Five Scandals The Crown Forgot to Include in Season 5

If you’re anything like me and a big royal family follower on the latest of their crazy news and fascinating history, chances are you sat down to binge the new season of The Crown after it came out last week. Season 5 follows the drama and scandals of the 1990’s in the royal family as marriages fell apart and the family faced more turmoil than ever. For a full recap of season five, check out this article. After recapping the show, we know that season five of The Crown showed a lot of disastrous events of the decade, but what major events of the 1990’s did they forget to include in the new season?

Radio Prank Call

In October of 1995, Queen Elizabeth fell victim to a prank caller from a radio station. The queen spent seven minutes on the phone with radio DJ Pierre Brassard who was pretending to be Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. The queen discussed the family’s Halloween plans and also involvement from Canada in England. While the DJ radio said the queen was delightful and lighthearted, Buckingham Palace later reported that they believed this prank call was not amusing and was greatly a waste of time for the busy sovereign. 

Squidgygate

In season five of The Crown, a disastrous phone call between the then Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles was revealed. At the time, both were still married (and not to each other) as they engaged in a romantic and scandalous phone call. The contents of the call were revealed a few years later in British newspapers, much to the horror of the rest of the royal family. What many don’t seem to know is a similar scandal happened with Princess Diana and her close friend James Gilbey. In the phone call that was published in British newspapers in 1992, Gilbey called the princess “Squidgy” many times as the Princess of Wales compared her marriage to that of a British soap opera. 

Princess Anne’s Second Wedding

In season five, we can see Princess Anne (the queen’s second child and only daughter), approaching Queen Elizabeth to have a chat with her mother. She then informed her mother that she plans to marry Commander Timothy Laurence after she divorced her first husband, Mark Phillips, in 1992. The queen was outraged but did not forbid her daughter from getting married, as she saw what forbidden marriages had done to the royal family over the years. Shockingly, however, the viewers of the Crown never saw the actual marriage between Princess Anne and Sir Timothy Laurence. 

The Queen Mother

1995 was also a tough year for the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth’s mother. She was 95 and her health was slowly deteriorating. Viewers saw much less of the Queen Mother in season five than in previous seasons, due to her old age and less active role in the public eye. She attended a few events throughout the year, a couple in particular to commentate the 50 year anniversary of the ending of World War II. In July of 1995, she went under the needle to remove a cataract in her left eye and also another surgery in November to replace her right hip. 

The Divorce Of The Yorks

The Duke of York, Prince Andrew (the Queen’s third child) married Sarah Furgeson in July of 1986, five years after Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s iconic wedding. The queen was ecstatic because her favorite son (as it was rumored) was finally getting married. Unfortunately, however, as Andrew traveled significantly throughout the first few years of his marriage to Sarah, their union began to fall apart. 

The couple saw each other for about 40 days each year, and it was known that Sarah Furgeson spent her entire first pregnancy alone. In 1992, a year known as Annus horribilis (horrible year), by Queen Elizabeth, the couple legally separated alongside the separation of two of the Queen’s other children. 

Following the separation, there were many public problems following Andrew and Sarah, including a multitude of scandalous photos published in newspapers. Thankfully, the couple was able to mend their relationship, co parent their two daughters, and continue to foster a close friendship.