The making of Andrew Morton's book, 'Diana: Her True Story,' is the focus of one episode of 'The Crown.'
With Princess Diana's life at the forefront of The Crown's fifth season, viewers are naturally curious about the real-life story of the late Princess of Wales. And no one had a more in-depth look into her life than biographer Andrew Morton.
Morton, who penned the 1992 biography, Diana: Her True Story, crafted the book using a series of secret recordings Diana made that were delivered to him by her friend, James Colthurst.
ET's Kevin Frazier spoke with Morton, who served as a consultant on this season of The Crown, which detailed the making of the tapes as well as the biography in the titled, "The System."
"In The Crown, that’s a compressed scene," he tells ET of the recordings. "She’s talking into a tape recorder. I'm asking her questions. It wasn't like that at all, in the sense that there are lots of gaps between interview sessions. What would happen is that James Colthurst, the intermediary, would go to Kensington Palace with a list of questions that I prepared and he would mic Diana up like this and then she would answer the questions and then they go have lunch. Then it was my job to type it all up and ask follow-ups. So it was a far more laborious process than the compressed scenes you see in The Crown."
Morton was impressed by the accuracy of the show, but there was one suggested scene that he said the Netflix drama chose to leave out.
"One scene that they don't show in The Crown that I think is very dramatic is when I first heard the tapes and I heard them in a working man’s cafe in North London. All around me these workmen were eating their bacon and eggs and toast and I put these headphones on," he recalls. "It was literally like entering a parallel universe, a different world. Diana talking about her eating disorder, about a woman called Camilla. I'd never heard of her, and it was like the royal version of All the President’s Men."
Morton notes that while he was working on the book, he was on high alert for attacks.
"I was looking for danger in the shadows. I was looking for people following me," he shares. "It was like a different world and I remember vividly going back home on the subway and standing well way back from the platform edge because I thought I could be followed and someone was trying to assassinate me. My office was broken into. James was knocked off his bicycle. It was a genuinely unnerving time and when Diana had her room swept for bugs, she was totally justified in doing that."
So where are the infamous tapes today? In 2004, NBC aired an hour-and-a-half-long special documentary titled Princess Diana: The Secret Tapes, featuring the audio recordings Diana had made for Morton's biography. The full documentary is available to watch on YouTube.
Now, Morton says the tapes have been "safely put away in a safe and out of public view."
In light of the scandal surrounding the BBC's Panorama interview with Diana, Morton says that these tapes are the last true look into the late royal's mindset.
"They are now a real historic record of her life and her time and that time in her life," he says. "And now that the BBC is has decided against ever showing Panorama again, we were left with the tapes and those memories that really illustrate the late Princess of Wales."
Morton, who has penned biographies of Meghan Markle, Monica Lewinsky, and most recently Queen Elizabeth II, says he was "very proud" to have been asked to write Diana's biography by the princess herself.
Since the book's release, Morton reveals that he once accidentally attended the same event as Diana's ex, now-King Charles III.
"I did inadvertently attend a luncheon given by Prince Charles and neither of us knew the other was attending, and I can say he did not look best pleased by my presence," Morton shares.
The Crown season 5 is currently streaming on Netflix. Morton's new biography, The Queen: Her Life, is available now.
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