With The Crown moving further into the 1990s, coverage of Princess Diana’s death was inevitable. On October 25, the Netflix series was spotted filming near the Pont de l’Alma in Paris where Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed died in a car accident while fleeing paparazzi on August 31, 1997.
In the photos, you can see photographers chasing the car. Elizabeth Debicki‘s Princess Diana can be seen in the backseat of the vehicle. Khalid Abdalla, who plays Dodi in the Netflix series, is likely sitting next to her.
Filming of the car crash that led to her death comes just as Netflix was reportedly “on edge” to recreate the tragedy for season 6, according to Deadline. Most of the scenes will be shot over the course of two weeks.
“We’ve been dreading getting to this point. The countdown is two weeks and while we’re calmly carrying on it’s fair to acknowledge that there’s a certain anxiety; a palpable sense of being slightly on edge. I mean, there’s bombshell sensitivity surrounding this one,” a production source told Deadline.
The Crown will not film the car crash itself. The show will chronicle the events before and after the crash. “It’s the run-up: the car leaving The Ritz after midnight with paparazzi in pursuit and then the aftermath with the British Ambassador to France swinging into action with the Foreign Office and then the subsequent constitutional aftermath,” the source added.
Princess Diana, Dodi, and Henri Paul, their driver, were all killed in the Paris car crash. Dodi and Henri were killed on impact, while Diana died at the hospital hours later. Diana’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, survived the crash. Princess Diana’s death shocked the world and millions mourned the loss of the Princess of Wales, who was just 36 when she died. Her televised funeral was watched by over 2 billion people.
The Crown season 5 will premiere November 9 on Netflix. The season will begin in 1992, the year Princess Diana and Prince Charles, now King Charles III, separated. Elizabeth will be taking over the role of Diana from Emma Corrin. Dominic West will step into the role of Charles. Season 5 will cover a chunk of the 1990s, a turbulent time for the royal family, before moving into the late 1990s and early 2000s for the sixth and final season.