Lord Heseltine has praised Sir John Major and Sir Tony Blair for publicly criticising the latest series of The Crown.
The former Conservative deputy prime minister described the ex-PMs’ interventions as “important” ahead of the show’s release on Netflix next week.
Speaking to Sky News, Lord Heseltine said: “Very good, I’m glad they have spoken out. They have public credibility and it’s important that those who do understand what goes on and what has gone on actually speak up because the Royal Family are in a very difficult position to defend themselves.”
Image: Dominic West (Prince Charles) and Elizabeth Debicki (Princess Diana) in The Crown. Pic: Netflix
Image: Jonny Lee Miller plays John Major in The Crown. Pic: Netflix
Responding to suggestions that Sir John or Sir Tony could have revealed what was said in their private conversations with the Royal Family, he said: “I think that’s rubbish, of course John and Tony didn’t reveal their conversations because everyone knows the prime minister has conversations which are treasured and totally private.
“That’s one of the privileges of the position they occupy.”
Ahead of the release of season five, the two former PMs both hit out at their depiction while Dame Judi Dench called for a disclaimer to be added to each episode, saying it has begun to verge on “crude sensationalism”.
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Sir John recently wrote a letter to The Telegraph responding to the upcoming series which is expected to show the-then Prince Charles, played by Dominic West, cutting short a holiday with Princess Diana to host a secret meeting with Sir John at Highgrove in 1991, at which they discuss potentially ousting the Queen.
The ex-Tory prime minister wrote that it “will be profoundly hurtful to a family who are still grieving for the very person on whose life the entire drama was founded”.
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Image: Sir John Major and Prince Charles in 1994
‘Complete and utter rubbish’
Prince Charles is reportedly shown in the programme trying to recruit Sir Tony as an ally to protect his future and pave the way for him to marry Camilla, shortly after the 1997 general election which the-then Labour leader famously won in a landslide.
Sir Tony’s spokesman told the Telegraph: “It should come as no surprise that this is complete and utter rubbish.”
Image: Tony Blair and Prince Charles in 1997
Last month, veteran actress Dame Judi called for a disclaimer to be added to each episode of The Crown as she felt there was a risk that “a significant number of viewers” will take its events as historical truth.
Netflix added a disclaimer to the description of the latest trailer but stopped short of adding the message to the trailer itself.
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However, Khlid Abdalla, the actor playing Princess Diana’s lover Dodi Fayed, defended the show telling Sky News: “Everyone knows the love with which this programme has towards the Royal Family, towards the Queen, towards that legacy.
“And I believe that in order to tell those stories as beautifully as possible and as fully as possible you have to have the fullness of everything, and that’s what I’ve seen we’re trying to do.”
Image: Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in The Crown. Pic: Netflix
The actress playing Princess Diana in the series, Elizabeth Debicki, has also said she feels like audiences know The Crown is “clearly fictional” as she responded to criticism of how certain storylines are depicted.
Asked whether she felt defensive to the criticism, she said: “I don’t really. I understand what the show is and what it’s trying to do.”
The 32-year-old Australian told The Guardian: “I mean, it is clearly fictional. I feel like audiences know that, because there are actors, playing parts.”
“I never watched The Crown and thought, ‘this is a documentary’ or ‘this is obviously true’.”
Dolly Parton’s sister has said that the country singer is “going to be just fine” after worrying fans by asking for prayers.
Freida Parton had asked people for prayers for the Jolene and I Will Always Love You singer on Tuesday.
“Last night, I was up all night praying for my sister, Dolly. Many of you know she hasn’t been feeling her best lately,” Ms Parton wrote in a Facebook post.
“I truly believe in the power of prayer, and I have been [led] to ask all of the world that loves her to be prayer warriors and pray with me.
“She’s strong, she’s loved, and with all the prayers being lifted for her, I know in my heart she’s going to be just fine. Godspeed, my sissy Dolly. We all love you!”
Image: Parton performs during her concert in Ijsselhallen in Zwolle, Netherlands, in 2007. Pic: AP
After shocked fans took to social media expressing worry about Parton’s health, her sister said in a second post on Wednesday: “I want to clear something up. I didn’t mean to scare anyone or make it sound so serious when asking for prayers for Dolly.
“She’s been a little under the weather, and I simply asked for prayers because I believe so strongly in the power of prayer. It was nothing more than a little sister asking for prayers for her big sister.”
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It comes after Parton announced in September that she had to postpone her upcoming Las Vegas residency over “health challenges”.
Image: Dolly Parton performs with the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders in 2023. Pic: Reuters
“As many of you know, I have been dealing with some health challenges, and my doctors tell me that I must have a few procedures,” the singer said at the time.
“As I joked with them, it must be time for my 100,000-mile check-up, although it’s not the usual trip to see my plastic surgeon!”
Parton said she was postponing the shows because she is “not going to be able to rehearse and put together the show that I want you to see. You pay good money to see me perform, and I want to be at my best for you”.
The country star was set to perform six shows at Caesars Palace in December, but her performance dates have been moved to September 2026.
“Don’t worry about me quittin’ the business because God hasn’t said anything about stopping yet,” Parton said as she announced the postponement of her shows. “But I believe he is telling me to slow down right now so I can be ready for more big adventures with all of you.”
The daughter of late actor Robin Williams has begged people to stop sending her AI-generated “slop” of her father.
“Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,” actor and director Zelda Williams wrote on Instagram on Monday.
“To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to ‘this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that’s enough’, just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening.”
Image: Zelda Williams arrives in 2024. File pic: AP
She described the videos as “disgusting, over-processed hotdogs” made from the lives of human beings.
“You’re […] shoving them down someone else’s throat hoping they’ll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross,” she wrote.
It’s not the first time Williams has written about the impact of people sending her content about her father on social media.
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Hunger strikers want end to ‘superhuman’ AI
In 2020, on the anniversary of her father’s death, Williams posted on Instagram saying:
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“While I am constantly touched by all of your boundless continued love for him, some days it can feel a bit like being seen as a roadside memorial – a place, not a person – where people drive past and leave their sentiments to then go about their days comforted their love for him was witnessed.”
“But sometimes, that leaves me emotionally buried under a pile of others’ memories instead of my own.”
The death of Robin Williams in 2014, an actor and comedian known for his quick wit and wisdom, triggered a global outpouring of grief and tributes to the star still frequently surface on social media to this day.
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‘I’ve been turned into an AI announcer’
In 2023, Zelda appealed for the end of AI-generated content, saying in a widely-reported post on Instagram:
“I’ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad. This isn’t theoretical, it is very very real.” “I’ve already heard AI used to get his ‘voice’ to say whatever people want and while I find it personally disturbing, the ramifications go far beyond my own feelings.”
Author Dame Jilly Cooper has died, her publisher has said.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Dame Jilly Cooper, DBE who died on Sunday morning, after a fall, at the age of 88,” a statement said.
The Queen paid tribute to Dame Jilly, calling her a “legend” who was a “wonderfully witty and compassionate friend”.
The best-selling author was renowned for her raunchy, so-called “bonkbuster” novels, which portrayed the scandals and sex lives of wealthy country social circles, including Rivals, Riders and Polo.
She was praised for her blend of risqué storylines and critique of Britain’s class system, personified by showjumping lothario Rupert Campbell-Black.
Her children Felix and Emily said: “Mum was the shining light in all of our lives. Her love for all of her family and friends knew no bounds.
“Her unexpected death has come as a complete shock.
“We are so proud of everything she achieved in her life and can’t begin to imagine life without her infectious smile and laughter all around us.”
Image: Jilly Cooper met Queen Camilla during a reception at Clarence House in March this year. Pic: PA
Image: Jilly Cooper and daughter Emily. Pic: PA
Dame Jilly was propelled to commercial success in the 1980s, and sold 11 million copies of her books during her more than fifty-year career.
Last year, Rivals was adapted into a successful TV series, which she worked on as an executive producer.
Image: Jilly Cooper found fame in the 1980s. Pic: Nikki English/ANL/Shutterstock
Tributes to author who created ‘a whole new genre’
Dame Jilly was a long-standing friend of the Queen.
In a statement released by Buckingham Palace, she said: “I was so saddened to learn of Dame Jilly’s death last night.
“Very few writers get to be a legend in their own lifetime but Jilly was one, creating a whole new genre of literature and making it her own through a career that spanned over five decades.
“In person she was a wonderfully witty and compassionate friend to me and so many – and it was a particular pleasure to see her just a few weeks ago at my Queen’s Reading Room Festival where she was, as ever, a star of the show.
“I join my husband the King in sending our thoughts and sympathies to all her family.
“And may her hereafter be filled with impossibly handsome men and devoted dogs.”
The author’s many fans included former prime minister Rishi Sunak, who said the books offered “escapism”.
Image: Jilly Cooper with cast members from Rivals in 2024. Pic: Hogan Media/Shutterstock
‘Dame Jilly defined culture’
Her agent Felicity Blunt said: “The privilege of my career has been working with a woman who has defined culture, writing and conversation since she was first published over fifty years ago.”
She added: “You wouldn’t expect books categorised as bonkbusters to have so emphatically stood the test of time, but Jilly wrote with acuity and insight about all things – class, sex, marriage, rivalry, grief and fertility.”
The executive producers of the Disney+ adaptation, Rivals, said they are “broken-hearted” and “her legacy will endure”.
Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Alex Lamb added: “Jilly was and always will be one of the world’s greatest storytellers, and it has been the most incredible honour to have been able to work with her to adapt her incredible novels for television.”
As tributes rolled in on Monday, TV presenter Kirsty Allsopp wrote on X: “I know 88 is a good age, but this is very sad news.
“A British institution, funny, enthusiastic and self-deprecating, we don’t see enough of it these days.”
Her publisher Bill Scott-Kerr said: “Jilly may have worn her influence lightly, but she was a true trailblazer.
“As a journalist she went where others feared to tread, and as a novelist she did likewise.
“With a winning combination of glorious storytelling, wicked social commentary and deft, lacerating characterisation, she dissected the behaviour, bad mostly, of the English upper middle classes with the sharpest of scalpels.”
Image: Author Jilly Cooper with two stars of a mini TV series based on her book Riders. Pic: PA
Image: Pic: PA
The ‘unholy terror’
Born in Essex in 1937, Jilly Cooper came from a Yorkshire family known for newspaper publishing and politics.
Her writing career began in 1956 as a junior reporter on the Middlesex Independent, covering everything from parties to football.
Image: Aidan Turner played the character Declan O’Hara in Rivals. Pic: PA
She had said she was known as the “unholy terror” at school, and was sacked from 22 jobs before finding her way into book publishing.
Dame Jilly started writing stories for women’s magazines in 1968, and found her break in 1969 when The Sunday Times published a story on being an ”undomesticated” homemaker. It gave rise to a column that lasted over 13 years.
In 2019 she won the inaugural Comedy Women in Print lifetime achievement award, and in 2024 was made a dame for her services to literature and charity.
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