Andrew Morton: Powerful people did not want Princess Dianas truth revealed
The information in The Crown Season 5’s second episode, “The System,” is nothing new for long-time Diana fans. For years, the stories about the lengths she went to work with Andrew Morton on his book Diana: Her True Story, have been in the public sphere. It was interesting to watch The Crown and Peter Morgan really lean into the sense that Princess Diana had very good reason to believe that her phones were tapped and she was being listened to and recorded. The Crown also leans into the idea that as Morton was working on the book, several very unnerving things happened to him and to James Colthurst, who acted as a go-between for Morton and Diana. Incidentally, they really found an actor who looked like a young Andrew Morton too, and the show is very, very kind to Morton. Anyway, Morton spoke to Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast about seeing himself on-screen and seeing Elizabeth Debicki channel Diana.
Andrew Morton on Debicki’s Diana: “I was blown away by how authentic Elizabeth Debicki was in her portrayal of Diana. It was like being back in the room with her 30 years ago. It was unnerving. It was like being with a ghost. It spoke to me very clearly.”
Morton says the bike incident & the break-in really happened: “Writing that book was the royal equivalent off All The President’s Men. You would see danger in the shadows. From the first moment that I heard the tapes, I was very careful. I remember standing back from the edge of the platform on the subway going home. I had been admitted into a secret circle. The secret circle knew the truth about Diana’s life, and many powerful people did not want that truth to be revealed…. My office was broken into. It happened just a few days after I had been warned, separately, by [journalists] Arthur Edwards and Richard Kay, that the security forces were looking carefully to find my source. An old camera was stolen and some files. Did it increase the sense of paranoia? Yes. And James was knocked off his bike in Parliament Square—and left scrambling in the gutter to pick up a tape recording of Diana.”
Diana had her apartment swept for bugs: In The Crown, Diana is so concerned that she calls in a team of specialist security people to sweep her house for bugs, even demanding they check the light fittings. Morton confirmed to The Daily Beast that this really happened. “Yes, we had Diana’s rooms swept for bugs. Towards the end, I would use payphones. The Crown shows the sense of un-named and anonymous watchers and it’s absolutely true, there is no need for Peter Morgan to make anything up.”
Morton believes Diana’s calls were being tapped & recorded: Asked if he believed Diana’s calls were indeed being tapped, Morton pointed out that four royal tapes made it into the public domain in the ’90s. While it is obviously hard to prove definitively that Diana was being surveilled, Morton’s compelling argument is that not just Diana but all of the royal family were having their communications intercepted. Most famously of course there is Tampongate, the intimate phone call between Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles in which Charles fantasized about being a tampon.
Even the Queen thought there was an issue with tapped phones: “Even the queen, as I say in my new book The Queen, was wondering when it would all stop… It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that everything was being taped, because the ones that leaked were what I would call significant phone calls. What are the chances of that?”
The part about Arthur Edwards and Richard Kay warning Morton is interesting. The ‘90s were a crazy time and the red-top tabloids had a crazy amount of power, but even some of the tabloid journalists and editors were wary of what the palace and establishment would do to them. Especially as Diana got older and began harnessing her power too, when she effectively had her own royal court in direct contrast to Charles’s court. You also have to remember that many of those reporters were on Diana’s side. They knew where the money was, and covering Diana was their livelihood. Anyway, yes – I’m glad Morton is saying “actually, The Crown got it entirely right.”
Photos courtesy of The Crown/Netflix.
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