- When they signed their massive deal with Netflix, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle shocked a lot of royal fans who were surprised they would work with the streaming giant, which produces the royal drama The Crown.
- According to royal biographer Angela Levin, Harry confided in her two years ago that the royal family did indeed watch the series, but that he was determined to make sure it stopped before it got to his adult life and relationship with Meghan Markle.
- Although Harry and Meghan reportedly used their position as partners with Netflix to insist that The Crown end before it got to their royal drama, Levin fears the strategy might backfire and that Netflix might actually end up "getting a lot of information that will absolutely decry the royal family" from the Sussexes.
When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle signed their massive production deal with Netflix, it answered a few questions (like "what will Harry and Meghan do with their time following their royal exit?" and "how will the Sussexes achieve the financial independence from the rest of the royal they announced they wanted?"), but it raised a lot more.
Many people immediately thought of Netflix's hit drama, The Crown, which focuses on the dramas and scandals that have marked the lives of the modern British royal family. You know, as in most of Harry's direct relatives. Since The Crown doesn't always portray every member of the royal family in the most positive of lights (like its ongoing implications of Prince Philip's infidelity), some wondered if the Sussexes' decision to ink a deal with the streaming giant would add even more stress to their already-strained relationship with the rest of the Windsor clan.
According to The Mirror, some new reports suggest that Harry and Meghan leveraged their deal as a way to make a very specific demand about the future of The Crown—specifically, that it end before their own royal drama. At least one royal expert, royal biographer Angela Levin, who penned the 2018 bio Harry: Conversations with the Prince, thinks this strategy was a mistake that could backfire on the couple.
Levin described the Sussexes' decision to sign their deal with Netflix as a "terrible error" because The Crown "is ridiculing his father, his mother and his grandmother," according to The Mirror. According to Levin, Harry told her two years ago that the royal family were "all absolutely watching everything" on The Crown, but was already declaring that he was "going to insist it stops before it reaches me."
Even though Harry has had his sights on keeping himself out of The Crown for years now, Levin thinks his and Meghan's deal with Netflix could actually make things worse, not better, in that department. Per The Mirror, Levin explained:
"I think the way that he has left the Royal Family, the way he did it, and he’s changed. He’s almost unrecognizable from Prince Harry I spent a lot of time with. But I think, you know, Meghan is desperate to earn lots of money and Netflix offered them something. I think they’re being naive as they have been about lots of things in that they don’t realize that a big company like Netflix is going to want its pint of blood. They’re going to delve in and get a lot of information that will absolutely decry the Royal Family."
Guess we'll just have to wait for The Crown's sixth and final season to see how this plays out.
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