The Crown star Dominic West says ‘sordid’ tampongate reaction shows ‘how badly Camilla was treated’

Actor said the infamous phone call is actually ‘sweet, tender and gauche’

The Crown star Dominic West has condemned the way Camilla Parker Bowles was treated in 1993 after an intimate phone call she had with the then Prince Charles was leaked to the press.

The Netflix drama’s forthcoming fifth season will portray the infamous “tampongate” scandal between Charles and Camilla.

In the 1989 phone call, Prince (now King) Charles told his then-mistress, now the Queen Consort, that he wished he could be reincarnated as a tampon so that he could live inside her.

A transcript of the six-minute phone call was printed in The People after Charles and Diana split, under the headline: “Charles and Camilla – the tape.”

West, who plays Prince Charles in the new season opposite Olivia Williams’s Camilla, said his research showed him “how badly Camilla was treated” at the time.

He told Radio Times: “I don’t think that would happen today. It happened for many reasons, one of them being she’s a woman.

“I remember thinking it was a sordid, embarrassing discussion but, revisiting it, I found it was just an intensely personal conversation, and what was sordid was the prurient interest in it.”

He added: “It’s very sweet, tender and gauche but, like any intensely personal conversation, just not for public consumption.”

Elizabeth Debicki as Diana in ‘The Crown’ season 5 (Netflix)

In the same article, Princess Diana actor Elizabeth Debicki urged people to “move on” from criticising the show over its new storylines.

In recent weeks, both Judi Dench and former prime minister Sir John Major have criticised reported plotlines in the new episodes, which arrived on Netflix on 9 November.

Many called for Netflix to add a disclaimer to the start of each episode stating that The Crown is a “fictionalised drama”. In response, Netflix added a disclaimer to its most recent trailer.