The latest season of The Crown has been met with controversy (Picture:Getty Images/Netflix)
A close friend of Queen Elizabeth II has hailed the upcoming season of The Crown as ‘vicious’ and claims it would have ‘destroyed’ the late monarch.
The highly-publicised fifth chapter returns to Netflix next month and sees Dominic West portraying King Charles III, Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana, and Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth II.
Series five will focus on Charles and Diana’s bitter divorce as well as other events which shaped the Royal Family.
The Crown has been at the centre of controversy since its release in 2016, and after the premiere date of the latest season was confirmed, fans believed it was too soon following the Queen’s death.
Notable public figures have also expressed their distaste for some of the storylines that is set unfold, such as the death of Princess Diana and fictionalised claims that the then Prince Charles tried to enlist Prime Minister Sir John Major to persuade the Queen to abdicate.
And now, an unnamed close friend of the Queen has slammed the streaming giant for ‘vilifying’ the royals.
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‘It is vicious. It’s as if they’re trying to destroy the royal family,’ they told The Sunday Times.
When asked how it would have affected the Queen, who died on September 8 this year, they added: ‘It would have destroyed her.’
This comes after Dame Judi Dench called Netflix to add a disclaimer ‘as a mark of respect’ to the late monarch, after former Prime Minister Sir John Major slammed the plot lines as ‘a barrel-load of nonsense’.
In a letter to The Times, Dame Judi said that Sir John Major was ‘not alone’ in his concerns about The Crown presenting ‘an inaccurate and hurtful account of history.’
The Queen died peacefully at the age of 96 in Balmoral (Picture: Getty)
She wrote: ‘The closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism.’
Dame Judi added that she worries about overseas viewers taking The Crown’s history as being ‘wholly true’.
She continued: ‘Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series — that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence — this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.
The fifth season will see the breakdown of Charles and Diana’s marriage (Picture: NETFLIX)
The Crown premieres on November 9 (Picture: Keith Bernstein)
‘No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged.’
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Other actors joining The Crown for its new series include Game of Thrones star Jonathan Pryce, who is taking over from Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip, and Lesley Manville, who replaces Helena Bonham-Carter as Princess Margaret.
Metro.co.uk has reached out to Netflix for comment.
The Crown season 5 arrives on November 9 on Netflix.
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MORE : The Crown disclaimer added by Netflix after Dame Judi Dench’s blasts ‘crude sensationalism’
The highly-publicised fifth chapter returns to Netflix next month.