'The Crown' Risks Upsetting Prince Harry

Netflix's royal drama, The Crown, risks upsetting Prince Harry with its final season, as writer and creator, Peter Morgan, has deliberately avoided using the prince's bombshell memoir as a reference.

The Crown aired its first season in 2016, chronologically dramatizing the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II and her family. Over the years the show has earned both critical acclaim and criticism for its fictionalized portrayal of real people and events.

The show's highly anticipated sixth and final season will air in two parts on November 16 and December 14, the first instalment covering the tragic death of Princess Diana in 1997 and its immediate impact on the monarchy.

Several royals have confirmed they have watched the show, including Prince Harry who has been depicted in the series' fourth, fifth and soon-to-be sixth seasons.

The prince has said he fact checks the episodes as he watches and also has a professional link to the show's production studio, having signed a content creation deal with Netflix after his split from the monarchy alongside Meghan Markle in 2020.

Despite this, in a new interview for Variety, series creator, Morgan, revealed he has not read Harry's bombshell memoir published in January, in which the royal gives his own account of events in the time period covered by the show.

Morgan said that Harry is not a central character in The Crown, explaining that the focus has naturally been on those in the line of succession: Queen Elizabeth, King Charles, and Prince William.

"I do little bits of dramatization of Harry but mainly only in relationship to William," he said.

Explaining his decision not to read Harry's Spare memoir or incorporate elements of its narrative into the scripts for the last season, Morgan said: "I've not read a word of it. Not that I wouldn't be interested. But I didn't want his voice to inhabit my thinking too much. I've got a lot of sympathy with him, a lot of sympathy. But I didn't want to read his book."

In a January 2023 interview with Late Night host Stephen Colbert, Harry discussed The Crown, noting that it is part of the reason why he considers it important to put his own side of events out into the public domain.

Asked if he did indeed fact check the series, Harry pointed to his book saying: "Yes, I do actually. Which, by the way, is another reason why it's so important that history has it right."

The decision to ignore the prince's book as reference material—which revealed details about behind-palace-walls life, including his reaction to his mother's death and father's eventual remarriage to Camilla Parker Bowles—could risk irking the prince, who has pushed back against being misrepresented in the media on several occasions.

Considering Morgan's decision, entertainment expert and founder of MarkMeets, Mark Boardman, told Newsweek that it "reflects his meticulous approach to the creative process" and "underscores his commitment to crafting a narrative that extends beyond the royal family itself."

"I have no expectations for Morgan to touch upon any stories told by Harry," he said. "From the creative process, it would have meant a whole rewrite to make the drama flow and a major change in the existing storyline. While this decision may disappoint viewers who were expecting a literal portrayal of the book, it also comes with potential downsides."

"One downside is that the viewers will miss out on experiencing the visual interpretation of the events described in Spare on screen, including the high drama that such a portrayal might entail," he explained.

"Additionally, if Morgan had chosen to include potentially damaging or contentious content from Spare, it could have drawn reactions from the royals themselves, as they may closely scrutinize their portrayals on the show."

Following its January 10 publication, members of the royal family maintained a blanket "no comment" position on Spare and the claims made within it.

So far, neither Harry nor the royals have made any official statement about The Crown's final season.

Newsweek approached representatives of Prince Harry via email for comment.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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