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Downton Abbey Creator Disses The Crown in 2018's Version of Biggie vs. 2Pac

Julian Fellowes has (very polite) beef with Peter Morgan

liam-mathews
Liam Mathews

The gauntlet has been thrown, and this disrespect cannot stand! Downton Abbey and The Crown are going to have to duel to the death.

JK, JK, but Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes does have some criticisms of The Crown. The creator of the fully fictitious series about British aristocrats in the early 1900s said that he doesn't like how Netflix's royal family drama dramatizes people who are still alive.

On Katie Couric's podcast, Fellowes said that while he thinks The Crown is "a wonderful piece of work and a brilliant, brilliant writing from [creator] Peter Morgan," he says he's "not completely comfortable with dramatizing people who are still alive and still living their lives because I think it's possible to be unfair. And in the second [season], I didn't think it was fair to Prince Philip, to the Duke of Edinburgh, based on very little."

Prince Philip, played by Matt Smith in the first two seasons, is portrayed as occasionally petty and petulant when facing challenges in his marriage to Queen Elizabeth (Claire Foy).

"I think when people are still alive, living their lives, doing a good job and popular and loved, do they deserve it?" Fellowes said. "And in that sense, I'm not sure they do."

He also said that he thinks certain sides of stories were unfairly presented as definitive. "I think that a lot of it was based on, obviously, very good research, but some of it was not," he said. "Some of it was extrapolation from a rumor or someone's rather prejudiced account. And then it was presented as fact, and I'm not sure that's just."

That being said, Fellowes was effusive in his praise of Morgan and The Crown, saying "I think he's the best writer on television at the moment. And [the show is] deservedly successful, as far as I'm concerned."

The Crown Replaces Matt Smith with Tobias Menzies

So basically this interview is a very polite version of Pusha-T's "Infrared," and Morgan is going to have to come back with his "Duppy Freestyle" where he says Julian Fellowes never even really lived in the 1920s, and then Fellowes will come back with a "Story of Adidon" where he says he's a big fan of Morgan's even though he went over to his house once and Morgan didn't even offer him a cup of tea.

And make sure to watch Prince Philip's Instagram closely to see if he likes any posts referencing Fellowes defending him. That will tell us for sure what he thinks of the show, which he allegedly hasn't watched and doesn't like.

None of that will happen, obviously, and we're blowing this out of proportion because it's fun. But Fellowes' point is an interesting one. It's necessary to always take fictionalized portrayals of real people with a grain of salt. Even well-researched and well-intentioned works take some liberties, and it's important to not allow fiction to become thought of as an historical record.