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Ahead of The Crown’s season 6 release, which features the series’ first foray into covering Kate Middleton and Prince William’s relationship, a source claimed to Us Weekly that Kate was trying to “win people over” before the new season potentially colors their view of her.
But does Kate actually watch the show? Is she really paying attention to how the Netflix series portrays her? Endgame author Omid Scobie tells ELLE.com no, she purposely avoids coverage of herself.
“I often don’t believe it when a celebrity says, ‘Oh, I don’t read what’s written about me,’ or, ‘I don’t look at that,’ because we all know, especially being journalists on the receiving end of those calls from publicists, that they’re all looking,” he said. “But I do believe that with Kate, definitely, she truly isn’t looking. I mean, when people say she doesn’t look, I’m told that she doesn’t even read the news. She just stays out of the loop. That’s clearly the way it works for her. And given that she’s in such a unique and difficult way of life, I don’t blame her for taking that approach to it. So, I can’t imagine her being particularly bothered about what’s in The Crown.”
Her husband Prince William is likely a different story though, Scobie said, because “ultimately, it’s the portrayal of his mother. We know from that moment after the [controversial Princess Diana] Panorama [interview] documentary was removed from the public domain that William and Harry had very different opinions on how their mother came across in that and the things that she said. I would imagine that there was always going to be some care or even concern about how she might be portrayed in a TV show. But by the sounds of it, no one’s actually watching it within the royal family at the moment. In the same way that many of them ignored Harry’s book [Spare] and relied on the coverage in newspapers or what their aides told them about it, same with the Netflix series [Harry & Meghan].”
With the second part of The Crown season 6 out now, Meg Bellamy, who plays Kate in the show, addressed whether she thinks Kate will watch her performance in an interview with British Vogue. “I don’t know! I don’t know if I would watch a series about my own life,” she admitted. “I would just see it through such a different lens. The cast have all been so welcoming and supportive about this new journey for me, though. And I think the most common piece of advice I’ve received is: ‘Have a good support group around you’.”
This story has been updated.
Senior News and Strategy Editor
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.