"The Crown" depicts multiple occasions in which Princess Diana talks about the treatment she endured in the royal family. "The System" shows how The Princess secretly corresponded with author Andrew Morton to publish an unfiltered account of her experiences throughout her marriage to Prince Charles. "No Woman's Land" and "Gunpowder" highlight the inner workings of the late Princess's bombshell interview with the BBC in 1995, in which she revealed her struggle with an eating disorder and self-harm, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles's affair, and the lack of support from the royal family. It was a shocking revelation that only painted the royals in a worse light than they already were at the time, but was the journey to the interview deceitful?
The journalist interviewing Princess Diana, Martin Bashir, presented fake bank documents to her brother, Earl Spencer, which he claimed "showed two senior courtiers were being paid by the security services for information on his sister," according to The Sun. In addition, the fake statements also alluded to the other royal family members doing tell-all newspaper stories, which was not the case. Persuaded by the documents and Bashir himself, Spencer approached his sister about the interview, and she went forward with it.
Despite an investigation that concluded Bashir was "deceitful" in obtaining the interview, Princess Diana herself said that she agreed to it all on her own, writing on a note in 1995 (via The BBC), "Martin Bashir did not show me any documents, nor give me any information that I was not previously aware of. I consented to the interview on Panorama without any undue pressure and have no regrets concerning the matter."