With Netflix’s wildly popular series The Crown heading into its fifth season, there’s been more pushback from the actual royal family the drama is based on. Prince William has already made his displeasure at how the drama has covered his late mother, Princess Diana, known, but it’s been recently revealed that the show filmed a pivotal scene only a few hundred yards away from the royal’s home.
Princess Diana’s Revenge Dress Featured In ‘The Crown’
In 1995, just a year before her divorce from her then-estranged husband Prince Charles was finalized, Princess Diana caused an international stir after she attended the Vanity Fair dinner at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
Diana wore what has since been deemed her “revenge dress.” The late Princess of Wales wore a little black dress that bared her shoulders and left quite a lot of cleavage on display. She also showed off her long legs, encased in black, sheer pantyhose, thanks to the dress’ short hem.
The daring look was taken as a middle finger to the royal family as it flouted several royal protocols at a time when it was public knowledge that her marriage to Charles was on the rocks. That same day, Charles acknowledged in an interview that he’d been having an affair with his now-wife, Camilla Parker Bowles.
Obviously, this point in time was too rife with drama for The Crown to resist, as the latest season of the hit Netflix series proves. Recently, the drama filmed the scene of Diana stepping out for the Vanity Fair dinner in the iconic “revenge dress,” but it’s the location of the filming that’s raising several eyebrows.
A Location With Gravitas
The scene was filmed on location in London, right at the same spot in Kensington Gardens where Diana wore the famed dress. It also happened to be practically within spitting distance of where the late princess’ son, Prince William, currently lives with his wife Kate Middleton and the couple’s three children.
A “TV insider” spoke with Central Recorder about the loaded location where the scene was filmed. The outlet referred to the filming location, just about 800 yards away from William’s home, as an “insult” that would be sure to have the second-in-line to the throne “enraged.”
The source insisted, “[The show] could have chosen any location to recreate this scene, but they opted to select a spot which can almost be viewed by William from his bedroom window.”
A Source Speaks Of Royal Fury
The unnamed source continued, “Just imagine if he had seen. There’s also likely to be questions asked about how any permission was given to use a royal park to film a drama which the Royal Family has been so deeply unhappy about.”
Even more “bewildering,” the snitch concluded, was the fact that The Crown was allowed to film within a royal park, which is also home to William’s family, in the first place. It should be noted that Central Recorder is a tabloid that doesn’t always cite trustworthy sources, so we can’t state for a fact that what this source says is true.
There’s been some drama between William and the Netflix series lately. This season of the show covers the same time period as both the “revenge dress” as well as Diana’s controversial, possibly illegal, bombshell interview with Martin Bashir. A new ruling earlier this year found that Bashir used unlawful methods to manipulate Diana into giving the interview, in which she confessed that both she and Charles had been unfaithful in their marriage.
The interview is also commonly seen as the point where Charles and Diana’s marriage completely fell apart. This is obviously a sensitive subject for Diana’s sons, it remains to be seen if it will be handled in an equally sensitive way on the show.