Princess Diana’s former chef says ‘The Crown’ got her relationship with Prince Charles wrong: ‘Don’t say they were never in love’

• Princess Diana’s former chef says “The Crown” misrepresented her relationship with Prince Charles.
• Darren McGrady told Insider that it’s not true the couple were “never in love,” as he witnessed it.
• He recalled one memory of seeing them dance together, the crowd “stepping aside and whooping.”
• Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Former royal chef Darren McGrady says “The Crown” got Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ love story completely wrong. 

The show’s fourth season portrays the love triangle between Diana (Emma Corrin), Charles (Josh O’Connor) and Camilla Parker Bowles (Emerald Fennell), and the subsequent breakdown of Charles and Diana’s marriage. 

McGrady, who worked for the Queen at Buckingham Palace for 11 years before relocating to Diana’s Kensington Palace home from 1993 to 1997, told Insider that the show misrepresented the couple’s relationship by portraying them as unhappy together.

Read more: Princess Diana’s former chef says he made the ‘cardinal sin’ of serving her favorite breakfast – a can of baked beans – to Americans

“I saw the two of them, I saw them dancing at the Ghillies Ball at Balmoral. Everyone was stepping aside and whooping. Charles was the DJ, and Diana in her ballgown. She spun him around so fast, he was laughing out loud,” McGrady told Insider. “You can’t hide that. Don’t say they were never in love, because seeing things like that … they should have portrayed more things like that.”

Diana once spoke about her feelings for Charles in the National Geographic documentary "Diana: In Her Own Words," which featured audio tapes of the princess speaking about her life as a member of the royal family.

"I remember being so in love with my husband that I couldn't take my eyes off him," she said of her wedding day. 

However, in the same documentary, she also called her wedding "the worst day of my life" and referred to herself as "a lamb to the slaughter."

"I don't think I was happy. I never tried to call it off, in the sense of really doing that, but I think [it was] the worst day of my life," the princess said.

Read more: Princess Diana once said her royal wedding to Prince Charles was the 'worst day of my life'

McGrady said the show's depiction of Charles and Diana's first meeting was false.

Diana's first appearance in "The Crown" occurs during the first episode of season four, when Charles is casually dating her sister, Lady Sarah. When Charles visits the family home, Diana tries to pass him unnoticed - even though she is in an elaborate tree costume for a school production. However, he ends up spotting her and they have a short conversation.

"When Charles first met her, she wasn't running around in her ballet gear in the house. He first saw her at a shoot at [Diana's family home] Althorp, she was 16 and wearing a Barbour cap and wellies. She looked stunning," McGrady said. 

Royal historian Hugo Vickers previously told Insider that the show's suggestion that Charles didn't know who Diana was when they first met was false since she grew up close by. 

Emma Corrin, who plays Diana on the show, recently defended the show after some people argued that it should include a fictional disclaimer before every episode.

"It is very clearly a dramatized version of events. This is fictitious in the same way people don't mistake 'Succession' for what actually happened with the Murdochs," Corrin told Variety.

She added: "I also understand [the request] comes from a place of sensitivity and protectiveness of the royal family and Diana."

Netflix did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.