Why ‘The Crown’ Isn’t Featuring Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Exit From Royal Life

The Crown wasn't silenced — it's silent. The long-running Netflix drama will soon be coming to a close, with Part 1 of Season 6 premiering on Thursday and Part 2 arriving on Dec. 14. But, even though the next chapter eventually will jump ahead in time — following Prince William (Ed McVey) and Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy) as they begin a fateful relationship — it won't get to little brother Prince Harry (Luther Ford) and Meghan Markle's rebellious romance.

And, according to creator Peter Morgan, that's on purpose.

"I just think you get so much more interesting [with time]," he told The Hollywood Reporter in August 2020. "Meghan and Harry are in the middle of their journey, and I don't know what their journey is or how it will end. One wishes some happiness, but I'm much more comfortable writing about things that happened at least 20 years ago. I sort of have, in my head, a 20-year rule. That is enough time and enough distance to really understand something, to understand its role, to understand its position, to understand its relevance. Often things that appear absolutely wildly important today are instantly forgotten, and other things have a habit of sticking around and proving to be historically very relevant and long-lasting."

It appears like Morgan will be following his own rule: Season 6 will go through the administrations of Prime Ministers John Major and Tony Blair, and Blair ended his tenure in 2007.

"To be a dramatist, I think you need perspective and you need to also allow for the opportunity for metaphor," he told THR at the time. "Once something has a metaphorical possibility, it can then become interesting. It’s quite possible, for example, to tell the story of Harry and Meghan through analogy and metaphor, if that’s what you want to do. Because there’ve been so many examples in the past, whether it’s Wallis Simpson or Edward VII, or whether it’s Diana and Prince Charles. There have been plenty of opportunities in the past where there have been marital complications. There’ve been wives that have been married into the royal family that have felt unwelcome and that they don’t fit in. So there are plenty of stories to tell without telling the story of Harry and Meghan."

In January 2020, Harry and Meghan announced their decision to "step back" as working members of the royal family and to become financially independent. In March 2021, the couple said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that the decision was caused by intense press scrutiny, security concerns and lack of support by the royal family.

For the same reasons that preclude Meghan and Harry's story from making it on the small screen, Morgan has also revealed Prince Andrew's scandals of today won't be included in The Crown. The Frost/Nixon writer told Variety earlier this year that he hasn't "gone anywhere near [Andrew]"; his focus instead, he added, is nearly always on the direct line of succession, meaning Elizabeth, Charles and William.

But that doesn't mean current events won't affect Season 6. After reading Prince Harry's bombshell memoir Spare, Dominic West, who plays his father King Charles, said he originally depicted the monarch as "deeply emotional" but had to make a shift.

"Then Harry wrote his book and said [Charles] never hugged him or anything," West said during an interview with Netflix. "So we had to change that slightly." (Previously, Morgan told Variety he did not read Prince Harry's memoir.)

What will be included in Season 6? In addition to the events leading up to and immediately following Princess Diana's death, The Crown is expected to depict William and Kate's romance, the nuptials between Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles (Olivia Williams), and the queen's Golden Jubilee.

The Crown Season 6, Part 2 premieres Dec. 14 on Netflix.