The final season of The Crown will not cover Prince Andrew's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein—despite the major impact it would go on to have on the monarchy.
Peter Morgan, the show's creator, has indicated he will not touch one of the biggest scandals to hit the British royal family in modern times.
The sixth season covers the years 1997 to 2005, including the key period in which Virginia Giuffre says she was forced to have sex with Andrew in London, New York and the British Virgin islands in 2001.
The prince denies the allegations but settled out of court for an undisclosed sum without admitting liability.
Asked about Andrew, Morgan told Variety simply: "Haven't gone anywhere near him."
One explanation may be the challenge of depicting events in a context where Andrew has denied so much of Giuffre's account, stating that he never met her and indicating through lawyers that he believes it is at least possible a famous picture of him with his arm round her is a fake.
He told the BBC's Newsnight in 2019 when asked if he had had sex with Giuffre: "No and without putting too fine a point on it, if you're a man it is a positive act to have sex with somebody.
"You have to have to take some sort of positive action and so therefore, if you try to forget, it's very difficult to try and forget a positive action and I do not remember anything.
"I can't, I've wracked my brain and thinking oh… when the first allegations, when the allegations came out originally I went well that's a bit strange, I don't remember this and then I've been through it and through it and through it over and over and over again and no, nothing. It just never happened."
However, the existence of his friendship with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking offenses in June 2022, is beyond doubt.
Andrew was also photographed on a yacht surrounded by topless women while holidaying in Phuket, Thailand, with Epstein and Maxwell in January 2001.
And during the holiday, he went to a red-light district bar called "Patong's hottest girls, Number one for adult entertainment," according to biography Prince Andrew: Epstein, Maxwell and the Palace, by Nigel Cawthorne.
Andrew is not the only controversial subject Morgan has swerved, with the showrunner appearing to indicate that he will focus more on the heir, Prince William, rather than the spare, Prince Harry, since the show's narrative has always been centered around the direct line of succession: Elizabeth, Charles, and William.
"I do little bits of dramatization of Harry but mainly only in relationship to William," Morgan told Variety.
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jack Royston is Newsweek's Chief Royal Correspondent based in London, U.K. He reports on the British royal family—including King Charles ... Read more
