Princess Diana’s story came to a close in the Season 6 part one conclusion of “The Crown.”
The first four episodes of the final season dropped earlier this month — and detailed her love affair with Egyptian billionaire Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), their untimely deaths, and Dodi’s relationship with his father, Mohamed Al-Fayed.
However, the royal drama seems to be chock-full of historical inaccuracies — according to BBC corespondent and Mohamed’s former press secretary, Michael Cole.
Cole told the Sun how the streamer’s “malicious” scenes are hurtful to the late Princess of Wales (Elizabeth Debicki) and the film producer’s reputations.
The two perished in a car crash in Paris in August 1997.
Cole insisted that producers of the series did “not respect Diana,” the show is “a travesty of the truth” and that the romance was not just a short rendezvous like it was presented on screen.
“It’s the complete opposite [of the truth], and completely cruel, and unnecessarily so, and they’ve got it wrong, because okay, we know it’s drama,” he said, adding that she and Dodi were “in love.”
Mohamed (Salim Daw) was portrayed as a matchmaker between his son and the princess, appearing as a villain trying to savagely bring them together for his personal gain.
But this was far from real life. “[Mohamed] did not somehow conjure this relationship, this romance, this love affair,” Cole alleged.
“Quite the reverse, he was there to be supportive, but he was not promoting it in any way. To say that he was is injurious, it’s nasty. It’s untrue,” he scoffed.
The show also depicts Dodi breaking off his engagement to model Kelly Fisher (Erin Richards) and scurrying to be with Diana — after his father told him too.
“It’s impossible for anybody to make anybody else fall in love with someone,” Cole said in response.
He went on: “Mohamed was a remarkable man in many, many ways. But even he would have never claimed to be able to make two adult people fall in love with each other. It’s ridiculous.”
Another instance in “The Crown” that Cole felt was inaccurate, was the moment where Mohamed was seen hiring photographer Mario Brenna to capture the infamous kiss between Dodi and Diana on his yacht, the Jonikal.
Cole alleged that Brenna was already in Sardinia, and by pure happenstance, he found the duo in a lip-lock.
“He saw a blonde woman on a deck and he thought it was somebody he knew. And as he approached, he suddenly realized it was Diana. And he took a very, very long-range, fuzzy photograph,” Cole claimed.
“Mohamed, far from conspiring to bring about this photograph for commissioning it from Mario Brenna, he then actually sued the agent who sold the photograph. That’s how badly he felt.”
The journalist then claimed that Diana’s eldest son, Prince William, did like Dodi, despite the opposite being played out on “The Crown.”
In one scene, a teenage William (Rufus Kampa) calls Dodi “weird” while on the phone with his mom.
Cole denied this interaction, saying that it was “absolutely untrue.”
“She would never have done anything that would have embarrassed them and made them subject to bullying at school and teasing,” he concluded.