Royal expert warns Netflix ‘very very close to the bone’

The new season of The Crown will be the first to be released since the deaths of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II. Speaking on the latest episode of Palace Confidential, The Mail’s royal editor Rebecca English discussed the next season, and claims that after seeing the “full transcript of the next 10 episodes”, she was “really shocked” by their content.Speaking to host Jo Elvin, Ms English said: “I think it’s actually verging on the defamatory now. I was really surprised.”She also spoke of William’s comments over the Martin Bashir scandal. The scandal over his late mother’s famous Panorama interview in 1995, two years before her tragic death.She added: “[William] said, very clearly, that he found that whole episode so traumatic.”[He said] that his mother was so manipulated at a very vulnerable stage in her life that he didn’t want to see it broadcast again or used for any dramatic purposes.”READ MORE: Australia likely to stick with royals as former MP states ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ The fifth series of The Crown is out next week (Image: PA) The storyline follows the late Princess Diana in her final years (Image: PA)She added that, despite this, Netflix “not only put it over one episode but two episodes.”Ms English noted that “there’s one segment where you see Diana skidding in her car.”She said: “She thinks her breaks have failed, but she then said it might need, you know, someone’s tampered with it”, adding that this “leans into that age-old conspiracy”.She added that the series is “very very close to the bone”.READ MORE: King ‘routinely reduced to tears’ by Prince Philip as royal ‘felt abandoned’ in childhoodShe also pointed out the “infamous Camillagate tapes of the 1990s”.Ms English stated that “I understand you want to touch on it because it’s something very significant” but the streaming service, and show, does not just “touch on it”, they purposely “replicate everything in those tapes word-for-word”.Netflix has staunchly defended its show, insisting the “fictional dramatisation” was an “imagining” of events inspired by reality rather than a documentary-like retelling.Amid criticism about the lack of a disclaimer at the start of The Crown’s episodes, a spokesperson for Netflix said: “The Crown has always been presented as a drama based on historical events.DON’T MISS The series also follows the infamous Camillagate (Image: GETTY)”Series five is a fictional dramatisation, imagining what could have happened behind closed doors during a significant decade for the royal family – one that has already been scrutinised and well-documented by journalists, biographers and historians.”Netflix first aired The Crown in 2016.The season, which is yet to air, has already sparked backlash after former Prime Minister John Major slammed a number of upcoming storylines.He described it as ‘malicious nonsense’.A friend of the Firm has also dismissed the series and told the Times that the show was ‘damaging and malicious fiction’, and further branded the show as “vicious”.READ NEXT: