Jemima Khan, 47, who worked on the dramatic romantic past of Diana, Princess of Wales for the upcoming series of The Crown has pulled out of the project after a fallout and breakup with the show’s creator.
A close friend of Diana’s, Khan was hired to help The Crown’s originator Peter Morgan, 58, script the princess’ last years before her death but said the series was not as ‘compassionate’ and she hoped it would be.
From last September to this February the film producer worked with Morgan on stories such as Diana’s relationships with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan and Dodi Fayed as well as her sensational BBC Panorama interview with Martin Bashir.
Diana, Princess of Wales with Jemima Khan and her son on a British royal tour of Pakistan in 1997
Emma Corrin played Diana in series four of The Crown, which portrayed her struggles with the public eye and marriage to Prince Charles
Morgan was briefly romantically linked to Khan after he split up with his partner of four years Gillian Anderson, who portrayed Margaret Thatcher in the series’ fourth season.
The screenwriting pair were friends for years beforehand, but broke up in February, after which Morgan reunited with Anderson.
Khan has now said she left the project because the show wasn’t handling Diana’s story ‘as respectfully or compassionately’ as she had hoped, The Sunday Times reported.
Jemima married Imran Khan in 1995 but they divorced nine years later. Diana visited the pair twice in 1996 and 1997
Diana with Imran and Jemima Khan in 1997. From last September to this February the film producer worked with Peter Morgan on stories such as Diana’s relationships with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan and Dodi Fayed
The film producer added that she agreed to help write the fifth series when approached by Morgan in 2019 even though she hadn’t publicly spoken about her past with Diana because she wanted her story to be ‘portrayed accurately’.
Khan said she requested that her ‘contributions be removed from the series’ and declined a writing credit.
A spokesman for The Crown said that Khan has ‘been a friend, fan and vocal public supporter’ of the show since its beginning and that while she has been a ‘well-informed source’ she was never contracted as a writer.
Khan, pictured, said the series was not as ‘compassionate’ as she hoped it would be
Khan was associate editor of political magazine The New Statesman and was European editor-at-large for the US magazine Vanity Fair and now runs a film production company.
She has two sons – Suleiman, 24, and 21-year-old Kasim – from her marriage to former cricketer Imran Khan, now Pakistan’s Prime Minister and Hasnat Khan’s distant cousin.
The couple married in 1995 but divorced nine years later. Diana visited the pair twice in 1996 and 1997.
Peter Morgan has gained critical acclaim as the writer behind Netflix hit The Crown (pictured in 2017)
Since then, the daughter of the late tycoon James Goldsmith and socialite Lady Annabel Goldsmith has dated several high-profile men including Hugh Grant, Russell Brand and Shane Warne (ex of Liz Hurley).
Father-of-five Morgan was nominated for an Academy Award for his script for the 2006 film The Queen, starring Helen Mirren.
His other screenwriting credits include the movies Frost/Nixon and The Damned United, as well as the acclaimed stage play The Audience.
In September shots captured in sunny southern Spain showed director Philip Martin on set of the highly anticipated fifth series of The Crown, which is thought to cover the Royal Family from the 1990s to 2003.
There were no official visits to Spain by the royals in the 1990s and it is thought that the crew could have been recreating scenes from when Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed visited St. Tropez together in 1997.
Source: dailymail