Queen Elizabeth’s longtime friend criticizes Netflix’s ‘The Crown’: ‘It just makes me so angry’
A longtime friend of Queen Elizabeth II’s has spoken out over the Netflix series The Crown, saying it is an “absolute disgrace” and that it is a “waste of time.”
Netflix has already received criticism for presenting a series of six hour-long episodes based on the Windsors’ life story. The Crown, which shows how Queen Elizabeth II and her seven children were created in 1947, was produced entirely from the British royal family’s private archives.
In a series of essays published in the Sunday Telegraph, the 81-year-old former president and British ambassador to the United States, Baroness Thatcher, who was appointed a life peer in 1989 and later appointed by the Queen as president of the Board of Trade in 2003, wrote about the series.
“What was it about The Crown that drove viewers to tears? It seems to be the way the series treats the Queen’s life that is so profoundly, outrageously wrong,” she wrote. “It is an absolute disgrace. It was a waste of time.
“If you are not already sick of the subject then go straight on to ‘Britain at war,’ ‘The Troubles,’ ‘The St. James’s Gate Bombing,’ ‘The Bloody Sunday Verdict,’ ‘Rising Sun,’ ‘The Rochdale Riots,’ ‘The Troupe In The Wilderness.’ … You will have wasted a good five-six hours.”
A spokeswoman for the Queen told the Sunday Telegraph that Thatcher was speaking “in her own capacity to the Telegraph” and was not speaking on behalf of the Queen.
The Queen made it clear via a statement that she would not allow comment on the matter.
“As with everything in life, I’m sure there will be differing views, but in this case I’m not going to comment on it,” she said. “I will, however, continue to let the press and photographers enter the grounds of Buckingham Palace and will continue to speak with the public about our family’s history.”
It wasn’t the first time that Thatcher was critical of Netflix, however.