The Crown season six: From Diana’s death, her controversial ‘ghost’, and conspiracy theories about her pregnancy; what fans can expect

Diana died in 1997 after her car crashed in a Paris underpass while being tailed by the paparazzi. She was with her partner, Dodi Fayed, who perished alongisde her, as did their driver Henri Paul, the oft-ignored third victim of the tragedy. Her funeral attracted global attention, and once again exposed the scars of the British Royal Family. Diana’s testy relationship with the Queen and Charles was dramatised in previous seasons, and has been the subject of controversy in real life as well, thanks mainly to comments made by her younger son, Prince Harry. Harry and his wife, Meghan, surrendered their roles as senior members of the Royal Family a few years ago, and moved to the United States, from where they’ve openly criticised the cult-like atmosphere at the Buckingham Palace.

The final season of The Crown will depict the final moments of Diana and Dodi Fayed’s lives.

Interest in Diana, therefore, remains as high as it always has been. The New York Times quoted the show’s head researcher, Annie Sulzberger, as saying that The Crown will be respsectful to everybody involved in this difficult chapter of recent British history. “People who lived through Diana’s death feel a sense of ownership over that history, a sense of participation, which can color their perception of it,” she said. “With recent history, you’re constantly battling with people’s intimate and personal perspectives.” Sulzberger said that the team devoured every piece of information available about this period, through books, documentaries and articles.

The crew also drew from a police inquiry known as Operation Paget, which investigated claims made by Dodi Fayed’s father, Mohammed al-Fayed, that Diana was pregnant at the time of her death, and that the accident was a conpiracy hatched by the British government. The Crown’s final season will depit a conversation between Diana and Dodi in their final hours, but this is drawn entirely from speculation. Season five’s imagined storylines prompted Netflix, for the first time in the show’s history, to add a disclaimer to the episodes. Debicki described performing the final scenes as ‘strange’. She told Vanity Fair in an interview, “The images of Diana and Dodi at the Ritz taken from a security camera, it’s these images that are imprinted on our collective unconsciousness. So to find yourself replicating them is a very strange experience. Nothing as an actor really prepares you for the layers of emotional ramifications. I experienced that a lot, and I kind of just let it be there. I didn’t fight it.”

Elizabeth Debicki as Diana in a still from the final season of The Crown,

But in addition to her romance with Dodi, the final season will also explore Diana’s relationship with her sons, William and Harry. “The things that were always important to me were, first and foremost, her relationship to her children. So in a way, I kind of centered my performance around that love,” Debicki said at the season six red carpet premiere. “It was a guiding force for me in terms of making decisions as the character, and from what I can gather, that was also true of the person. That was really her priority in life.”

The final season will feature Imelda Staunton returning as the Queen, Dominic West as Charles, Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip, Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret, and Khalid Abdalla as Dodi. Rufus Kampa and Ed McVey will play William at different ages, while Meg Bellamy will play Kate Middleton.

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