The beloved British actor Judi Dench has come out against the Netflix series The Crown, calling the show “an inaccurate and hurtful account of history”.
Urging the streaming service to add a disclaimer to the start of each episode, naming the show as “fictionalised drama,” Dench’s comments join many critics of The Crown who have hit out against the Netflix property in recent weeks. It all comes after the show’s accuracy was called into question, with reports suggesting that the show’s new series could depict Charles attempting to oust the late Elizabeth II from her throne.
Writing a letter to The Times, Dench called out the streaming service, stating, “The time has come for Netflix to reconsider – for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve its reputation in the eyes of its British subscribers”.
Netflix is refusing to add such a disclaimer to the show, however.
Continuing, Dench adds, “Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series – that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence – this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent”.
Take a look at the full letter Dench sent to The Times, below.