Is Diana’s “ghost” in Season 6 of The Crown?

The Crown returns for the first half of the show’s final season on Netflix this week, but do these new episodes feature the ghost of Diana?

The Crown was one of Netflix’s first original shows. The star-studded, decades-spanning drama – about the British royal family – also became one of the streamer’s most successful and enduring programs. While at the same time receiving widespread critical acclaim, and a slew of writing and acting awards.

But all good things much come to an end, and via a Season 6 that’s been split into two parts, The Crown concludes in December.

With the first half of this climactic series streaming this week, the show’s creator – and one of its stars – have addressed rumors that Diana, Princess of Wales, will appear as a ghost to members of the Royal Family during Season 6.

Is Diana’s “ghost” in Season 6 of The Crown?

Yes, Princess Diana’s ghost appears in Season 6 of The Crown. Though the show’s creator Peter Morgan says that what viewers see isn’t supernatural, but rather “an extension of her in real life.”

Speaking to Deadline of the decision to include such potentially controversial scenes, Morgan says: “The word ghosts is unhelpful, I was never writing anything from a supernatural perspective, not at all.

“It was more an indication that, when someone has just passed, they’re still vivid in the minds of all those close to them and love them. And sometimes it’s impossible to keep them out of their minds. It felt to me more like an extension of her in real life, rather than a ghost.”

Diana actress Elizabeth Debicki calls ghost scenes “beautiful”

Elizabeth Debicki – the Australian actress who plays Princess Diana in Season 6 of The Crown – tells Deadline of those same scenes: “I’ve always been very intrigued by Peter’s brain, and I think that it’s an interesting, beautiful way to have a conversation about the experience of grief.

“I think that that is how we approached it as well. It’s such a slippery, human, crashing, impossible thing to reckon with, the loss of somebody, and I think that his way of imagining that was very beautiful to me, and it made sense.”

The first four episodes of The Crown Season 6 will be streaming on Netflix from November 16, 2023. The final six episodes of the season – and indeed the entire series – drop on December 14, 2023.

For more TV and Movie coverage, head here.