The most scandalous part of the fifth season of The Crown is not Diana, Princess of Wales’s secretly taped conversations with Andrew Morton or even the recreation of her famous Panorama interview. No. It’s that the show has brought “tampongate” to a new generation.
Tampongate, or “Camillagate” as it is also known, is the phrase used to describe the leaked intimate conversation between the now-King Charles III and Queen Consort in 1993.
The conversation was taped in 1989 while the King and Camilla Parker Bowles were still married to their spouses, and saw Camilla suggesting the King should become a box of tampons so he could live inside of her.
Published by The Mirror in 1993 after the then-Prince Charles and Diana announced their split, the intimate call was recreated in this season of the hit Netflix series, and there have been plenty of reactions to the scenes on social media.
“No The Crown did tampongate! This is awful oh god the King of England everybody,” one person wrote on Twitter, while another told viewers to “please brace yourself”.
“HOW am I learning about Tampongate through The Crown, and not through some annual story telling ritual from the generation above me. This is vital nation building information,” one person asked.
Another said: “A full and dramatic recreation of tampongate in The Crown, this is actually incredible. I love this show so much.”
A fourth viewer added: “That ‘Tampongate’ conversation between Charles and Camilla finished me. It’s so much worse actually hearing the conversation out loud.”
Reactions to tampongate come as royal expert Tiwa Adebayo recently told The Independent that Camilla’s “redemption arc” over the last quarter century has “been The Firm’s single greatest PR project to date”. She added: “It’s taken the better part of 25 years, but it’s clear that the tides have well and truly turned.”
