Everything the Royal Family Has Said About ‘The Crown’

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Everything the Royal Family Has Said About ‘The Crown’

The cast of The Crown has admitted that they are worried about how the British royal family feels about the Netflix series, but do they tune in? Prince Harry, Princess Eugenie and more members of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s family have revealed their thoughts about the scripted drama loosely based on royals over the years. Season 1 of The Crown started streaming on Netflix in 2016 and starred Claire Foy as the queen and Matt Smith as the late Prince Philip. “I would hate the idea of her watching it,” Foy told Town & Country in 2017 about the monarch tuning in to the drama. “When you’re playing a real person, you never want to be ghoulish. I don’t want to pick apart a person. I want to invent someone. So, I would hate for her to watch it and think I overdramatized anything.” Vanessa Kirby, who played Princess Margaret on the show’s first two seasons, claimed a friend of hers overheard Eugenie talking about the show at a party in 2017. ”A friend of mine was at a party and didn't know anyone, so he sidled up to this group who were talking about The Crown," Kirby told Harper's Bazaar. "One girl said, 'Well, my granny watches it and really likes it.' It slowly dawned on him that the girl was Eugenie and her granny was the queen." While the queen herself hasn’t publicly spoken about The Crown, U.K. government’s Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, pleaded with the streaming service to add a “disclaimer” to the series in 2020. Netflix, however, disagreed. [jwplayer rUWo7apj-l3ahXupL] “We have always presented The Crown as a drama — and we have every confidence our members understand it’s a work of fiction that’s broadly based on historical events,” the streaming service said in a statement. “As a result, we have no plans, and see no need, to add a disclaimer.” Dowden’s request came after season 4 of The Crown was released and debuted the character of the late Princess Diana, played by Emma Corrin. While the Netflix series has already been renewed for seasons 5 and 6, Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal exit drama will not be covered on the show. “To be clear, series 6 will not bring us any closer to present-day — it will simply enable us to cover the same period in greater detail,” creator Peter Morgan said in a statement in July 2020. Scroll through for everything the royal family — including Harry — has said about the Netflix series:

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Meghan Markle

“I’ve watched some of it,” the former actress replied when asked about the series during her and Harry’s CBS sit-down in March 2021.

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Prince Harry

“They don’t pretend to be news. It’s fiction. … But it’s loosely based on the truth,” the prince said on The Late Late Show With James Corden in February 2021. “It gives you a rough idea about what that lifestyle, what the pressures of putting duty and service above family and everything else, what can come from that. I’m way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing the stories written about my family, or my wife, or myself.”

Harry added that actor Damian Lewis would be his pick to play him on the show.

During a January 2023 appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the Duke of Sussex admitted that he had seen the Netflix series, both "the older stuff and the more recent stuff."

When asked whether he fact-checks while watching, the prince admitted, "Yes I do, actually. Which by the way, is another reason why it's so important that history has it right."

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Princess Eugenie

The youngest daughter of Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York confessed to watching “a couple of episodes” in 2017.

“It is filmed beautifully,” she told Hello. “The music is wonderful, the story is beautiful. You feel very proud to watch it. I can’t speak for everyone, but that’s how I felt when I watched it.”

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Sarah Ferguson

The duchess told Us exclusively in January 2021 that she “loved” the way her wedding to Andrew was portrayed on the show. “I thought it was filmed beautifully. The cinematography was excellent,” she added.

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Earl Charles Spencer

Princess Diana’s brother revealed the Netflix series asked for permission to film at Althorp, the Spencer family's estate, but he denied access.

"The worry for me is that people see a program like that and they forget that it is fiction," he said on ITV’s Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh in 2020. "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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Princess Anne

The queen’s daughter admitted in the 2020 documentary Anne: The Princess Royal At 70 that she found season 1 episodes "quite interesting.” Anne also reacted to actress Erin Doherty’s comments that styling her hair for The Crown to play Anne took up to two hours.

"The actress was talking about how long it took them to do their hair like I did, and I'm thinking, 'How could you possibly take that long?'" she said. "I mean, it takes me 10 or 15 minutes."

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Zara and Mike Tindall

“I only got about halfway through season three, so I started watching season three last night and then I'll catch up. But I've seen it all over the place, and on these popular midday TV shows,” the husband of Queen Elizabeth’s granddaughter said on his “The Good, The Bad & The Rugby” podcast in 2020. "I'm quite intrigued to see where they go with it because obviously, it's an era people are fascinated with. It's getting to more things that people know about, isn't it, and have opinions about — so that's where it gets difficult."

He concluded: "It's a drama, so it's going to be made to be a bit of a drama."

Zara, for her part, previously joked on the podcast that she wanted Jessica Biel to play her on the show.