What ‘The Crown’ Got Right — and Wrong — About Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ Relationship

Credit: Alex Bailey/Netflix

What 'The Crown' Got Right — and Wrong — About Princess Diana and Prince Charles' Relationship

It's no secret that Princess Diana and Prince Charles' marriage wasn't a happy one. If you had any doubt, once you watch season 4 of The Crown, that will be gone. The Princess of Wales (Emma Corrin) makes her debut on the Netflix series during the season premiere, meeting Prince Charles (Josh O'Conner) while he is visiting her older sister, Sarah. In the scene, a 16-year-old Diana is in a tree costume, which she wore for a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Throughout the first episode, which spans over three years, Charles told his father he was more interested in Camilla Parker-Bowles — but Prince Philip did not approve. [jwplayer BXw5oi28] Over the course of the season, their relationship experiences intense turmoil, including multiple blowout fights about Parker-Bowles, who he later married. It also appears that the marriage was completely set up by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, rather than out of the love in Charles' heart. “I care about her. Morning, noon and night, I care about her. … Camilla is who I want. That is where my loyalties lie. That is who my priority is," he screams at Diana in the finale. “I refuse to be blamed any longer for this grotesque misalliance. I wash my hands of it. If you have a complaint about not being loved or appreciated in this marriage, I suggest you take it up with the people who arranged it.” The Crown writer and executive producer Peter Morgan previewed the fourth season ahead of its debut, opening up about the challenges. "It’s very hard to write the innocent start to a relationship when you know how tragically it ended and indeed how unhappy they were throughout it," he told TVLine. Charles and Diana married in July 1981 and had two children, Prince William and Prince Harry. In 1992, the duo separated and four years later, they announced their divorce after both admitted to extramarital affairs. The following year, the princess died in a car crash in Paris. In this season, Charles is "a man desperately trying to get out of this mess,” O’Connor, 30, said about the arranged marriage. "These are two very lost souls … They both needed something they couldn’t give each other, and it didn’t work." Scroll through the gallery below to see which moments in season 4 did — and didn't — happen in real life.

Credit: Des Willie/Netflix (2)

The Meeting

Charles met Diana while seeing her sister, Sarah, but later reconnected with the future Princess of Wales following the death of Lord Mountbatten. In the first episode, Diana walked up to his car to share her condolences for his loss.

However, the moment was a bit different in real life.

“We were talking about Mountbatten and I said, ‘You must be so lonely,’” the late princess recalled in the Channel 4 documentary Diana: In Her Own Words. “I said, ‘It’s pathetic watching you walking up the aisle with Mountbatten’s coffin in front, ghastly, you need someone beside you.' Whereupon he leapt upon me and started kissing me and I thought, ‘Urgh, this is not what people do.’ And he was all over me for the rest of the evening, following me around like a puppy.”

Credit: Des Willie/Netflix

Whatever Love Means

In episode three, perfectly titled “Fairytale,” Diana and Charles get engaged and take part in their first TV interview. When the reporter says they look very much in love, Diana responds, “Yes, absolutely.” Charles then adds, “Whatever in love means.” Afterward, he abruptly leaves for Highgrove. Later, they reunite at the airport and she’s fighting back tears.

While the interview very famously did take place — and he said that quote — Charles and Diana actually had dinner with the Queen that evening, and he didn’t head to New Zealand until the next month.

Credit: Des Willie/Netflix

The Jealousy

Throughout their relationship, the public and the press adored Diana — but Charles became jealous of the attention she was receiving instead of him. That seems to be true to history.

“Of all the royals, she was by far the shrewdest in understanding that her power to deal with the [rest of] the royals lay in having the media on her side,” Clive Irving, author of The Last Queen, told The Standard. “There was a Diana bias in all the coverage from the beginning. The Crown gets this exactly right, without overdoing it — after all Charles is as complex as any Shakespearean prince.”

Credit: Des Willie/Netflix

The Australia Fallout

During the sixth episode, Diana struggles to balance motherhood and her duties but also cannot seem to connect with her husband. While they’re on a tour of Australia, they fight about his relationship with Parker-Bowles, and she reveals that she's aware the cufflinks he wears are a gift from his ex.

Parker-Bowles' gift to Charles was real, the princess herself explained in Diana: In Her Own Words. “We were opening our diaries to discuss various things. Out comes two pictures of Camilla. And on our honeymoon, cufflinks arrive on his wrists. Two C’s entwined like the Chanel ‘C’. Got it. One knew exactly. So I said ‘Camilla gave you those didn’t she?’ He said ‘Yes, so what’s wrong? They’re a present from a friend,’” she recalled. “Boy, did we have a row. Jealousy, total jealousy. And it was such a good idea the two C’s but it wasn’t that clever.”

Additionally, photographer Ken Lennox said during ITV’s The Crown: Secrets of the Royals, that it was during the Australia trip he first saw the bumps in their marriage.

Credit: Netflix

The Dance

During episode 9, Diana surprises Charles with a dance to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girls” at a gala — something that left him extremely embarrassed. The routine happened in real life, and Charles reportedly “wasn’t terribly impressed,” royal expert Richard Kay said in the documentary Princess Diana: The Woman Inside.

Credit: Des Willie/Netflix

The Threat

In the finale, after a bitter fight with Charles, Prince Philip goes to Diana’s room. When she says she has “no option but to break away officially” from the family, he advises against it. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he tells her. “I can’t see it ending well for you.”

In real life, the threat reportedly came in a form of a letter, according to Andrew Morton’s book, Diana: Her True Story. The Duke of Edinburgh allegedly told her to “fit in or get out” and demanded that she “help maintain the dignity of the Crown.”

The Crown season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.