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Nearly two and a half years after Josh O’Connor declared “The Crown” would not include Prince Charles‘ infamous “Tampongate” phone call with Camilla Parker Bowles, it’s now been confirmed it actually is happening, and it’s O’Connor’s successor, Dominic West, who spilled the tea.
West, who is playing the younger version of King Charles III in the upcoming seasons 5 of the Netflix show, opened up to Entertainment Weekly about how he felt about the ordeal while confirming to the outlet that the 1993 phone call will make it in the show.
“I remember thinking it was something so sordid and deeply, deeply embarrassing [at the time],” West, 53, told EW. “Looking back on it, and having to play it, what you’re conscious of is that the blame was not with these two people, two lovers, who were having a private conversation. What’s really [clear now] is how invasive and disgusting was the press’s attention to it, that they printed it out verbatim and you could call a number and listen to the actual tape. I think it made me extremely sympathetic towards the two of them and what they’d gone through.”
Charles, then a young Prince Charles, was secretly recorded in 1989 having a conversation with Camilla, in which he told her he wanted to “live inside” her trousers. She responded asking if he was going to be reincarnated as “a pair of knickers,” to which Charles responded saying that, with his luck, he’d return as a tampon.
The British tabloids would later publish transcripts of the secretly recorded conversations in 1993, at the height of Charles and Princess Diana’s hugely publicized separation and subsequent divorce.
In May 2020, O’Connor appeared on SirusXM’s “EW Live” and shut the door on recreating “Tampongate.”
“When they offered me the role, one of my first questions was — I say questions; I think it was pretty much a statement — ‘We are not doing the tampon phone call,’” O’Connor, who portrayed young Prince Charles for seasons 3 and 4.
He later added, “Unfortunately all the fans of ‘Tampongate’ will be very disappointed.”
Season 5 of “The Crown” premieres Nov. 9 on Netflix. For more on the hit series, see below.
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