Is The Crown Factual? What’s Real and What’s Made Up

Was Diana Really Dressed as a Tree When She Met Charles?

Is the Crown factual in the way it depicted Charles and Diana’s first meeting? No. The meet-cute at her family estate is fictionalized, though rooted in truth. As Charles and Diana  recounted in a February 1981 interview, and as The Crown illustrated, they first met at Althorp, her family’s estate, while Charles was visiting Sarah.

But unlike in The Crown, Charles and Diana’s first meeting wasn’t indoors, and didn’t involve Diana dressed as a costumed “mad tree” running from one potted plant to another.

Diana said in the real-life interview that they “sort of met in a plowed field.”

“What I remember thinking is what a very jolly and amusing and attractive 16-year-old she was,” Charles said, adding that he found her “bouncy and full of life.”

The “mad tree” dramatization may have been inspired by another real-life situation in which Diana once hid behind a tree and hid her face to throw off nosey journalists.

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