UK Minister wants Netflix Crown series labeled "Fiction"

British Culture Minister Oliver Dowden asked Netflix to make it clear that its hit series The Crown , about the royal family, is fiction so that the public does not mistake it for reality.

According to the Mail on Sunday newspaper , which claims the same, the minister will formally ask the platform to introduce a warning at the beginning of each episode to explain that the plot is fiction.

“It is a wonderful work of fiction, but like other television productions, Netflix should be very clear from the beginning that it is just that and nothing more,” Dowden told the newspaper.

“Without this, I fear that a generation of viewers who did not experience these events may mistake fiction for reality,” he added.

The fourth season of the series, available for two weeks, includes the story of the marriage between Prince Charles and Lady Di.

The heir to the crown appears as a cold and unfaithful husband, a portrait that is not accurate, according to royal expert Penny Junor, who has written a biography of the prince.

Probably “he was a bit insensitive at times, but I don’t think he was arrogant or indifferent, I think he really tried to make his marriage work,” he told AFP .

The Culture Minister’s statements echo recent statements by Lady Di’s brother, Charles Spencer, who requested a warning message at the beginning of each episode.

A popular and critically acclaimed hit series The Crown has won three Golden Globes and eight Emmys and has been viewed in more than 70 million households, according to Netflix.

It is not the first time that the liberties taken by the series have been criticized.

When the third season premiered last year, former Queen Elizabeth II press secretary Dickie Arbiter criticized the suggestion that Queen Elizabeth had an affair with her racehorse trainer Lord Porchester.

“It’s in bad taste and totally unfounded,” he then told the Sunday Times newspaper . “The queen is the last person in the world who would consider looking at another man” other than her husband, he said.