatised?”
Jennie said that the scenes where Elizabeth Debicki’s Diana makes a phone call to Balmoral in the hours before her death, only to be told her sons were unavailable to speak, will be particularly painful for William and Harry.
She said: “I don’t know why [The Crown writer] Peter Morgan has changed this. It seems unnecessarily cruel. William and Harry have spoken about the call. They did talk to her.
"They were at Balmoral and were busy playing with their cousins. They spoke to their mother, but not for long because they were enjoying playing and they were going to see her very soon.
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“We already know that both boys wish it had been different and have thought about all the things they might have said had they known this was to be their last conversation with their beloved mum.
"Why turn the knife when they are already hurting about this? What is the point? Things like this in The Crown make me quite angry.”
Jennie added that the scenes where Charles, played by Dominic West, and The Queen, portrayed by Imelda Staunton, are visited by Diana’s ghost, are "tawdry."
“Bringing Diana back as a ghost is tasteless in the extreme," Jennie, who interviewed the late princess during her time as a royal reporter at the BBC, said: "I know it’s a dramatic conceit to give Morgan the chance to reflect on what has happened, but how would you feel if your dead mother was brought back to life as a ghost?
"And words were put in her mouth? I think this is the single most distasteful element, tawdry even, in what otherwise, certainly in the earlier series, was a classy production.”
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