The Crown: Series Researcher Pushes Back Against Criticism

The Crown's lead researcher defends the way the Netflix series has handled Princess Diana's story.

By Nicole Drum

Netflix's The Crown is in its sixth and final season with the first batch of final episodes, "Part 1", depicting the death of Princess Diana and the events immediately surrounding the tragedy. While the series has always faced some criticism for its general depiction of the royal family and historical events, these most recent episodes have in particular have faced some pushback. Now, however, the series' head of research Annie Sulzberger is pushing back. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Sulzberger says that she doesn't feel like the series has been "misleading in the slightest" and when it comes to how the series approached Diana's relationship with Dodi Fayed, they did their research — just not from news sources.

"They [Diana and Dodi] never managed to have time to go on the record about their relationship. So what we relied upon was not the news media at the time in 1997, but the witness testimonies in Operation Paget [the inquiry report into the allegation of conspiracy to murder Diana] and the coroner's inquest that came out much later — 2006 and 2008 — because in those, you heard from her best friends who had just gotten off the phone with her," Sulzberger said.

"We were able to get into her mental state very easily, and I think with a lot of accuracy through those testimonies that were vetted by the [British] Met police as being accurate. The same is actually true for Dodi," Sulzberger added. "There were a few people vetted by the inquiry as being honest witnesses to his behavior in those weeks. We felt those accounts gave us a really nice solid foundation."

"We're quite proud of all these nuggets we've been able to glean from very good research. And then when we present it, it's sort of taken as blasphemy," she said. "I hope people understand this is much more of an art. And we do an incredibly solid investigative job."

The Crown Has Faced Criticism Over Its Depiction of Princess Diana's Death

The first half of Season 6 of The Crown dealt with the death of Princess Diana and how the series handled the event is something that has drawn some criticism. Dickie Arbiter, who worked for Queen Elizabeth II during the time period portrayed in Season 6 of The Crown, is accusing series creator Peter Morgan of "dramatic license gone bonkers" with Arbiter in particular being critical of scenes in which Diana's death is broken to her sons.

"The sequence of Charles telling his sons of their mother's death was so insensitive, it was so unnecessary," Arbiter said. "The death of their mother is still raw with both of them. The scenes between Charles and his mother, in which he blurted out that she wanted Diana to come back in a Harrods van were absolute nonsense. It just didn't happen like that. Of course, an aircraft was going to be made available [to bring her body home from France]. The Queen was the first one to agree to that."

Arbiter also had comments about other scenes, particularly those regarding preparations for Diana's funeral. The series portrays it as the Queen deciding that Diana's funeral should be public when Arbiter says it was in fact Diana's brother.

"I was in charge and media arrangements for that week," Arbiter said "[Charles] Spencer thought that because Diana was a public figure, because she was very popular and people adored her, that it should be something handled by the royal family to make it a public event rather than a private family event."

Related:

What Is The Crown Season 6 About?

The final season of The Crown, which will be divided into two parts, is set to cover the time period between 1997 and some major events, including the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the premiership of Tony Blaire, and the early relationship of Prince William and Kate Middleton. "The final chapter begins November 16th. Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatisation tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II and the political and personal events that shaped her reign. Seasons 1-5 now streaming, only on Netflix," the streaming site shared with the release of the trailer.

The first four episode of Season 6 of The Crown are now streaming on Netflix.

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