Everything Prince Harry Has Said About 'The Crown': 'It's Fictional'

Netflix is preparing to air its final season of hit royal drama The Crown in the coming months, charting the turbulent lives, loves and losses of Queen Elizabeth II and her family members from 1997 to 2005.

The show has courted critical acclaim and political controversy since it debuted in 2016, but do we know what the royals themselves really think about it?

One member of the royal family who has discussed his thoughts about the six-season show is Prince Harry, who in 2020 signed a content creation deal with Netflix to produce projects with wife, Meghan Markle.

Earlier that year, Harry and Meghan split from the monarchy, moving to California in the process. They have since discussed in detail their experiences inside the working royal machine.

In interviews since 2020, Harry has been asked about The Crown and whether he watched as the lives of his grandmother (Queen Elizabeth), father (King Charles), mother (Princess Diana) and, in later seasons, himself were dramatized for the masses.

Here, ahead of the release of its sixth season, Newsweek looks at everything Prince Harry has said about The Crown.

Loosely Based on The Truth

In February 2021, Harry gave his first interview since leaving the royal family a year earlier, discussing his motivations for doing so with fellow Brit and Late Late Show host James Corden.

In a pre-recorded interview segment with Corden on an open-top bus driving through Hollywood, Corden openly asked Harry how he felt about The Crown and the representation of royal life on screen.

"They don't pretend to be news," Harry said. "It's fictional but it's loosely based on the truth."

"Of course it's not strictly accurate, of course it's not, but loosely 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," he explained.

"I'm way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing the stories written about my family or my wife or myself because...that is obviously fiction, take it how you will, but this is being reported on as fact because you are supposedly news. I have a real issue with that."

Corden rounded off the topic by asking the prince which celebrity he'd like to see play himself on screen, to which Harry suggested Homeland star, Damian Lewis.

I Hear it's Very Popular

In May 2021, Harry was once again asked about The Crown in a podcast interview for Dax Shepard's The Armchair Expert.

"I've seen elements of it...I hear it's very popular," Harry joked, telling Shepard he'd only recently been asked about it by Corden.

He went on to add that seeing your life written about is something the royals are told they need to accept.

"I don't think you ever get used to it [having your life written about] but it is part of that life where you kind of have to—at least or certainly I was told this for many years—it's just the way that it is you have to accept that they are going to write xyz about you," he said.

"It's like 'but what if it's not true,' yeah right and it's like 'well just don't show them that you care because if you show them that you care then they're going to do it more and more and more.' So basically you're screwed, like there's absolutely no way out of this and so yeah."

I Have Actually Watched The Crown

Harry did not mention The Crown in his hit 410-page memoir, Spare, published in January 2023, but he was asked about the show in an interview with Stephen Colbert.

Speaking to the prince about his TV habits, Colbert asked if the royal had been watching The Crown, which released its fifth season, dramatizing the breakdown of Prince Charles (now King Charles III) and Princess Diana's marriage in the 1990s.

"Yes, I have actually watched The Crown—the older stuff and the more recent stuff," he said.

When asked by the show host whether he's tempted to "fact check it?" Harry responded: "Yes, I do actually. Which, by the way, is another reason why it's so important that history has it right."

The Crown season 6 will debut globally in two installments on November 16 and December 14 only on Netflix.

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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