Fans are anxiously waiting for Season 5 of “The Crown” to drop later this fall to see the next chapter of the royal family saga.
The forthcoming season of the hit Netflix drama will take viewers into the 1990s, with one main focal point chronicling Princess Diana’s controversial “Panorama” interview with Martin Bashir.
Due to an investigation conducted last year by Lord Dyson, the BBC covered up “deceitful behavior” that Bashir, 59, used to procure the 1995 tell-all talk.
A source close to the production revealed to the Daily Mail that scriptwriters of “The Crown” have woven in findings from the report into storylines for Season 5.
“[The season] will dramatize events surrounding the ‘Panorama’ interview, given the pivotal part it played during the time period the new series covers,” the insider said.
“It will reflect what we now know about how the interview was obtained and how Diana was treated,” the source noted.
Diana’s brother Charles Spencer said Bashir, who no longer works for the BBC, used fake bank documents and lied about Lady Di being bugged by security services to get the interview. Watched by more than 23 million people in 1995, Diana said “there were three of us in this marriage,” referring to husband Prince Charles and his now-wife, Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Once the fakery and lies were uncovered, the late Princess of Wales’ son, Prince William, asked the BBC to never air the bombshell interview again.
BBC’s director general Tim Davie said in a statement on Thursday that the episode will never see the light of day in the future.
He said: “Now we know about the shocking way that the interview was obtained, I have decided that the BBC will never show the program again, nor will we license it in whole or part to other broadcasters.”
“It does of course remain part of the historical record and there may be occasions in the future when it will be justified for the BBC to use short extracts for journalistic purposes,” Davie continued.
He added, “But these will be few and far between and will need to be agreed at executive committee level and set in the full context of what we now know about the way the interview was obtained. I would urge others to exercise similar restraint.”
Season 5 is set to drop on the streamer in November, with Dominic West portraying Prince Charles and Elizabeth Debicki playing Diana.