The Duke of Cambridge is understood to be frustrated that the BBC is cooperating with Netflix to “commercialise” Martin Bashir’s Panorama interview with his late mother.
The BBC allowed the streaming giant to film scenes outside New Broadcasting House, its London headquarters, for a scene in The Crown depicting events following the 1995 interview.
Actor Richard Cordery, 71, who will play Marmaduke Hussey, then chairman of the BBC’s board of governors, in the next series was seen getting out of a car and walking into the building.
The scene is said to portray the immediate aftermath of the broadcast, amid the fallout from the interview, in which Diana, Princess of Wales, told Bashir: “There were three of us in this marriage.”
BBC sources confirmed they gave permission to Netflix to film the scene.
It comes six months after an independent report by Lord Dyson concluded that Bashir had deployed “deceitful behaviour” to secure the interview and that the BBC had covered it up in a “woefully ineffective” internal investigation led by Lord Hall, the former director-general.
In response, Prince William said in May that it was his “firm view that this Panorama programme holds no legitimacy and should never be aired again”.
The Duke said it brought him “indescribable sadness” that the interview had “contributed significantly to his mother’s “fear, paranoia and isolation” in the final years of her life.
He blamed “failures” by BBC bosses for the harm done to his mother and said she was let down “not just by a rogue reporter, but by leaders at the BBC”.
The Duke is understood to remain deeply frustrated that broadcasters continue to make money from the interview.
The fact that the BBC has been cooperating with Netflix to aide the streaming service’s dramatisation of the interview for the next series of The Crown only compounded his anger.
Relations between the BBC and the Royal family hit a low following the broadcast of two-part documentary series The Princes and the Press in November.
All three Royal households joined forces to issue a statement criticising the corporation for presenting “overblown and unfounded claims” as fact.
After the first episode aired on Nov 22, BBC bosses were reportedly told that coverage of a Christmas carol concert hosted by the Duchess of Cambridge would be handed to ITV instead.
ITV confirmed on Tuesday that it would host the Westminster Abbey event.
It said the service, supported by the Royal Foundation, will recognise and celebrate the work of “individuals and organisations across the nation who have stepped up to support their communities through the pandemic”.
