Princess Margaret’s lady-in-waiting told how she confrontedHelena Bonham Carter about the actress’ “awful” portrayal of the lateQueen’s sister inThe Crown.
Lady Anne Glenconner, 90, revealed she advised Bonham Carter, 56, on how to play Margaret in the third and fourth series ofNetflix’sroyal drama.
But Margaret’s aide has told how she was “mad with fury” after seeing how she and the princess had been portrayed.
It comes after the latest series of The Crown faced criticism for its depiction of the Royal Family.
Dame Judi Dench called for a disclaimer to be added to each episode of the show, saying it had begun to verge on “crude sensationalism”.
Sir John Major, meanwhile, described scenes that showedKing Charles, then the Prince of Wales, plotting to oust the Queen as “malicious nonsense”.
Lady Glenconner, who served Margaret from 1971 until her death in 2002, toldThe Oldiemagazine how The Crown depicted her “pimping” for the princess.
She added: “I saw Helena Bonham Carter — she came to tea — about acting Princess Margaret: how she spoke and walked. I said I never saw her run.
“After seeing Helena in The Crown, I was very disappointed with the portrayal and told her, ‘It was rather awful, wasn’t it?’ She said she had no choice other than to do what she was told.
“When they filmed Princess Margaret first meeting Roddy Llewellyn, we were sitting by a swimming pool at what looked like a ghastly country club. They had me pimping for her, with us both in bikinis — Princess Margaret never wore bikinis. So cheap.”
Glenconner, whose 2019 memoir Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown was a New York Times bestseller, told The Oldie that — unlike some royal family members — she did watch programmes depicting their lives.
“I do watch programmes on the royal family — quite often I’m in them,” she added.
Last year, Lady Glenconner, a childhood friend of Queen Elizabeth, told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, thatThe Crown made her “so angry” as it was “unfair” to the Royal Family.
She referred specifically to an episode in series two which implied Prince Philip was blamed for his sister Cecilie taking the flight that resulted in her death in a plane crash in 1937.
Lady Glenconner said this was “completely untrue”, adding: “I think to say something like that about people is terribly hurting. I mean, nobody wants to have their relations trashed like that.”
Bonham Carter, meanwhile, was replaced by Lesley Manville in the fifth series of the show and said recently she thought the series had run its course.
She said: “When The Crown started it was a historical drama and now it has crashed into the present.”
The Crown creator Peter Morgan has confirmed that the show would have a sixth series, which is expected to begin with the death of Diana, Princess of Wales – which hasalready proved controversial.
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