Royal experts demand Prince Harry axes his Netflix deal over The Crown’s portrayal of Diana

Royal experts are demanding Prince Harry tears up his £112million Netflix deal and makes a stand over The Crown’s portrayal of Princess Diana. 

Royal biographer Angela Levin criticised the Duke of Sussex for not ‘finding his voice’ over the streaming giant’s controversial portrayal of his mother. 

It comes after Princess Diana’s friend Jemima Khan withdrew her support for The Crown over its ‘disrespectful’ script after she broke up with the show’s creator.  

Levin, author of Harry: A Biography of a Prince, told The Sun: ‘Harry has remained absolutely silent about Netflix. 

‘He should tear the deal up and make a stand for his mother. What’s more important? Money or defending his mum? It’s astonishing he can’t find his voice on this.’

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle signed a deal with the streaming service last year for their new production company to make documentaries, feature films, scripted shows and children’s programming.

It comes as another royal expert said today that the makers of Netflix’s The Crown have stuck up ‘two fingers’ at the Royal Family by casting the stepdaughter of IRA supporter Roy Greenslade in the role of Countess Mountbatten.

Penny Junor said Natascha McElhone, 51, was not responsible for the ‘sins of her stepfather’. But she said another actress should have been considered because of the role’s sensitive nature.  

The fifth season of The Crown, which will be released in November next year, focuses on Princess Diana’s relationship with her sons and Prince Charles before her tragic death in a Paris car crash in 1997.   

Critics have criticised the series over their portrayal of Princess Diana, played by actress Elizabeth Debicki, 31, in her final years.  

Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty Magazine, told the Sun: ‘I don’t think Harry gets it. I presume when he did the deal with Netflix he didn’t think it through — but Meghan would have, she’s not an idiot.

‘He talked about The Crown during his bus interview with James Corden, so he’s not totally oblivious.’

The comments come after Khan, 47, refused a writing credit in The Crown and backed out of the project because the show wasn’t handling Diana’s story as ‘respectfully or compassionately’ as she had hoped. 

Khan was hired to advise writer Peter Morgan, 58, who she enjoyed a brief romance with from this January to February. 

Morgan has since been reunited with his partner of four years Gillian Anderson, 53, who won an Emmy for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Crown, The Sunday Times reported.

Khan worked with Morgan from last September to this February, on stories such as Diana’s relationships with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan and Dodi Fayed as well as her sensational BBC Panorama interview with Martin Bashir.

She added that she agreed to help write the fifth series when approached by Morgan, a long-time friend, in 2019 even though she hadn’t publicly spoken about her past with Diana because she wanted her story to be ‘portrayed accurately’. 

She said she requested that her ‘contributions be removed from the series’ and  declined a writing credit. 

‘It was really important to me that the final years of my friend’s life be portrayed accurately and with compassion, as has not always happened in the past,’ Miss Khan told The Sunday Times.  

But once she realised the stories were being written in a way she did not agree with, Miss Khan decided to withdraw her support. She said: ‘In 2019, Peter Morgan asked me to co-write on the fifth series of The Crown, particularly those episodes which concerned Princess Diana’s last years before she died.

‘After a great deal of thought, having never spoken publicly about any of this before, I decided to contribute. We worked together on the outline and scripts from September 2020 until February 2021. 

‘When our co-writing agreement was not honoured, and when I realised that particular storylines would not necessarily be told as respectfully or compassionately as I had hoped, I requested that all my contributions be removed from the series and I declined a credit.’   

She and Morgan became a couple late last year after he split from actress Gillian Anderson, his partner of four years.

Miss Khan and Morgan broke up in February and he is said to have rekindled his on-off relationship with Miss Anderson, 53, who won an Emmy for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Crown.  

A spokesman for the The Crown said: ‘Jemima Khan has been a friend, fan and a vocal public supporter of The Crown since season one.

‘She has been part of a wide network of well-informed and varied sources who have provided extensive background information to our writers and research team – providing context for the drama that is The Crown. She has never been contracted as a writer.’

Khan was associate editor of political magazine The New Statesman and was European editor-at-large for the US magazine Vanity Fair and now runs a film production company. 

She has two sons – Suleiman, 24, and 21-year-old Kasim – from her marriage to former cricketer Imran Khan, now Pakistan’s Prime Minister and Hasnat Khan’s distant cousin. Diana visited them in Pakistan twice, in 1996 and 1997. 

The couple married in 1995 but divorced nine years later.

Since then, the daughter of the late tycoon James Goldsmith and socialite Lady Annabel Goldsmith has dated several high-profile men including Hugh Grant, Russell Brand and Shane Warne (ex of Liz Hurley). 

Father-of-five Morgan was nominated for an Academy Award for his script for the 2006 film The Queen, starring Helen Mirren. 

His other screenwriting credits include the movies Frost/Nixon and The Damned United, as well as the acclaimed stage play The Audience. 

In September shots captured in sunny southern Spain showed director Philip Martin on set of the highly anticipated fifth series of The Crown, which is thought to cover the Royal Family from the 1990s to 2003.

There were no official visits to Spain by the royals in the 1990s and it is thought that the crew could have been recreating scenes from when Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed visited St. Tropez together in 1997. 

‘The Crown has stuck up two fingers at the Queen’: Fury as Natascha McElhone – stepdaughter of IRA-supporting editor Roy Greenslade – is cast in role of Countess Mountbatten whose husband’s family were murdered by terrorists

• Penny Junor says The Crown should have considered another actress for role 
• She said: ‘There are lots of actresses out there. It just feels slightly two fingers’ 
• Natascha McElhone’s stepfather Greenslade supported IRA and its terrorists 
• Countess Mountbatten married grandson of Lord Mountbatten, murdered by IRA
• Ms McElhone will play Countess Mountbatten in the next series of The Crown

The makers of Netflix’s The Crown have stuck up ‘two fingers’ at the Royal Family by casting the stepdaughter of IRA supporter Roy Greenslade in the role of Countess Mountbatten, a royal expert declared today.

Penny Junor said Natascha McElhone, 51, was not responsible for the ‘sins of her stepfather’. But she said another actress should have been considered because of the role’s sensitive nature.  

Former Fleet Street editor and Guardian columnist Greenslade revealed his support for the IRA earlier this year. 

The journalist, who edited the Daily Mirror and held a top job at The Sun, secretly wrote for the republican newsletter An Phoblacht and even provided bail surety for convicted IRA member John Downey, who was accused of involvement in the 1982 Hyde Park bombing.

Lord Mountbatten was killed by an IRA bomb in 1979. Penelope Knatchbull, who Miss McElhone will play, married his grandson.

Ms Junor told The Daily Telegraph: ‘I think it shows a lack of respect. Of course, you cannot visit the sins of the father on the daughter but there are lots of actresses out there. It just feels slightly two fingers.’

The Crown’s creator and writer Peter Morgan has been accused of loathing the Royal Family and titillating the public with fake history about the Queen and her relatives during her 69-year reign.  

Prince Harry has also been urged to tear up his £112million deal with Netflix to make a stand over The Crown’s portrayal of his late mother Princess Diana – but the Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan have so far resisted calls to walk away from the streaming giant.

Lord Mountbatten was killed along with his 14-year-old grandson Nicholas Knatchbull and his grandmother Baroness Brabourne after the IRA planted a bomb on board a fishing boat in County Sligo.

Paul Maxwell, 15, a member of the crew, was also killed.

Ms Junor added that the latest series of The Crown, out next November, will ‘raise eyebrows in so many ways’ due to coverage of ‘recent history’ including the breakdown of the Prince and Princess of Wales’s marriage.

The Crown was contacted for comment.

Boris Johnson ‘outright condemned’ Roy Greenslade after the former Guardian columnist revealed his long-held support for the IRA’s murderous bombing campaigns before resigning from his honorary professorship.  

While his republican views first emerged some years ago, he came out of hiding’ in an article this weekend for the British Journalism Review to say he was in ‘complete agreement about the right of the Irish people to engage in armed struggle’, adding: ‘I supported the use of physical force.’

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said he ‘outright condemns’ the comments, which included saying that the murder of innocent civilians by IRA terrorists was ‘justifiable’.  

Mr Greenslade’s resigned from his position as honorary visiting professor of journalism at City, University of London, following an outcry from the families of IRA victims. 

He told Mail Plus Political Correspondent Michael Crick that the decision was: ‘Purely mine. No pressure. Just the reverse.’ The IRA killed hundreds of civilians during its campaign of violence, including children. 

City, University of London did not push for Mr Greenslade’s resignation and ‘acknowledged his right to express his views’ but accepted his decision, a spokesman said. Mr Greenslade has not written for the Guardian since March last year.  

The PM’s official spokesman said: ‘All I can say is the simple fact that the PM outright condemns his comments, as I have said specifically those about the killing of civilians.’ 

Mr Greenslade spent two years as editor of the Mirror, during which time he fixed a ‘spot the ball’ competition on behalf of the paper’s owner Robert Maxwell so that no one could win the £1million first prize.

After joining the Guardian, he went on to become a noted mouthpiece for Tony Blair’s spokesman Alastair Campbell, who had previously been his political editor. It is not known whether Mr Campbell was aware at the time of Mr Greenslade’s IRA allegiance.

The former Guardian columnist retired from a full-time post at City University, where he lectured in ethics, in 2018, but he has ‘occasionally’ returned as a guest speaker.

In the article, which was published in the Sunday Times, Mr Greenslade, 74, who is now a member of Sinn Fein, said he had first become involved in republican causes shortly after Bloody Sunday in 1972, when paratroopers shot dead 13 demonstrators.

He went on to hold senior roles at The Sun and the Sunday Times, as well as the editorship of the Daily Mirror in 1990 and 1991, but ‘regularly’ contributed to An Phoblacht – contradicting his newspapers which denounced the IRA’s campaigns.

Mr Greenslade guaranteed bail for convicted IRA member John Downey, who was accused of the 1982 Hyde Park bombing, in which four soldiers died.

Downey’s criminal case collapsed when he produced a so-called ‘on the run’ letter, providing assurances that he would not be prosecuted for alleged past crimes. However, a judge at the High Court ruled in 2019 that he was an ‘active participant’ in the bombing. Despite this, Mr Greenslade wrote that all he knows of Downey is his ‘dedication to peace’.

Downey is currently on bail accused of the murder of two Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers in Enniskillen in 1972.

Mr Greenslade added: ‘I continued to keep my views on the IRA to myself. However much I believed its tactics to be valid, I could not hope to convince colleagues that the killing of civilians, albeit by accident, was justifiable.’

Mark Tipper, whose brother Trooper Simon Tipper was killed in the Hyde Park bombing, said prior to the news of Mr Greenslade’s resignation: ‘His academic peers should be taking a look at him. He is preaching hatred. You often hear the pen is mightier than the sword and he has preached violence.’

Solicitor Matthew Jury, whose firm McCue & Partners has represented hundreds of families affected by IRA attacks, said: ‘People have become far too tolerant toward IRA terrorism. 

‘If Professor Greenslade openly supported Al Qaeda or Isis [Islamic State] his university position would undoubtedly be untenable. Why should it be different supporting IRA violence?’

Kenny Donaldson, of the South East Fermanagh Foundation victims’ association, which helps about 2,000 families whose relatives were killed in IRA atrocities, including the 1987 Enniskillen bombing, said: ‘As a group that supports victims of terrorist attacks, we are bemused by his comments.

‘John Downey stands accused of the murder of two soldiers. There is no sense he is a peacemaker. He is a committed terrorist with a long career in terrorism.

‘Those with pens can be equally as dangerous as those who pull the trigger and detonate bombs.’

Paul Young, a former soldier and police officer serving in Northern Ireland, questioned whether Mr Greenslade could have provided sensitive information to the IRA.

He added: ‘It would be incredible if he didn’t given his such strongly held views. I think any university position is now untenable.’

Mr Greenslade’s former editor at The Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie, said: ‘So while trying to attract readers as editor of the Daily Mirror, Roy Greenslade didn’t care that the IRA would kill a few.’