Warning: SPOILERS for The Crown Season 4, Episode 9 – “Avalanche”

The Crown season 4’s 9th episode, “Avalance” opens with Princess Diana shocking her husband Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) by performing Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” on stage at the Royal Opera House, but did that happen in real life? In short, yes, Diana really did it, but The Crown changed some of the circumstances from the true story.

“Avalanche” sets Diana’s dance number as a surprise for Charles on his 37th birthday, which would be November 1985. The Princess of Wales feigns needing to powder her nose and vanishes from their box as Charles enjoys the operatic performance on stage. Diana then stuns the audience by strutting onto the stage with ballet dancer Wayne Sleep and they perform a randy tandem dance number to Billy Joel’s pop hit. The audience is thrilled and everyone heartily applauds the Princess’s performance… except Prince Charles, who slinks into his seat because of “that grotesque, mortifying display”, which is what he describes his wife’s performance when he berates her on the car ride home.

SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY

In true life, Princess Diana did conspire with Wayne Sleep, who was her friend and dance instructor for many years, to surprise Charles. However, the real performance took place in December 1985 as a Christmas surprise for the Prince of Wales. Video exists of Princess Diana’s real performance, and Sleep later recalled to Vulture that, unlike in The Crown where the audience gasped when the Princess of Wales came on stage, the real audience at Royal Opera House didn’t believe it was Diana at first and thought it was a lookalike. After Diana won over the crowd, they gave eight curtain calls to the audience’s applause. (Charles complained that they applauded for “eight minutes” in The Crown.)

While it’s not known if Charles and Diana shared a confrontational car ride home from Royal Opera House, the real-life couple did attend a Christmas party after the performance. Sleep was also there and met the Prince of Wales, and the dancer recalled that “Everything seemed fine… [Prince Charles] had a raised eyebrow, you might say.” Still, Sleep remembers that Diana was happy he was on her side since she worried about how her husband would react to her surprise performance.

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Wayne Sleep believes that Princess Diana got the idea to perform “Uptown Girl” from Billy Joel’s music video wherein the pop singer played a “downtown guy” who chased after his then-wife Christie Brinkley, the “uptown girl”. Diana, who was only 24 at the time, was a fan of popular music and she was “hipper” than the rest of the Royal Family, including Prince Charles, who was 13 years her elder. Diana performing on stage is also an example of her rule-breaking and doing things that the Royal Family would never do since they frown on overt public displays.

Diana’s dance number is especially memorable because it’s one of the precious few moments in The Crown that the Princess of Wales is actually happy and enjoying herself. However, Charles didn’t take his birthday present in the spirit in which it was intended; rather, the Prince of Wales seethed with jealousy and saw his wife’s stunt as another way for her to show off her popularity, and he lamented that all of the newspapers would be about her, which is what she really wanted. Prince Charles’ jealousy over how the public embraced Diana began during their 1983 Australia Tour, as seen in The Crown episode 5 “Terra Nullius”, and his suspicion of her motives only worsened over time. Sadly, Prince Charles’ didn’t want Diana to be his Uptown Girl and it was one more reason why he decided to have an affair with his real love, Camilla Parker Bowles (Emerald Fennell).

The CrownSeason 4 is available to stream on Netflix.

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John Orquiola
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John Orquiola is a Features staff writer and interviewer who has been with Screen Rant for five years. He began as a director’s assistant on various independent films. As a lover of film and film theory, John wrote humorous movie reviews on his blog, Back of the Head, which got him noticed by Screen Rant. John happily became the Star Trek guy at Screen Rant and he leads Feature coverage of the various Star Trek series, but he also writes about a wide range of subjects from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Cobra Kai. His other great nerdy love is British TV series like The Crown, Downton Abbey, and Killing Eve. John can be found on Twitter @BackoftheHead if you want to see photos of the food he eats.

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