The world is awaiting The Crown season five, with the highly anticipated Netflix instalment set to be the most dramatic yet.
The fourth season saw its star-studded second cast make their final appearances, from Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth and Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret to Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip.
It was the storyline around Josh O’Connor, The Crown’s Prince Charles, however that got everyone talking the most.
Yes, the most anticipated storyline from season four featured Josh O’Connor (Prince Charles), Emerald Fennel (Camilla Parker-Bowles) and Emma Corrin (Princess Diana), acting out the highly publicised and very controversial affair.
In an interview however, Josh O’Connor admitted that one of the controversial storylines had been cut from the series. The plot in question? The leaked phone call between Prince Charles and Camilla during their affair, where they infamously discussed her tampon.
‘When they offered me the role, one of my first questions was — I say questions, I think it was pretty much a statement — “We are not doing the tampon phone call.”’
He continued: ‘Pre-The Crown, I've made many independent films, many television shows where there's a lot of nudity, a lot of slightly dodgy characters, and this was my one chance for my parents to see something with no shame and there's no way I was going to scuttle that by talking about tampons on Netflix.’
So there we have it, no ‘tampongate’ in The Crown.
This comes after the news that Prince Charles’ staff are ‘paranoid’ about how The Crown will portray the affair, and the effect it could have on his popularity.
‘Charles’s staff are deeply paranoid about The Crown,’ a source reportedly told The Sun last year. ‘They are trying to make him a popular king-in-waiting.’
The source continued: ‘But the next few seasons are going to be increasingly focused on the Prince of Wales’s behaviour, especially around his marriage to Diana and affair with Camilla. The timing couldn’t be any more disastrous in terms of Charles’s bid for popularity.’
Season five is set to be released in 2022.
