King Charles III is sure to face a number of challenges in his first year as monarch:
He’ll be tasked with demonstrating to the world that the royal family is still a necessary and functional institution; he’ll have to work with a new prime minister to address the fears of Britons who are struggling amid rampant cost of living increases …
And apparently, he’ll be forced to wage two separate wars against a very unlikely ally — Netflix.
Yes, it seems the new king of the UK is ready to lock horns with the old king of streaming.
The first point of contention is one that we’ve known about for quite some time:
As part of their content deal with Netflix, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are producing a docuseries about their private lives.
Insiders say Charles has succeeded in pressuring Harry and Meghan to “tone down” the content of the series in the wake of the Queen’s death, but could not convince the couple to pull the plug on it entirely.
The show was originally set to premiere later this year to coincide with the release of The Crown Season 5, but it’s now been delayed until at least the spring of 2023.
Speaking of The Crown, Netflix announced a November 9 premiere date and released the new season’s first teaser clips at their annual Tudum streaming event over the weekend.
The show’s storyline has jumped forward in time to the 1990s, the decade in which Charles and Diana got divorced just a year before she tragically lost her life in a car accident while fleeing from paparazzi.
Understandably, the content has created quite a bit of consternation among the royals.
“There’s uproar in Britain after Prince Charles bared his soul to the nation, but the Princess of Wales upstaged her husband speaking about her marriage, her life and her future,” says a TV news reporter in the preview footage.
The report seems to refer to the 1996 interview in which Diana famously remarked, “There were three of us in this marriage,” referring to Charles’ affair with his now-wife, Camilla Parker Bowles.
“It is my understanding that the palace has devised a plan to fight any misinformation or fiction with facts,” royal expert Kinsey Schofield told Fox News this week (via Yahoo News).
“Expect King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla’s friends to speak out on their behalf. Expect to see a push of any documentaries the pair have participated in to resurface,” Schofield added.
“Expect a flood of King Charles books to hit shelves. There might even be… I can’t believe I’m saying this… fresh interviews with the couple. Something we never saw from the queen.”
One insider confirms that there are concerns within the palace, as Netflix has already demonstrated that it has “no qualms about mangling people’s reputations.”
“What people forget is that there are real human beings and real lives at the heart of this,” the source explained to the outlet.
We don’t think anyone forgets that.
It’s just that some of those real human beings have behaved in repugnant fashion, and they’ve been protected by palace walls for far too long.
The Crown has pulled no punches in the past, offering a harrowing depiction of Charles’ abuse of Diana during their marriage.
But apparently, the royals are more concerned than ever in the wake of Charles’ ascension to the throne, as they feel that viewers will have “more of an opportunity to compare the real people with the fiction they see in The Crown.”
“In the past, they didn’t get so much coverage, so in that sense, it was harder for people to be able to compare and contrast the drama with the reality,” says one source, who goes on to emphasize that the series is “a drama not a documentary.”
Fox News reached out to Charles for his reaction to these rumors.
Not surprisingly, the king had “no comment.”