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Joanna Lumley reveals whether close friend Prince Charles watches The Crown

The Ab Fab star isn't the first person to slate the accuracy of the popular series


prince charles joanna
Emmy Griffiths
TV & Film Editor
3 December 2021
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Joanna Lumley has opened up about whether her friend, the Prince of Wales, has watched The Crown, which depicts the royal family from the start of the Queen's reign. But has Prince Charles watched it?

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Chatting to Women's Weekly, the Ab Fab star slammed the show, saying: "I know the royals, so I know it's all made up… All the poor actors who are doing their best to copy them, it's awful. Imagine somebody making up conversations they think you've had. It's so laughable.

WATCH: Princess Diana's brother reveals real reason he rejected The Crown's request to film at Althorp

"They've used real people, whom they've copied, and then made up all the conversations. It's insane."

She continued that she hasn't watched it, and added that the royal family also don't watch it, adding: "I don't think they watch it and I never watch it."

Princess Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, has previously opened up about his worries about the show, telling Alan Titchmarsh on Love Your Weekend: "The worry for me is that people see a programme like that and they forget that it is fiction. 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."

joanna lumley

Joanna opened up about the show

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."

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Charles previously confirmed that he denied the show access to filming on his family's estate, telling BBC Breakfast: "They applied. 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'."

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