The Crown’s long-awaited fifth season is nearly upon us, but in the meantime, fans are still talking about the fourth. Set during the 1980s, it gave viewers their first look at Diana Spencer (the future Princess of Wales) and Camilla Parker Bowles (Prince Charles’s eventual wife). The Crown isn’t simply an impartial rundown of facts; it portrays Charles as a villain and places itself firmly in Diana’s corner. In light of this, we started to wonder how much of what the show tells us actually happened. The show might not claim to be a documentary, but that doesn’t mean everything depicted is fiction.
Diana Used to Be Her Older Sister’s Cleaning Lady – True
The first episode of the season reveals that Diana used to work as a cleaner for her older sister. This might seem like it was done to make her more relatable, but it is actually based on truth. Despite coming from an aristocratic family with strong ties to the Royal Family, Diana worked several odd jobs before meeting Prince Charles. She was a youth dance instructor, a preschool assistant, and yes – she did cleaning work for both her sister Sarah and several other friends.
The future royal was no stranger to hard work, often doing the household chores such as vacuuming, ironing, dusting, and washing. Diana’s biographer Andrew Morton maintained she gained “quiet satisfaction” from performing those duties.