Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer has claimed he turned down a request from The Crown to film on his family’s estate.
The fifth series of the hit Netflix drama is currently in production, with the new episodes to be set around the final years of Diana’s life.
Speaking on Monday morning’s edition of BBC Breakfast, Earl Spencer admitted he’d been approached by producers for The Crown to shoot scenes at his family’s property in West Northamptonshire.
However, he said he had no interest in allowing the show’s crew to film on the site as he doesn’t “really do that stuff”.
“They applied,” Spencer explained. “They wanted to shoot here. But I don’t really do that stuff.
“Actually, to be honest, I don’t watch The Crown so I just said: ‘Thank you but no thank you’.”
Despite his admission that he doesn’t watch The Crown, Earl Spencer has criticised the show in the past, accusing producers of “playing fast and loose with history”.
“The worry for me is that people see a programme like that and they forget that it is fiction,” he previously claimed. “They assume. Especially foreigners – I find Americans tell me they watch The Crown as if they’ve taken a history lesson. Well, they haven’t.”
He added: “It is very hard. There is a lot of conjecture and a lot of invention, isn’t there? You can hang it on fact, but the bits in between are not fact.”
Spencer later called for Netflix to add a disclaimer stating that The Crown depicts a fictionalised version of history.
“Then everyone would understand that this is drama for drama’s sake,” he said.
“And obviously Netflix want to make lots of money, that’s why people are in the business of making these things. But I worry that people do think this is sort of gospel, and that’s unfair.”
Earlier this year, Emma Corrin won a Golden Globe for their portrayal of Diana in The Crown, with the role set to be played by Elizabeth Debicki when the show returns next year.
Dominic West will succeed Josh O’Connor as Prince Charles, while Imelda Staunton is taking over the lead role of Queen Elizabeth II from Olivia Colman.
Meanwhile, this year has seen Kristen Stewart win huge acclaim for playing Diana in the new biopic Spencer, with Netflix also releasing a much-derided recording of a new Broadway musical based on the late Princess of Wales’ life last month.
