'The Crown' Season 3: Prince Charles' staff gets 'deeply paranoid' as the royal's love story with Camilla Parker Bowles unfolds on the Netflix show
As 'The Crown' returns onscreen, one of the most awaited plotlines of the show will be to see Prince Charles grow up and his early romance with Camilla Parker Bowles. While Josh O'Connor plays young Prince Charles, Camilla's entry, played by 'Call the Midwife' fame Emerald Fennell is the most anticipated in the new season.
Even though Princess Diana (newcomer Emma Corrin) isn't supposed to make an appearance until season four, it will be intriguing to see how the showrunners paint Charles and Camilla's close bond on the show as it is counted among the most controversial relationships in the early phases of the British royal family.
Connor, who plays Prince Charles, revealed that the show will begin from when he is still a student. “We start off with Charles at Cambridge University, that’s where we bring him into the series,” he told RadioTimes.com. “This is where we scale a significant part of his life which I feel so honored and excited to tell the story. And tell a very different side of the story that we may not have seen or have known about.”
However, there is an air of paranoia in Buckingham Palace as a senior staffer confirmed that a decision had been made to exclude 'The Crown' stars from an April launch event for Sir David Attenborough’s Netflix show, 'Our Planet', while people like the creator of Black Mirror got to attend. The Sun reported that Prince Charles’s staff is nervous about his portrayal as they are trying to "make him a popular king-in-waiting."
"Charles' staff are deeply paranoid about 'The Crown'. They are trying to make him a popular king-in-waiting," the royal source said, adding, "But the next few seasons are going to be increasingly focussed on the Prince of Wales’ behavior, especially around his marriage to Diana and affair with Camilla. The timing couldn’t be any more disastrous in terms of Charles’s bid for popularity. So his staff made it clear he wouldn’t attend the event if Netflix had any 'The Crown' actors there.”
Another member of the court said: “It was discussed by all the relevant Households and event organizers and agreed that it was hard to see the relevance of attendance by 'The Crown' cast and would be a distraction to the ultimate messages of 'Our Planet'. After all, it is a serious documentary about saving the planet not the launch of series three of 'The Crown'. The decision was not one at the request of, instruction of, or direction of any of the members of the Royal Family."
He added, "There is no blanket ban or boycott of 'The Crown'. Olivia Coleman will be at Buckingham Palace for her CBE at some point. It was officials at the Households working with their Netflix counterparts doing their jobs which were to promote the 'Our Planet' documentary, not 'The Crown'.” Buckingham Palace said: “The guest list was decided jointly. It is wrong to assert that the Prince of Wales intervened personally.”
The decolonization of Africa and the Caribbean, and Prince Charles’s movement into the public eye following his coronation as the Prince of Wales in 1969 are some of the other significant events that will be seen on the show. Season three will premiere on Netflix on November 17, 2019.