Jemima Khan has pulled out of a project to help the creator of hit Netflix series The Crown write about the years leading up to the death of her close friend Princess Diana.
The 47-year-old, who owns Kiddington Hall near Woodstock, was hired by Peter Morgan to help write the script for the latest season which is set to focus on the conflict between Charles and Diana in the early 1990s until her death in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
But she backed out of the project because its depiction of Diana was not handled as “respectfully or compassionately” as she had hoped.
Ms Khan told the Sunday Times: “In 2019, Peter Morgan asked me to co-write on the fifth series of The Crown, particularly those episodes which concerned Princess Diana’s last years before she died. After a great deal of thought, having never spoken publicly about any of this before, I decided to contribute.”
She told the newspaper: “We worked together on the outline and scripts from September 2020 until February 2021.
“When our co-writing agreement was not honoured, and when I realised that particular storyline would not necessarily be told as respectfully or compassionately as I had hoped, I requested that all my contributions be removed from the series and I declined a credit.”
Before she quit the role, Ms Khan had worked on storylines on Diana’s relationships with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan and Egyptian film producer Dodi Fayed, as well as her bombshell BBC Panorama interview with Martin Bashir, said the newspaper.
Ms Khan had a brief romance with screenwriter Morgan earlier this year – but he has now rekindled his relationship with actress Gillian Anderson, who played Margaret Thatcher on the show.
A spokesman for The Crown told The Sunday Times: “Jemima Khan has been a friend, fan and a vocal public supporter of The Crown since season one.
“She has been part of a wide network of well-informed and varied sources who have provided extensive background information to our writers and research team — providing context for the drama that is The Crown. She has never been contracted as a writer on the series.”
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