It’s no secret that the royals are not huge fans of The Crown, Netflix’s smash-hit series chronicling a lightly fictionalized version of the Windsors. But Prince Harry, the famously more chill scion who stepped down as a working royal in 2020, has previously said that he is “comfortable” with the show, particularly its depictions of “the pressures of putting duty and service above family.” (Although the fact that he has a development deal with Netflix may have something to do with that.)
Apparently, however, that lack of ill will has faded somewhat. Dominic West, the actor who plays Harry’s father Prince Charles on The Crown, has revealed that although he was previously acquaintances with Harry, the two have since lost touch, allegedly due to remarks West publicly made about his rendition of the role.
“I said too much in a press conference, and so we didn’t speak after that,” West said in a recent interview with Times Radio. When pressed as to what, exactly, angered the prince so much, West (somewhat) clarified): “I think I was asked what we did to celebrate when we got there, and probably said something too much.”
Though West didn’t specify further, according to Us Weekly he is likely referring to a remark he made in a press conference in 2014 following a charity trip he and Harry took to Antartica on behalf of wounded military veterans. “[Harry] was very much part of the team,” West said during the conference. “He seemed to specialize in building latrines. He built this incredible castellated structure with blocks to keep out the wind, and it even had a [toilet] roll holder.”
Later on in the Times Radio interview, West’s costar Jonathan Pryce, who played Prince Philip in Seasons 5 and 6, said that while the cast had not heard anything “directly” from the royal family about the show, when he was knighted in 2021 by Princess Anne he had heard “intimations” that she had seen some of it.
“I said, thinking she was thinking [of my performance], ‘I don’t know what to say to you. Sorry?’ And she said, ‘Why? It’s done now,’” he says. “[It] was quite an amusing moment.”
The Crown ended its six-season run this year, with the last part of its final season debuting on Dec. 14.
