An official of the U.K. government is planning to write a formal request to Netflix to include a disclaimer in every episode of The Crown amid concerns that the show could be damaging to the British royal family.
Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said that the streaming platform needs to be "very clear" that the show is a work of fiction even as it depicts real-life events and people, such as Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
According to Forbes, the show's recent season has revived the controversy surrounding Prince Charles, the heir to the Queen's throne, his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, and the deceased Princess of Wales, Princess Diana. Charles and Camilla have received a deluge of criticisms on their social media pages, especially from the younger generation, prompting Clarence House to turn off their comments section on Twitter and Instagram.
Dowden said that that there are viewers who are just learning about the royal family for the first time, particularly Prince Charles' affair. The secretary added that these viewers could take the show's presentation as facts.
However, The Crown creator Peter Morgan has said, time and again, that he exercised his creative liberties in writing the stories. He has done interviews where he reiterated that he used his imagination in writing the dialogues, even as the show is heavily researched.
The culture head's statement comes as Australian broadcaster ABC also called out The Crown for its inaccuracies, especially in a scene involving former Australian prime minister, Robert James Hawke. Morgan apparently wrote in one episode that Hawke called Queen Elizabeth a "pig." According to historians, the prime minister didn't say that exact word despite his dislike for the royals.
Princess Diana's brother, Earl Charles Spencer, also supports the push to include a disclaimer in every episode. In a recent interview, he told ITV that some of his American friends are watching The Crown like it is a history lesson. Earl Spencer said the show has "a lot of conjecture and a lot of invention" in its plots, which are hard to accept as facts.
The Queen's former press secretary, Dickie Arbiter, said that The Crown seems like a "hatchet job" directed against the future King of England. Royal historian Hugo Vickers told Insider that the show is quite one-sided in depicting Charles and Diana's marriage.
Netflix or representatives of The Crown have yet to release a statement regarding this latest development. The streamer released season 4 on Nov. 15 and has been viewed by over 25 million subscribers globally.
