The Crown has done an admirable job dramatizing the life and times of the British royal family for three seasons, but let’s be honest: Season 4 is when it finally gets to the good stuff. The love triangle between Prince Charles, Princess Diana, and Camilla Parker Bowles is one of the biggest royal stories of the 20th century and watching it play out on screen is what fans tune in for.
After her separation (but not divorce) from Prince Charles, Princess Diana famously commented in 1995 that there were “three people” in her marriage, which made it “a bit crowded.” Comments like these are often used to cast Camilla Parker Bowles as a woman who’d been scheming to ruin the royal marriage from the start. As The Crown shows and reality reveals, the true story is a lot more complicated.
As The Crown shows and reality reveals, the true story is a lot more complicated.
For the most part, The Crown gets the timeline of Charles’ relationships with Camilla and Diana right, but as with any dramatic interpretation of history some facts have been fudged, moved, or outright fabricated. Let’s start from the top, when Charles began seriously dating Diana.
Charles was definitely in an adulterous relationship with Camilla while he was dating Diana. Camilla married Andrew Parker Bowles in 1973 and had remained close with Charles for much of her marriage, but by the time 1980 came around her husband’s cheating encouraged her to seek out her then-unmarried old partner the Prince. Parker Bowles didn’t seem to mind that his wife was having a semi-public affair; Sarah Bradford’s 2006 biography Diana describes Charles and Camilla as “French kissing” at a ball in 1980 while Parker Bowles was present.
Charles had known Diana socially for years before beginning to date her in 1980, and he continued to act as Camilla’s affair partner while dating Diana because he wasn’t really thinking about marrying her until it became inevitable. Charles had a bunch of girlfriends (as seen in The Crown, he maybe even dated Diana's sister Sarah Spencer, but some say they were just friends) in the years between Camilla’s marriage and his own, earning the nickname the “Playboy Prince.” He even proposed to one of them — the late Lord Mountbatten’s granddaughter Amanda Knatchbull, who said “no thanks” to being a princess because, to be fair, the whole deal is kind of a nightmare.
The Playboy Prince schtick was getting old when Charles and Diana had been dating for a while, and The Crown accurately shows how much pressure Charles was under to propose to Diana before he ran out of acceptable virgin noblewomen to date. The awful quote from his engagement announcement, when he agrees they are in love “whatever 'in love' means,” actually happened, though Diana’s reaction to it is unknown. Current sources insist that Camilla told Charles they were through with their physical relationship the moment he was engaged, which may be true even though they remained in...affectionate contact.
The Crown makes it appear that Diana and Charles barely saw each other between their engagement in February 1981 and their July wedding, which is slightly exaggerated to serve the show’s point that Diana was immediately isolated after agreeing to marry the Prince. Further exaggerations are Diana’s lack of royal manners, considering she had known the royal family for years and was an aristocrat herself. Not to mention that whole thing with the roller skates.
Seriously, if Princess Diana ever actually roller-skated morosely through Buckingham Palace while listening to '80s pop hits, we’d know.
Seriously, if Princess Diana ever actually roller-skated morosely through Buckingham Palace while listening to 80s pop hits, we’d know.
Another event that would be common knowledge if it had happened is the lunch scene. That condescending lunch date between Diana and Camilla is almost certainly a fiction, but there was another trick that may have been equally cruel. Royal biographer Penny Junor writes Charles never told Diana he “used to” date Camilla while he was courting Diana and brought her to stay at the Parker Bowles’ house early in their relationship. Diana, then only 19 years old, didn’t find out whose house she had stayed in until later and was allegedly embarrassed.
One thing is clear though: by the time Charles and Diana were actually married, Camilla had bowed out of her physical relationship with Charles. The “G and F” bracelet Diana finds in Charles’ assistant’s things was real, one of many trinkets Charles had made for the girls he dated as goodbye presents now that he was off the market (gross). The Crown makes it seem like Charles and Camilla were in contact through his tour of Australia, but it’s more likely that he didn’t talk or speak with her for five years.
A thing The Crown does well is lay the groundwork for the mutual jealousy and mistrust that would characterize Charles and Diana’s early years together. Charles kept Diana in the dark about Camilla for far too long, stoking confusion and frustration that nearly scuppered their marriage, and Diana garnered so much media attention that Charles became vocally upset at being overshadowed.
One thing The Crown does well is lay the groundwork for the mutual jealousy and mistrust that would characterize Charles and Diana’s early years together
Prince Charles insisted in an infamous 1994 television interview that he didn't cheat on Diana with Camilla until 1986, after Prince Harry was born and his marriage had "irrevocably broken down." The Crown shows Diana engaging in an affair with James Hewitt around that time while Charles resumes his relationship with Camilla. Camilla was a thorn that scratched away at the royal relationship even when she wasn’t present, but she was far from the only problem Charles and Diana had from the start.
Season 4 ends with the Queen and Prince Philip yelling at Charles and Diana, respectively, explaining why divorce is impossible and their actions could harm the royal family for decades to come. The dramatic irony there is tragic and unavoidable, as the first dominoes leading to the complete collapse of the Prince and Princess of Wales’ had been flicked years before the pair had ever met.
