‘It’s their thing’: Holly Willoughby criticises The Crown’s portrayal of Charles and Camilla ‘tampongate’ scandal

‘The Crown’ is now streaming on Netflix

Holly Willoughby has criticised Netflix’s The Crown for its portrayal of a private conversation between King Charles III and the Queen Consort.

The fifth season of the popular series landed on the streaming platform this week and follows the breakdown of King Charles and Princess Diana’s marriage during the 1990s.

It also explores the events that followed when Camilla was revealed as Charles’ secret mistress. Their relationship became public knowledge shortly after Charles and Diana’s separation was announced.

In 1993, The Sunday Mirror published the transcript of a six-minute, private telephone conversation between Charles and Camilla.

The call, which included the couple’s proclamations of love and yearning for one another, reportedly took place in 1989 – when they were both married to other people.

The scandal became widely known as “tampongate” as Charles joked about wanting to be a Tampax tampon so that he could be closer to his lover.

Discussing the show’s coverage of the events on This Morning on Thursday (10 November), Willoughby said the storyline should not have included the controversial moment.

“It was a private conversation, and something none of us should ever have heard,” Willoughby said.

“I don’t think any of us should be talking about it, it’s their thing. To have that put out there again, for everyone to witness and see and talk about and be entertained by it, that must be painful for the family.”

Kristina Kyriacou, a former communications secretary to King Charles also sympathised with the couple.

“All of us have had private conversations in our lifetime that we hoped would remain private,” Kyriacou said.

But she noted that the couple had managed to “dust” off the media speculation about their relationship in the past.

“It was a very, very embarsssing moment, but they dusted themselves off at the time that the tape recording was made public,” Kyriacou said.

“They went out and greeted people...they looked people in the eye and continued doing what they do best, which is acts of service.”