‘The Crown 5’: The true story of Lady Di’s interview with Martin Bashir

SPOILERS FOR SEASON 5 OF ‘THE CROWN’

As ‘The Crown’ season 5 ushers in the 1990s, the groundwork is being laid for Martin Bashir’s famous interview with Princess Dianaan event that has become increasingly controversial in the years since it was broadcast in 1995.

Episodes 7 and 8 of ‘The Crown’ season 5 dramatize the recording, broadcast and immediate aftermath of the interview. In particular, it focuses on the questionable methods that Bashir (Prasanna Puwanarajah) implemented to secure his exclusive interview with Diana (Elizabeth Debicki, whom we come to mistake for Lady Di). Playing on the paranoia of the princess, forged bank statements to imply that people close to both Diana and her brother, Earl Spencer, were being paid to report on her. He even went so far as to give Diana an invoice that supposedly proved that Carlos had paid for the abortion of the nanny of the couple’s children, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, after becoming pregnant in an infidelity of the heir to the British crown. It was a serious breach of journalistic ethics and the BBC’s moral standards, and for 25 years, Bashir escaped any real consequence of his actions.

Although the Netflix series takes some creative licenses when it comes to addressing the interview (What is real and what is not in ‘The Crown 5’?), such as the comparison between the Pakistani heritage of the journalist and that of Diana’s lover , Dr Hasnat Khan, also positions the controversy as part of an internal battle within the BBC over its relevance at a time when public opinion was turning against the Monarchy. This is all speculation on the part of the show’s writers, but there is a lot of truth in the way that the ‘Panorama’ show obtained, recorded and broadcast the interview with Princess Diana.

The interview took place on November 5 (the sister coincidence with Guy Fawkes and ‘V for Vendetta’) of 1995, but it was broadcast to the public on the 20th of the same month. The conversation took place at Diana’s Kensington home, which Bashir agreed disguised as an appliance salesman. so as not to arouse suspicion. The raw footage could be seen, as the series shows, at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, although it is not certain that the chain’s CEO, John Birt, was present as ‘The Crown’ claims. Birt’s presence also serves the writers of ‘The Crown’ to sow the seeds of the future consequences of the investigation that Bashin would suffer 25 years later.

The interview forever broke Diana’s deal with the British royal house, and caused Prince Charles’s reputation to plummet.. Just a month after the interview was broadcast, on December 21, 1995, Queen Elizabeth II gave her permission by letter (or rather ordered) for the divorce between Carlos and Diana to take place.

Although it is not clear that the young Guillermo saw the interview as the series insinuates, the truth is that the event produced in him, as he came to affirm a posteriori, a feeling of fear before the inevitable divorce of his parents and the pressure of the press. Prince Harry (Harry) later blamed Martin Bashir for his invasive questions and “creepy and false claims” which fueled “paranoia and isolation” in the last years of Diana’s life..

Bashir, who is also the subject of another controversial high-profile interview with Michael Jackson in 2003, was eventually investigated by the BBC and retired judge Lord Dyson in 2020. Dyson’s investigation found that Bashir seriously breached BBC rules and that his deception was covered up when global media interest in the interview increased. The BBC apologized to Earl Spencer, Diana’s brother, and to the princes for the company’s wrongdoing, while Bashir acknowledged his mistake and maintained that the forgery was not what convinced Diana to accept the interview. Tiggy Legge-Bourke, the nanny accused of having had an extramarital affair with Carlos, was compensated with 117,000 euros for damages to his honor.