SPOILER ALERT: This message contains details from Season 6 of The Crown
EXCLUSIVE: Netflix series The crown is accused of inventing the role of Mohamed Al-Fayed in the role of matchmaker for Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed.
Season 6 was released on Netflix and the first episodes chronicle the budding romance between Diana and Dodi in the sun-drenched surroundings of the Mediterranean.
Peter Morgan’s lavish royal drama repeatedly suggests that the relationship was brokered by Al-Fayed, the late Egyptian business magnate, as part of his bid to gain British citizenship.
This accusation was refuted in 1997 and Michael Cole, Al-Fayed’s former spokesman, again denied that his ex-boss was involved in Diana and Dodi’s fatal romance.
Cole told Deadline that he never saw or knew how Al-Fayed started the relationship, nor did he play any role in publicizing the meeting to the world through photos of the couple.
“Netflix and the production company describe it The crown as “dramatized fiction” and I disagree with that characterization. That means it’s made up,” he said.
The opening episode of the final season of The crown shows Al-Fayed (Salim Dau) re-proposing Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Dodi (Khalid Abdalla) on his yacht Jonikal.
In fact, Al-Fayed took Diana and her sons, Princes William and Harry, to his villa in St. Louis in the summer of 1997. Tropez invited, and it was reported at the time that Dodi joined them in Jonikal.
But the boat has room for that The crown According to Cole, Al-Fayed’s former press secretary, author Morgan must exercise creative license.
In one scene, Al-Fayed instructs Dodi to usurize Diana, saying he “put her on a plate” and that a relationship between the two would “finally make me proud of you”.
In episode 2, Al-Fayed orders a servant on his yacht to tell him if Dodi and Diana are “intimate”. After being told they were sharing a bed, the Netflix drama suggests Al-Fayed hired Italian photographer Mario Brenna to take the famous photos of Diana and Dodi in a private clinch on Jonikal.
“How do I find a good paparazzi photographer,” Al-Fayed van Dau asks his assistant. “Not some idiot with a long lens. I want the best photographer in the Mediterranean.”
In reality, there are conflicting stories about how Brenna managed to capture the footage that reportedly netted him $5 million.
Last year, the British journalist Tina Brown wrote in her book: The palace papersthat Diana herself tipped Brenna to “send a teasing message” to her lover Hasnat Khan.
In 1997, The Independent The newspaper reported that Brenna accidentally spotted Al-Fayed’s boat off the coast of Sardinia while he was in the area on other assignments.
Cole said the suggestion that Al-Fayed was involved in the affair was “complete nonsense”. He added: “Mohamed was a remarkable man in many ways. He was delighted that his eldest son and Diana, his family’s close friend, were together. But what makes two people fall in love with each other? It surpassed even his great talents.”
Al-Fayed died in August at the age of 94. Cole said he suspected his former boss, who was known to speak his mind, would have had “quite a lot to say.” The crown‘s version of events.
Diana and Dodi died in a car crash, weeks after the duo’s romance blossomed. The accident is shown off-camera in the opening moments the crown’is the first episode of the sixth season.
Netflix had no comment.
Source: Deadline
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