The Reason We Won't See Meghan Markle And Prince Harry Portrayed On The Crown
If you haven't seen Netflix's The Crown yet, you're missing out. Sure, you could just read a history book to learn more about Queen Elizabeth II's reign, but you'd be missing out on a lot of drama.
The fan favorite has aired three seasons so far, with the third season of The Crown covering Queen Elizabeth's reign from the early 1960s to the late 1970s. As the show brings us closer and closer to the present day, fans can't help but wonder just how far the series will progress. Will we get to see Princess Diana's tragic story play out? Will The Crown introduce Kate Middleton as a character? Will the romance between Meghan Markle and Prince Harry be portrayed?
While it seems likely that we'll at least see Prince Harry and Prince William as children (the show is currently only a few years away from Princess Charles and Princess Diana's 1981 wedding), there are a few good reasons we won't see The Crown touching on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's royal wedding or their announcement a couple years later that they would be stepping back from their royal duties.
Prince Harry does not want his life portrayed on The Crown
Biographer Angela Levin, who interviewed Prince Harry for her 2018 book Harry: A Biography of a Prince, told BBC Breakfast that Prince Harry does not want to see his life on Netflix. "Harry, when I went to interview him in the Palace, the first thing he said to me when he shook my hand was, 'Are you watching The Crown?'" said Levin (via E! News). "And I hadn't been at the time, I felt very embarrassed and I got it and he said, 'I'm going to make sure I stop it before they get to me.'"
Prince Harry was born in 1984, so if the series wraps before his birth, they'll be missing a lot of key moments in Windsor history. It appears that there are plans to cover Queen Elizabeth's reign in the 1980s, though, so it's likely we will see Prince Harry, at least as a minor character.
The story was originally pitched as a long-running series, covering a huge chunk of Queen Elizabeth's life. "The idea is to do this over six decades, in six seasons presumably, and make the whole show over eight to 10 years," Netflix content boss Ted Sarandos said after the show premiered in 2016 (via The Hollywood Reporter).
The Crown has no plans to continue into the present day
The showrunners have a good reason for not wanting to bring The Crown into the present day, though, and it has nothing to do with Prince Harry. "To be honest, whatever the life of The Crown is after where we are now, I doubt we'll ever go as far into the present day," executive producer Suzanne Mackie told PA (via BBC).
Series creator Peter Morgan told Entertainment Weekly that he did not want to delve into the present day. "I know how my show is going to end — but that's long before where we are now," he said. "I feel uncomfortable writing about events within a certain time period. I think there's a certain amount of time within which, if you write about it, what you do instantly becomes journalistic. Because it's too close to the moment."
He added, "If you wait a certain amount of time, if you allow fifteen or twenty years, basically a generation, between you and [the events] then you can write about it somewhat freely as drama."
The Crown's creator has no plans to portray Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's love story
Morgan said that he definitely has no plans to portray the relationship between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and that, as a storyteller, he doesn't even have anything to say about Markle.
"Let's wait twenty years and see what there is to say about Meghan Markle," he said. "I don't know what there is to say about Meghan Markle at the moment. I wouldn't know and I wouldn't presume. She'll only become interesting once we've had twenty years to digest who she is and what her impact has been. If I were to write about Meghan Markle I would automatically be writing journalistically. I've got nothing to say about Meghan Markle."
While Morgan could always change his mind, it seems unlikely that we'll see Prince Harry's life explored in too much detail on The Crown. Of course, if the show ends up going on longer than expected, it's quite possible that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's relationship will become part of the Netflix show's dramatic storyline.