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Princess Diana & Camilla Parker Bowles Meet in 'The Crown' Season 4 Photo

Princess Diana & Camilla Parker Bowles Meet in 'The Crown' Season 4 Photo

From Harper's BAZAAR

The fourth season of The Crown promises to cover Princess Diana and Prince Charles's love story, but that doesn't mean Camilla Parker Bowles will be out of the picture.

In one of the new photos shared by Netflix, Charles's former flame (played by Emerald Fennell) and the future Princess of Wales (portrayed by Emma Corrin) meet one-on-one and seem to be holding hands—or perhaps, Camilla is just admiring Diana's engagement ring.

Just as the upcoming chapter will show Charles and Diana say "I do," it'll also show the growing fissures in their marriage. In real life, though Charles and Camilla broke up in the early '70s, they reportedly rekindled their romance in the mid-'80s, despite both being married with kids. Diana famously said in a BBC interview about the affair, "There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."

Camilla filed for divorce from her husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, in 1995. Charles and Diana finalized their divorce in 1996. About a decade later, Charles and Camilla went public with their relationship, and in 2005, the two married, making her the Duchess of Cornwall.

Photo credit: Des Willie - Netflix
Photo credit: Des Willie - Netflix

Josh O'Connor, who plays Prince Charles, warned that the Season 4 version of his character may not be likable. "It's a more flawed version of that character … someone who has been wronged on numerous occasions and is stuck in an unhappy marriage at points," he told Vanity Fair. "We see edges of his darkness."

That's a departure from the sympathetic view some may have developed for the prince in Season 3, when he felt unappreciated by his mother and the monarchy, and leaned on Camilla for support.

"When we see Charles with the queen or with his father, there was the sense of that relationship being strained, and there's a kind of inability to communicate," O'Connor told us last year. "I think for the Camilla relationship, it's all about making that really easy, making it kind of fun and light so that we see quite a sweet Charles, but it's sort of like a playful Charles."

He added, "I think it sets us up in a way where perhaps we feel some sympathy for Charles, some understanding of his playfulness and his rejection from the family. Camilla offers that, I guess, the playful side of Charles."

The Crown Season 4 arrives November 15.

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