Princess Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, has furiously slammed Netflix bosses for their 'grotesque' depiction of her last days alive and the fatal car crash in The Crown.
The Netflix series is set to show Princess Diana's final few months before her fatal car crash. Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed died in a car crash in Paris in August 1997 while their driver, Henri Paul was fleeing the paparazzi. Henri also died in the crash.
The sixth and final series of The Crown will show the run-up to the tragic deaths, although the crash itself will not be portrayed on screen. Set to cover events up to 2005, the final season of the hit show brings the story of the monarchy hurtling into the 21st century, but it begins in 1997 with the most catastrophic moment in recent royal history.
As a car screeches through a tunnel in Paris, crashing in a horrific accident, the dramatic opener lurches viewers immediately into a specific time and moment that everyone remembers. Paul, 65, has now furiously slammed the streaming-giant's decision to cover the harrowing last few days of Diana's life.
Paul served as a footman for the late Queen before working for Diana as a butler for 10 years until her death in Paris in 1997. Speaking to The Mirror, Paul said the current series is too close to recent history, thus opening old wounds for Diana's close friends and family, including Prince William, 41, and Prince Harry, 39.
Burrell, who Diana described as “the only man she ever trusted” said he feels a duty to watch the sixth season of the Netflix show about the Royal Family to see how her memory is preserved - but will be watching the “grotesque” scenes through his fingers.
"It's too close to our memories and it's too close to people's hearts, to William, to Harry, to all the people that knew her and loved her,” he said. “It seems macabre to show the vehicle in which she died. I find the whole scene of Diana's death portrayed in a fictional TV show to be grotesque.”
At the time of Diana’s death it was rumoured that she was pregnant and expecting her lover Dodi Fayad’s child. The rumour was later disproved by a pathologist at Diana’s inquest but The Crown once again rehashes the untruth. “Please don't say that Diana was having a baby when she died because she wasn't. That is not true,” he said.
“Please depict the crash with elegance and style. Please don't go into gory details. We know what happened, it wrecked all our lives. We don't want to see it again.”
Paul said he thinks the public are “confused” about what’s true and what’s made up for the show. “I want to sit on everybody's couch at home and watch The Crown with them and say to them, 'I was there. This never happened. This is a story. Oh, by the way, this did happen, she did do that.' Because I think the public are confused as to what's true and what's fiction,” he told.
It won't be the first time Diana's fatal crash has been depicted on the small screen. It set the scene for the initial Volume 1 release, which is a four-episode arc focused solely on the death of Princess Diana. Although the final phone call was depicted in the show, Prince Harry remembered it a lot differently and revealed he deeply regrets the last time he spoke to his mother.
In the 2017 documentary 'Diana, Our Mother', Princes William and Harry sat down to recall some of their memories of their mother and spoke about the last times they saw her. Harry said: “I can’t really, necessarily, remember what I said. But all I do remember is probably, you know, regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was.
"And if I’d known that was the last time I was going to speak to my mother – the things I would have said to her.” William added: “I remember just feeling completely numb, disorientated, dizzy. You feel very, very confused. And you keep asking yourself, ‘Why me?’ All the time, ‘Why? What have I done? Why? Why has this happened to us?’”
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