How Princess Diana And Camilla's Infamous First Lunch In 'The Crown' Really Went Down
There were a lot of look-away, nail biting moments in The Crown Series 4, but Princess Diana and Camilla Parker Bowles' meeting for lunch at a restaurant called Ménage à Trois was next level. This meeting was definitely a foreshadowing of what was in store throughout this series.
Although the Diana and Camilla's tense lunch scene seems as though it was almost too wild to be true, apparently the two women in Prince Charles' life really did hang out. Of course, it's worth noting that while some events portrayed in the show did take place in real life, its creators have never claimed the series to be completely accurate and creative license has been employed.
Here's what we know about the Princess Diana and Camilla's relationship — including that awkward lunch.
Charles Didn't Tell Diana He and Camilla Used to Date
Yep. Diana reportedly thought Charles and Camilla were just friends, and only found out about their history after she said 'yes' to his proposal. Royal biographer Penny Junor detailed this alleged oversight in her book, 'The Duchess: Camilla Parker Bowles and the Love Affair That Rocked the Crown' (via Good Housekeeping):
'Instead of explaining to Diana at the outset that Camilla was an old girlfriend, he had presented her as nothing more than a friend. It didn't occur to him that she needed to know before someone else told her.... He came clean after the engagement, admitting that Camilla had been one of his most intimate friends, but reassured Diana that from now on there would be no other women.'
Diana Became Suspicious of Camilla During Their Lunch
So although the infamous lunch meeting did occur, one fictional liberty The Crown did take - the name of the restaurant. However Camilla and Diana's awkward back and forth in 'Ménage à Trois' is another instance of The Crown trolling us all.
And when it comes to the details of their conversation, it looks like the show took some creative liberties there, too. Meaning, no one knows exactly what these two talked about, and there's no proof that Camilla revealed that her and Charles' nicknames for each other were Fred and Gladys. But according to royal biographer Andrew Morton's book Diana: Her True Story – In Her Own Words, we do know that Camilla tried to do some digging into Charles and Diana's own relationship:
'The friendly note invited her to lunch. It was during that meeting, arranged to coincide with Prince Charles’s trip to Australia and New Zealand, that Diana became suspicious. Camilla kept asking if Diana was going to hunt when she moved to Highgrove. Nonplussed by such an odd question, Diana replied in the negative. The relief on Camilla's face was clear. Diana later realised that Camilla saw Charles's love of hunting as a conduit to maintaining her own relationship with him.'
While the friendship between Camilla and Diana didn't exactly blossom, they were spotted hanging out together at Ludlow races in 1980 (before Diana and Charles got married) to watch Charles compete.
Diana Eventually 'Confronted' Camilla
According to Morton, Diana did end up confronting Camilla at a birthday party, saying, 'I know what's going on between you and Charles and I just want you to know that.' To which Camilla responded with, 'You've got everything you ever wanted. You've got all the men in the world fall in love with you and you've got two beautiful children, what more do you want?' In the rebuttals to end all rebuttals, Diana said in return: 'I want my husband.'
Morton added that, Diana actually ended the conversation by apologising to Camilla for being in the way, saying, 'It must be hell for both of you but I do know what's going on. Don't treat me like an idiot.'
If this is what the real life conversations were like then The Crown season 5 is guaranteed to to be intense.
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