The true story behind the tabloid scandal that rocked the world.
season five, episode five, Dominic West’s Prince Charles and Olivia Williams’s Camilla Parker Bowles break away from their families for a private moment on the phone. It starts out innocently: Charles is nervous about a speech he’s set to deliver in Oxford, and Camilla gives him feedback. Soon, however, the call takes a raunchy turn: “I wish I could live inside your trousers,” Charles coos.
Somewhere in the English countryside, a man with radio and recording equipment toggles between frequencies. He pauses as he recognizes the posh voices coming out the other end. Then, he presses the record button. It’s an intimate—and, well, fairly illicit—conversation. But did this really happen between the now king and queen? Or is it an exaggerated plot point in a historical-fiction series?, the truth in this case is just as scandalous as fiction. Much of Williams and West’s dialogue is lifted from the transcript of an actual 1989 phone call between the real Charles and Camilla, which was published by various tabloids across the world in 1993.
How did the call get leaked in the first place? At the time, the source was said to be a radio enthusiast with an impressive scanner. Yet questions arose: In August 1992, a recorded phone call between Princess Diana and James Gilbey had also been published. Was there something bigger going on here? “There has been considerable speculation as to a ‘dirty tricks’ campaign aimed at the Royal Family,” wrote theThere has been no hard proof of the more nefarious scheme that many suspected, however.
Decades later, though, there was indeed a clear violation of the royal family’s privacy when making telephone calls: It came to light in 2011 that reporters fromhacked the voicemails of various members of the family from 2005 to 2007. Arrests and convictions of the editors and writers involved followed, and the paper soon shuttered. To this day, Prince Harry has continued toVogue
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