The Crown: What book did Andrew Morton write about Princess Diana?

Heading into the fifth season of The Crown, we knew to expect the show to put a big focus on Princess Diana as it entered the 1990s and the show definitely did not stray away from the many iconic moments which took place across the decade.

Across the season, Princess Diana’s relationship with Prince Charles and the Royal Family come are put under the microscope as the show looks at the events that paved the way for the couple’s divorce in 1996.

Among the many events the new season focuses on is the release of a book which provided Diana the chance to tell her story. Early in the season, Diana’s confidant James Colthurst meets with a journalist by the name of Andrew Morton, who expresses an interest in helping Diana to tell her story via a new book.

While we get to see the events that led up to the book’s publishing as well as the fallout it created play out in the show, the book’s title is never directly referenced — a move that has created a lot of curiosity among viewers.

Warning: The Crown season 5 spoilers ahead. 

Andrew Morton Princess Diana book

During the second episode of The Crown season 5, Diana’s confidant James Colthurst is approached by journalist Andrew Morton who pitches him the idea of writing a book telling Diana’s story with help from the Princess of Wales. To help give Diana plausible deniability regarding her role in the creation of the book, Morton’s pitch is that he can provide Diana with questions to answer via a tape recorder for him to then use within the book.

After his meeting with Morton, Colthurst takes the pitch to Diana who agrees to do the book with Colthurst serving as a middleman for the project, transporting Morton’s questions and Diana’s recordings back and forth.

While the title of the book developed and eventually published in 1992 is never directly named in The Crown season 5, the book in question is Morton’s Diana: Her True Story—In Her Own Words — which to this day is seen as being the closest thing to an official biography from Diana.

As we see in The Crown season 5, the book created a lot of buzz with its explosive content and the allegations made against the Royal Family within the book. The book, which eventually went on to become a #1 New York Times bestselling biography, proved to be a pivotal moment in the timeline of Charles and Diana’s relationship with the show alleging that it was the book that proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back and made Charles realize there was no saving their marriage.

Since its original release, Diana: Her True Story—In Her Own Words has since been republished with additional information being added to the original book designed to provide additional insights into Diana’s life and state of mind at the time when she provided the interviews for the book. The book is available on Amazon and via select retailers.