How 'The Crown' Handled Princess Diana's Death

'The Crown' took a few liberties with the death of the former princess. The biggest takes us into the realm of fantasy.

By Andrew Roberts

The Crown is in the middle of its sixth and final season on Netflix, leaving fans of the Royals shook as the show scratching their heads ahead of the part two premiere on Dec. 14. According to Entertainment Tonight, the first half of the final season dealt with the loss of Princess Diana in Paris and the reaction of the Royal Family to her death.

SPOILERS AHEAD for The Crown's final season. Don't read forward unless you're prepared to spoil yourself or you just stopped caring months ago as your downward spiral continues.

Thankfully the show didn't dive too deep into the conspiracy waters that followed the real event in August 1997, but they did decide to toss a fictional curveball into the story. The show only details the public details of the actual crash, choosing to show the moment Diana and Dodi Fayed disembarked from the Ritz hotel and entered the fateful tunnel where they were killed in the crash. The sounds of the crash close episode three, leaving the next for the reactions.

But they went a step further by turning Diana and Fayed into ghosts that speak to the then Prince Charles on his way back from Paris after identifying his ex-wife's body, and then speak to Queen Elizabeth, played by Imelda Staunton, as she addresses the ghost like a disappointed mother.

"I hope you're happy now," the queen tells Ghost Diana on the Netflix series. "You've finally succeeded in turning me and this house upside down."

Ghost Diana goes on to lecture Elizabeth about treating the response from the citizens as a learning experience after the queen calls it a revolution. "It didn't need to be...But by making an enemy of me -- not me, personally, but what I stand for -- it starts to look like one," the ghost says. "They're trying to show you who they are. What they feel. What they need...For as long as anyone can remember, you've taught us what it means to be British. Maybe it's time to show you're ready to learn, too."

The Prince Charles interaction is far more emotional, with both Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki turning on the waterworks as the former royal couple. Debicki called the scenes a "beautiful expression of grief" while speaking with ET on the ghost scenes.

"I think grief, it's a such a huge, slippery, overwhelming human experience, and how do you represent that on screen? I think anybody who's lost somebody knows that one of the first things that you feel is taken from your life is the ability to speak with that person whenever you need to," she told the outlet. "So I think the idea Peter [Morgan] had is just sort of expressing that natural desire to see [them] just one more time. See that person and also say the things that you may not be able to say to them when they're there."

The Crown's final season is currently on break but will return on Dec. 14 with the second part of the final run, giving plenty of focus to the relationship between Prince William and Kate Middleton.

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