‘Sadistic and wicked’: Netflix in fresh The Crown row as close friend of Princess Diana hits out at series over scene showing royal in a limo before fatal Paris crash – as she accuses show of ‘forcing’ sons William and Harry to ‘relive the pain and agony’

• Princess Diana’s friend Simone Simmons has slammed latest series of The Crown
• She criticised scenes showing the princess in final hours before fatal Paris crash
• It follows a letter by Dame Judi Dench imploring producers to respect the Royals
• The show will also recreate the discredited 1995 interview with Martin Bashir

A close friend of Princess Diana has slammed Netflix as ‘sadistic and wicked’ over its depiction of her final hours in the latest series of The Crown.

Simone Simmons, a friend of the late princess, was highly critical of the show’s decision to recreate the moments before Diana’s untimely death in a Paris car crash in 1997.

The streaming giant’s fifth season of the programme airs on November 9. It features haunting scenes showing the former Princess of Wales enter a limousine shortly before the fateful accident.

Ms Simmons told The Sun: ‘These are cruel, sadistic and wicked people to recreate these moments. They are the lowest of the low.

‘They are rewriting history as they go along and that’s what makes me very angry.’

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Ms Simmons went on to slam the flagship show as ‘disgusting and sick’ and questioned if they were ‘setting out’ to hurt the feelings of Prince William and Prince Harry. 

‘It’s forcing them to relive the pain, agony, and psychological torment they suffered when their mother died,’ she said.

It is anticipated the Prince of Wales may be angered at scenes recreating his mother’s infamous 1995 interview with Martin Bashir, which was last year deemed to have been obtained unlawfully after Bashir falsified invoices to gain the princess’s trust.

Prince William, 40, later issued a public statement saying the interview had been a ‘major contribution to making my parents’ relationship worse’ and said it should never be aired again.

In a recent letter to the Times, actress Dame Judi Dench described the upcoming series of The Crown as ‘crude sensationalism’ and ‘cruelly unjust’ to the Royal Family and suggested it should feature a disclaimer at the start of each episode.

She wrote: ‘No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged.

‘The programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode. The time has come for Netflix to reconsider – for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve their own reputation in the eyes of their British subscribers.’

The Crown has been a huge hit for Netflix, and it now spends around £11.5million per episode.

Two years ago, the then-culture secretary Oliver Dowden asked Netflix for a ‘health warning’ on episodes so viewers would know scenes were fictionalised, but Netflix refused. It defended the show this week as ‘fictional dramatisation’.

In the fifth series, Barcelona was used by the production as a stand-in for Paris, where Diana died along with her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed. 

Actors Elizabeth Debicki, who plays Princess Diana, and Khalid Abdalla, who plays her Al-Fayed, were spotted filming scenes in Francesc Macia Square in the centre of the Spanish city.

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