‘The Crown’ new season ‘chimes truthfully with reality,’ says Diana’s former secretary

After much anticipation, the latest fifth season of The Crown debuted on Netflix on November 9.

As the latest installment of the royal drama series depicts the Royal Family in the 90s, the show sparked massive criticism over its explosive plotline featuring Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s dramatic divorce.

However, the late Princess of Wales’ private secretary, Patrick Jephson, who worked for the princess for almost a decade, has said that he could not find any ‘falsehoods’ or ‘lies’ in the new season of The Crown.

Jephson worked as Diana’s private secretary from 1988 to 1996. In 2019, he worked with The Crown producers to “contribute first-hand perspective on what really happened.”

After watching the advance screening of The Crown season five, he wrote an article in The Telegraph and admitted that he was on “maximum alert” looking out for any “malicious twisting of words,” and other “lies” but he could not find any.

“True, dramatic artifice was sometimes used to make a point more concisely than might have been the case in real life, and some chronology has been adjusted to cram years of events into the time constraints of a TV series,” he wrote.

Jephson also explained, “What I saw in the preview theatre created in my mind a story that chimed truthfully with the reality through which I had lived. And not just in my mind: there were scenes so real that I forgot to breathe, my heart thumped alarmingly and my palms grew clammy with cold sweat.”

The Crown season five is currently streaming on Netflix.