Why Is Princess Diana's Friend Shunning The Crown?

Jemima Khan no longer wants anything to do with "The Crown." The journalist, who was also good friends with Princess Diana, declared that she is cutting ties with the Netflix series, as the story had failed to show the late royal in a good light. According to The Guardian, Khan said that the portrayal of Diana was not handled "respectfully or compassionately."

This development came after she parted ways with the show creator Peter Morgan, with whom she was briefly romantically linked. She was invited by Morgan to work on the latest season, which highlights the tumultuous relationship between Diana and Charles and her sudden demise in 1997. While Khan has chosen to stay mum about her relationship with the People's Princess in the past, she had chosen to get involved with the show to help create an accurate portrayal of actual events. "It was really important to me that the final years of my friend's life be portrayed accurately and with compassion, as has not always happened in the past," she told the Sunday Times, per The Guardian.

The Evening Standard also reports that, prior to withdrawing from the project, Khan helped craft the storylines on Diana's involvement with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan and Harrods heir Dodi Fayed. It also covered the Panorama interview Diana had with Martin Bashir, where she referenced Camilla Parker Bowles, Charles' alleged mistress at the time. "Well, there were three of us in this marriage," Diana said. "So it was a bit crowded."

"In 2019, Peter Morgan asked me to co-write on the fifth series of 'The Crown,' particularly those episodes which concerned Princess Diana's last years before she died," Jemima Khan said, per The Guardian. "After a great deal of thought, having never spoken publicly about any of this before, I decided to contribute." She said that she lent a hand in developing the outline and scripts for about six months. However, when Khan realized that the show was not going to be faithful to what had transpired in real life, she requested that they set aside her contributions.

"When our co-writing agreement was not honoured, and when I realised that particular storyline would not necessarily be told as respectfully or compassionately as I had hoped, I requested that all my contributions be removed from the series and I declined a credit," Khan explained. 

After it had been made public that Khan cut ties with Netflix, a spokesperson for the show claimed she was never been on board as a writer in the first place. "Jemima Khan has been a friend, fan and a vocal public supporter of 'The Crown' since season one," the spokesperson told the Sunday Times, per The Guardian. "She has been part of a wide network of well-informed and varied sources who have provided extensive background information to our writers and research tea... She has never been contracted as a writer on the series."