Dame Judi Dench Trashes Netflix’s ‘The Crown’ as ‘Cruelly Unjust’ Fiction in Open Letter

Acclaimed actress Judi Dench has trashed Netflix’s The Crown as “cruelly unjust” fiction in open letter that called for the streaming giant to put a disclaimer for each episode.

Though The Crown has always been a lightning rod for controversy regarding its factual accuracy, scrutiny has increased in recent weeks following Queen Elizabeth II’s death.

With the upcoming season five, the series will depict some of the darkest years of the monarchy as it profiles the disintegration of then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marriage, prompting supporters of the late queen to come to her defense. One particularly explosive episode even goes so far as to allege Prince Charles actually lobbied the former U.K. Prime Minister Sir John Major to force his mother’s abdication, a charge the former PM called a “barrel-load of nonsense.”

In her open letter to U.K.’s The Times, Dench, who had a close relationship with the former queen, called the series “an inaccurate and hurtful account of history.”

“The Crown will present an inaccurate and hurtful account of history,” charged Dench. “Indeed, the closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism.”

Dench feared viewers, particularly those overseas, will accept The Crown as a “wholly true” account of history despite the many fanciful claims it makes about King Charles III.

“Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series — that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence — this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent,” she wrote.

Though Dench respects artistic freedom, she believed Netflix should place a disclaimer at the beginning 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 its reputation in the eyes of its British subscribers,” she concluded.

In response to the controversy, Netflix said that the series “has always been presented as a drama based on historical events.”

“Series Five is a fictional dramatization, imagining what could have happened behind closed doors during a significant decade for the royal family — one that has been scrutinized and well-documented by journalists, biographers, and historians,” it said.