I can feel it coming, the Clarence House-produced multi-month tantrum about The Crown’s Season 5. Clarence House did way too much in 2020 because Prince Charles was in a blind panic about how The Crown would portray his courtship with Lady Diana Spencer and his long-standing affair with then-Camilla Parker Bowles. All of that panic, and at the end of the day, I sort of thought that Peter Morgan (The Crown’s showrunner/producer) soft-pedaled a lot of the Charles-Diana storyline. Even with that softer version, Charles still came across as completely awful – a gaslighting emotional abuser who never cared about Diana, never protected her and was never loyal to her. The Crown also showed that the Windsors saw her as little more than a broodmare. Anyway, Charles is still worked up about it. As he should be. Season 5 is going to be SO BAD for him, lol. This living tampon is trying to get out ahead of it.
Netflix’s hit show The Crown has become well known for bending facts to suit its narrative, and for it’s wild and at times inaccurate portrayal of members of the royal family. And now even Prince Charles has spoken out about his depiction on screen in the drama, telling Scottish politicians he is ‘nowhere near’ his portrayal on the show.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has revealed that Charles gave his opinion to MSPs when he attended the state opening of the Scottish Parliament last October. Normal protocol is that politicians should not disclose what royals say to them.
However, speaking at an Edinburgh Fringe event, he said that when Charles met MSPs at a multi-faith ceremony in Edinburgh before the state opening, ‘he came over and went, ‘Hello, nice to meet you all. I’m nowhere near how they portray me on Netflix’.
Mr Sarwar added: ‘I thought that was a really interesting way of how you describe yourself.’
He then told the audience at the Gilded Balloon: ‘I’m going to be in so much trouble for this because I don’t think you are meant to tell private conversations!’ Clarence House declined to comment.
It’s in Charles’s head now, that The Crown is affecting people’s perception of him. Of course, he could have been joking too, trying to be self-deprecating. To be fair, Charles will often lead with “self-deprecating” when he’s making speeches or introducing himself to people. But yeah, Charles is worried. What’s crazy is that I think Josh O’Connor’s portrayal of Charles was pretty fair and almost complimentary. Josh is better looking than Charles and Josh kind of did an excellent job of showing Charles’s pathos. Josh made Charles seem like a very damaged, manipulative a–hole, as opposed to a wimp being led around by his mistress. It’s going to be a mess with Season 5 though. Dominic West will play Charles and no one knows how West will play Chaz.
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No, Chuck, you’re worse than they portrayed.
I agree! I’ve always thought that The Crown gave its version of the Windsors a lot more emotional depth than the real ones could be capable of, given how they operate. I guess it wouldn’t make for very good drama if you just depicted them as shit-filled quarter-inch-deep puddles!
Yes. The Crown was a VERY sympathetic portrayal of him and that is saying a lot.
Exactly my first reaction when I saw the headline!
If anything, the sitcom portrayal of Prince Charles and Camilla in the sitcom The Windsors, which is also available on Netflix in the States, is even worse. Camilla is a chain-smoking villain in that version.
Maybe that’s what he’s referring to, lol. My husband LOVES that show. We were actually visiting Windsor Castle last week and after we got back to the hotel room and the kids were going to sleep he made me watch the first three episodes on his ipad again LOL. He dies every time they reference Kate being a gypsy.
It’s obvious that Charles is deeply worried about how he is perceived by the public and he’s in a panic over the Crown’s portrayal of him. I get the sense he doesn’t believe that his treatment of Diana was wrong. It will be interesting to see if Harry talks about that in his book.
If Charles doesn’t believe that his treatment of Diana was wrong, because of the way he was raised (you MUST have a virgin, you MUST have an heir & spare because MONARCHY) it almost becomes understandable why they think Andrew did nothing wrong except get public attention focused on a negative …woman are still chattel in the RF..they are NOTHING to the men in this circle. Creatures to be used and abused for their pleasure. Kind of like pheasant hunting…sure, we kill ’em, but we give them to the lowlies to eat so they get to eat pheasant, not chicken are we not wonderful??!! Sure, we give the women jewels, we give them ‘luxury’ accommodations WHY AREN’T THEY MORE GRATEFUL TO BE ABUSED BY ROYALTY???”?? So yeah, I don’t think he believes his treatment of Diana, or Meghan is wrong. I bet he still thinks they should be grateful to him for deigning to pay any attention to them at all….SMH..
All this has been my line of reasoning for a few years now. They honestly cannot comprehend how anything they do could be anything other than marvellous, they have drunk their own kool aid and believe people are so lucky to have any involvement with them at all. They are a cult at this point.
He probably thought he was being funny. It makes it appear that he watches.
@equality … I thought it was a joke as well. In poor taste, but a joke all the same.
It was just a self-deprecating opening remark, a standard speech opening ploy to warm up your audience. That’s all this was. The idea that a Scottish MP, or anyone else, isn’t supposed to mention this to anyone is preposterous. Any royal anywhere says something & you’re not allowed to talk about it? Rubbish. These are not official state secrets, but pleasantries (for the most part). I’m also perturbed by the publication’s use of “it’s” for the possessive. Sheesh.
Having just seen that documentary “The Princess”, the Crown isn’t that hard on Charles. In actual news clips and interview footage in the doc, Charles comes across as contemptuous and cold toward Diana, and they actually play part of that icky tampon tapes, with all that moaning and purring between him and Camilla-just gross. He’s much worse than how that Netflix show portrays him. Also, wonder why he says Netflix, instead of the actual shows name.
Ooh, good point. He could’ve said the crown but no he says netflix. Way to stir up hate against Harry for his Netflix deal? What a father. Has he ever felt pure pride for his sons without the influence of jealousy? I’m thinking no.
I honestly think that there’s something deeply wrong with Charles on a psychological level. He’s pathologically jealous and insecure to the point that he will try to destroy not only the mother of his children but also one of those children when they didn’t fall into line. I think the reason that he is so ride and die for Camilla is that she caters to his ego constantly, which must be exhausting and why she often lives apart from him. She’s her own particular brand of awful as well – but more of a common garden variety of nasty.
I do sometimes wonder whether is some kind of covert narcissist. Being the heir in the BRF would certainly primes a person to become incredibly warped.
Historically, I don’t think there’s anybody who’s been Prince of Wales, or raised to be monarch, who hasn’t been turned into a selfish monster by it.
Well, at least we know *someone* reads the Daily Mail with their tea each morning.
I couldn’t even watch all of “The Princess” – the amount of footage about Diana being hounded by the press and the RF is just tragic. She married a man who didn’t love her, who actually actively loved someone else, and then it was constantly talked about. Prince Charles is a douche. That family has some seriously effed-up genetic material.
When I read this story this morning, I really thought it was a tongue-in-cheek remark, particularly since his comments came when season 4 was recently released. It does seem however that Sarwar took him seriously.
I believe him, he is a worst character in real life.
All of this!The Crown could have done so much worse.They portrayed him and Camilla as a great love story which yeah, no. I mean, he did love her but it is way more complex than that. Also, they didn’t show his other mistresses at ALL or the worst of his treatment of Diana.
I think they were actually pretty soft on him.
If Charles were given the same choice as his great uncle the throne or marriage to the mistress I think he would have chosen the throne
The throne is their ‘precious’. they all desire it.
*snort* yeah, right, Chuck
Of course, that was almost a year ago, and much more reality has been reviewed or reprised in documentaries/docuseries since then, putting his denial to the craven lie it is. Even the brouhaha over the Panorama interview has fueled the Streisand Effect over Charles’ and Camilla’s execrable treatment of Diana. HBO’s release of The Princess over the weekend was tough to watch because it was offered without commentary. When The Crown drops later this year, all their meticulous rewriting of history to repair Cam’s well-earned reputation will be finished off. Couldn’t happen to more deserving creeps.
Kaiser ITA in terms of Josh’s portrayal and also the writing! They made me feel bad for him a few times (the Wales episode, for example). Honestly I think they did him as many favors as they could in “The Crown.” But I mean I get it. He should be worried because even a nice portrayal of him was still not great
I find The Crown an incredibly restrained take on The Firm… certainly more restrained than I would be, if I were in the director’s chair! That they come off looking as poorly as they do even with this fictional take says a lot about how awful they are in real life.
What’s funny is that there were parts of Josh’s performance, especially early on, that genuinely made me sympathize with Charles at times, lol.
Methinks he wouldn’t be so obsessed with the show if the events and behaviors portrayed weren’t true…
O’Connor is a terrific actor in general. He was wonderful in a slightly similar role on Father Brown—a bookish heir constantly put down by his macho father.
I hope this gives him AND Cowmilla ulcers with the worry over it. Watched “The Princess” over the weekend, and seeing those clips, *actual* footage* of the looks he gave Diana, the often unveiled jealousy/digs, the gaslighting, the misery on her face (and this was just what we saw/heard in PUBLIC!)…you saw the light go out in her eyes, only to be there when she was with her boys, or doing her charity work.
What those two did to her (and what he’s done/ now doing to Harry and his family) is beyond despicable. They are both beyond selfish, self-centered, horrible people. If it was in my power, neither of them would know a peaceful day again.
“neither of them would know a peaceful day again.” I’ll bet anyone those are William’s plans for Harry once he’s king, because he’s pathetic that way.
it’s pretty telling that in his mind (and the BRF as a whole) their treatment of Diana wasn’t bad, she was clearly supposed to just accept being cheated on, be treated like a broodmare and just shut up about it…for them to think that’s an ok way to treat a human shows just how emotionally constipated these people are… #AbolishTheMonarchy
please I think the show makes him much more attractive and charming than he was in real life – The Princess (hbo doc) includes the footage/audio from that actual time of his life and – well – you can see for yourselves
As we suspected, him & his Rottweiler are terrified about the Crown’s portrayal of them. So all that mingling Camilla did with the cast was just to prove how “unbothered” she is when in reality, they had their media & tory buddies campaigning against it
Oh Charles, you are probably even worse than you are portrayed on Netflix. Just be glad they won’t be covering your money bags scandals. That would be a season I’d actually look forward to watching. And don’t get me started on snatching away your son and his family’s security. I hope you spend the rest of your life scrambling for excuses to cover that.
@MsIam If Charles doesn’t think Netflix portrayed him accurately in “The Crown”, maybe Netflix could include Charles and William in an episode of “Dirty Money”. It would be very interesting to see what proper investigative reporters uncover if they looked at their respective charities. Where the funding comes from and where the cash actually goes would probably make very interesting viewing indeed.
Seasons 2 and 3 were quite sympathetic towards him.
It could have been way worse.
Agree with others that Josh O’connor’s portrayal of him (and the general writing and plot lines) were actually pretty sympathetic to Charles. Even when they showed his treatment of Diana, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been because the Crown set up him and Camilla as this great thwarted love story, when that’s not really how it was as we’ve discussed on here ad nauseum. so all of C&C’s actions were in that light, that they were these thwarted lovers who just couldn’t stay away from each other and it wasn’t their fault, not really, that they were so awful to Diana, she was just caught in the middle.
And besides that, in a lot of scenes, they made it clear that Charles and Diana were just very different people, which was true, (thinking of the scene where they exchange gifts, and Charles got Diana something very nice…a first edition of the Spencer family history or something? I can’t remember….but it was a nice gift, but just obviously something she had no interest in.) They could have shown him as so much worse than they did.
Plus just considering that Josh came off younger than Charles actually was in the 80s and it was easy to forget the big age gap between Charles and Diana, which influenced the power dynamic in their marriage.
Dominic West is not going to play him as sympathetically.
O’Connor is also close in age to Emma Corbin and so the real life age difference was not as stark. In watching the Princess, you really noticed how much younger Diana was especially when you first see her at 19 and Charles is an older looking 32.
We rarely see ourselves the way others see us. And the more hubris we have, the less likely we are to see ourselves.
Exhibit A: brit-royals-and-their-sycophants-who-desperately-want-others-to-believe-theyre-annointed-by-god-and-therefore-are-above-reproach.
Charles imo believes his own spin
I said this during season 4, but Charles should have planted the question at an event and responded:
“As the creators have said, The Crown is a work of fiction… but they DID get the ears right.”
*jolly chuckle, walk away*
That’s all he had to say! Instead, his insecurity got the best of him, he went in waaaaaay too hard, and it’s been two years of making it all a much bigger deal!
@molly Brilliant! Charles’s pr people are really incompetent.
Dominic West is way too hot to play Charles. But he might be a good enough actor to pull it off, and he certainly has real-life references to pull from. The irony.
I seldom adhere to anything Charles says because I’m unsure if it’s sincere or performative. On this statement, I agree with Charles. He is nothing like the character portrayed on Netflix. He’s worse, and he knows it. Charles is out and about publicly campaigning for sympathy, and I can’t stop laughing.
Every time Charles starts on his whingefest about The Crown show again, I remember that old chestnut: hit dogs holler.
It was great when the Crown highlighted over and over again, when Charles was fed up and had enough of Diana, he ordered his drivers to take him to Highgrove (presumably into the arms of his mistress.)
That was not repeated enough for my liking. The story of Fred and Gladys’ bold-faced affair, before and during the royal marriage and how they used Lady Diana.
Ha, I hope he’s choking on it. He should be less worried about The Crown and more worried about those watching HBO’s The Princess. I sat through it in horror. It was jarring to have everything run together. Compared to that The Crown makes Charles look positivity normal.
What happened to never complain, never explain?