Prince Harry is finally opening up on camera about his views on the Netflix series, The Crown. The 36-year-old Duke of Sussex, who signed his own Netflix production deal last year, appeared on Thursday night’s The Late Late Show with James Corden, riding around Los Angeles in a double decker bus, where the British host asked Harry about his views on the royal drama centered around his family. After Harry shared he and his wife, Meghan Markle, enjoy watching Jeopardy! and “a little bit of Netflix” in bed each night, Harry candidly spoke about The Crown.
“They don’t pretend to be news, it’s fictional. But it’s loosely based on the truth. Of course it’s not strictly accurate, but loosely,” Harry said. “It gives you a rough idea about what the lifestyle, what the pressures of putting duty and service above family and everything else, what can come from that.”
Harry, who has previously admitted to watching the series, noted that he’s not as bothered by the show as he is by the real-life press his family receives.
“I’m way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing the stories written about my family, or my wife, or myself,” he added. Because it’s the difference between, [The Crown] is obviously fiction, take it how you will, but [the tabloid stories] are being reported on as fact, because you’re supposedly news. I have a real issue with that.”
He even offered up a suggestion as to who could play him if the show were to reach the present day — Billions star Damian Lewis.
The comments were a far cry from what biographer Angela Levin, who interviewed Harry for her 2018 book, Harry: Conversations With the Prince, previously claimed he’d said about the series.
“Harry, when I went to interview him in the Palace, the first thing he said to me when he shook my hand was, ‘Are you watching The Crown?'” Levin shared on BBC Breakfast in January 2020. “And I hadn’t been at the time, I felt very embarrassed and I got it and he said, ‘I’m going to make sure I stop it before they get to me.'”
Childhood versions of Harry and his brother, Prince William, make brief cameos in the most recent season of the show, which centers around the toxic relationship between Harry’s parents, Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana.
During his Late Late Show interview, Harry also opened up about his decision to step down as a senior member of the royal family.
“We all know what the British press can be like and it was destroying my mental health. I was like, ‘This is toxic,'” Harry recalled. “So I did what any husband and any father would do… but we never walked away, and as far as I’m concerned, whatever decisions are made on that side, I will never walk away. I will always be contributing. But my life is public service, so wherever I am in the world, it’s gonna be the same thing.”
