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

Is the The Crown factual? If you’ve Googled this, you’re probably looking for spoilers, but if not, be forewarned: There are many ahead.

The Crown creator Peter Morgan does an admirable job of sticking to the facts when it comes to specific names, dates and incidents in is retelling of recent Royal scandals. But he also makes up a fair number of conversations for dramatic purposes — often with beautifully resonant results.

In Season 4, The Crown enters an era – the 1980s — that many of its viewers likely remember. That means more expectation than ever that The Crown will be factual. But the show has never purported to be a documentary. Rather, it is a deeply entertaining, and quite well-informed, mix of fact and well-educted conjecture.

Here’s what the show portrayed accurately, and what it made up for dramatic purposes.

Did Charles Really Date Diana’s Sister Before He Dated Her?

He sure did. Though The Crown doesn’t show it, Charles and Sarah Spencer broke up in part because she gave an interview to a tabloid journalist in which she told a reporter they had a “brotherly-sisterly” and that she would turn him down if he asked her to marry him, according to Sarah Bradford, author of the book Diana.

Sarah Spencer later told Charles of the interview, and according to the book, he responded: “Sarah, you have done something extremely stupid.”

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