With The Crown season 5 still trending on Netflix – Andrew Morton, the royal biographer of Princess Diana’s biography titled “Diana: Her True Story”, has come forward about his experience on watching the latest season. Here’s what he had to say:
Morton’s experience
While watching the latest season, Morton said he was ‘shaking’ because as much as the series depicts parts of the royal family’s lives, it also felt like watching snippets of his own life.
“I was shaking watching that. It was like being taken back 30 years to when I was interviewing her for the book,” Morton said on the 3rd Hour of TODAY.
The biography contents
The biography was published in 1992 however, Princess Diana’s involvement was kept discreet. In 1997 after the princess’s passing, Morton came forward, revealing that the late Princess was his main data source for the biography. Secret tapes were filmed and smuggled to Morton.
We suspect it’s rather a strange feeling knowing information before the rest world and having to keep it to yourself. Morton knew that The Prince and Princess of Wales’ marriage was no fairytale.
Morton tells TODAY: “I was nursing a secret and the secret was a dangerous one: The Prince and Princess of Wales were living separate lives. The Prince of Wales was enjoying a life with Camilla Parker Bowles. And this was knowledge kept from the British people and the world.”
The Crown shows the fallout of the 1992 book, which breached the wall between the palace and public life. Diana was able to do a first proofread on the book before being published.
Morton said watching Elizabeth Debicki play Diana in the recent season of the hit series was like “seeing a ghost.” He had been consulted by Netflix for accuracy on Season 5.
Of seeing Diana, he said that “her mannerisms and speech patterns were identical to the late princess. For me, having worked so closely with her, it was like seeing a ghost. It was really uncanny.”
Morton and the rest of The Royal Family
Morton has written many books about the royal family, including his latest about Queen Elizabeth II.
He has written about Prince Harry and Prince William and their falling out as well, believing that their mother would be disappointed in them today as to how separated they’ve become.
Harry is on the brink of publishing his own tell-all biography, just like his mother before him. The memoir will be titled Spare and is set to be released in January 2023. Harry promises that the book to be a “firsthand account of his life”. However Morton says: “The fact that the title is spare signifies it’ll be about his role as being shadow of his eldest brother, predicting that ‘reconciliation is a long way off’ between the brothers”.
While writing the book, Morton knew that it would make for a good movie or TV show one day. “I was disappointed it took them so long to do a movie on it,” Morton said.
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