Jemima Khan said she had been helping to write scripts for the Netflix royal drama.
One of Princess Diana's longtime friends, Jemima Khan, has decided to no longer contribute to the upcoming seasons of The Crown. In a new profile from The Sunday Times, Khan speaks out for the first time about her involvement with the show and her decision to end her working relationship with creator Peter Morgan.
“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," Khan told the British outlet. "After a great deal of thought, having never spoken publicly about any of this before, I decided to contribute.”
Khan added, "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."
Khan hosted the late Princess of Wales several times in Pakistan in the '90s while married to Imran Khan, who is now the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Imran was also the distant cousin of heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, who has long been considered the love of Diana's life. According to The Times, Khan and Crown creator Morgan had a brief romance but broke up earlier this year. She says that the handling of delicate storylines involving the final years prior to Diana's death led to her decision to exit the project.
“We worked together on the outline and scripts from September 2020 until February 2021. When our co-writing agreement was not honored, and when I realized that particular storyline 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 said.
A spokesman for The Crown told The Times, “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 on the series."
The role of Diana was first portrayed by Emma Corrin in season 4 of the Netflix royal drama. Elizabeth Debicki will portray the late royal for seasons 5 and 6, which are expected to document the final years of Diana's life before her tragic death in 1997.
Debicki has already been photographed filming the iconic 1994 moment where Diana wore her "Revenge Dress" to a party the same night as Prince Charles' tell-all documentary aired in which he admitted to being unfaithful to her while they were still married.
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