Simone Simmons became a trusted confidante of Diana after they met at an alternative medicine centre, The Hale Clinic. A psychic and alternative healer, Simone used to consult Diana until her untimely death, and the pair would talk on the phone for up to 10 hours.
She has now joined the ranks of people spoking out against Netflix’s decision to depict Diana’s final hours in the latest series of The Crown.
Highly critical of the controversial move, Simone told The Sun: “These are cruel, sadistic and wicked people to recreate these moments. They are the lowest of the low.
“They are rewriting history as they go along and that’s what makes me very angry.”
She went on to slam the flagship show as “disgusting and sick” and questioned if they were “setting out” to hurt the feelings of Prince William and Prince Harry.
She is by no means the only person to take issue with the decision.
In a recent letter to the Times, Dame Judi Dench described the upcoming series of The Crown as “crude sensationalism” and “cruelly unjust” to the royal family.
“No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged,” she wrote. “The programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode. The time has come for Netflix to reconsider – for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve their own reputation in the eyes of their British subscribers.”
A number of viewers have joined calls for Netflix to include a disclaimer stating the show is fiction ahead of every episode.
A spokesman for the streaming giant said the show has always been a fictional dramatization of the royal family’s inner workings.
“Series five is… imagining what could have happened behind closed doors during a significant decade for the royal family – one that has already been scrutinized and well-documented by journalists, biographers and historians,” they said.
