Netflix's 'The Crown' Bashed by Another Royal Expert

As Netflix's hit historical drama The Crown prepares for its sixth and final season, the controversial series about the late Queen Elizabeth II's reign is facing more backlash. Appearing at Henley Literary Festival to promote the reissue of his 2022 biography Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, royal biographer Gyles Brandreth accused the series of turning the British royal family "into a soap opera" and warned the audience against the many "inaccuracies" depicted in the series.

According to Brandreth, who was well acquainted with the late monarch and her husband, Prince Philip, "The Crown is as truthful about the present royal family as Shakespeare's play Richard III is about Richard III... but it's not quite as well written." Brandreth urged the audience, per the Independent, to watch The Crown "if you like entertainment and Frasier isn't on," adding that "you don't need to watch it for learning anything. Not for a moment, not remotely. Well, a tiny bit – like a cartoon, there's no harm in that."

Although the biographer said he has "no objection to it as entertainment, none whatsoever," he said "the challenge is they've turned [the royal family] into a soap opera." Brandreth recalled a specific conversation he had with the late Duke of Edinburgh in the '90s while the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of York were making headline news and expressed concern about making "personalities" out of royal family members. Brandreth expressed similar concerns about The Crown, sharing, "it just doesn't work. [The royal family] is not about personalities."

"I have no objection to it existing at all, and the first season rang a bit true. It was entertaining. But as it became more and more recent, there were inaccuracies," Brandreth said. "It's riddled with mistakes, but that doesn't really matter, because it's a bit of fun! It's a bit of nonsense. It's slightly frustrating if you're real people, but they're not. The Queen wouldn't dream of watching it."

Since its debut back in 2016, The Crown, which documents a decade of the late monarch's reign each season, has faced controversy, with growing calls for Netflix to outwardly tell viewers the series is fiction. Back in 2020, it was reported that UK Cultural Secretary Oliver Dowden wrote to Netflix demanding a "health warning" to explicitly state the show is "fiction" be added before each episode. In 2022, Dame Judi Dench penned an open letter published by The Times in which she accused the series of "crude sensationalism" and called for a more obvious statement about the fictionalization that's gone into the historical drama. Meanwhile, ahead of the Season 5 premiere last year, a "senior royal source" warned that The Crown is "a drama not a documentary," and bashed the series for being "exploitative." For their part, Netflix in 2020 released a statement that they "have every confidence our members understand it's a work of fiction that's broadly based on historical events."