How 'The Crown' Portrayed Prince Philip's Affair
During the second-season premiere of The Crown, Prince Philip is set to take off on a five-month journey aboard the royal yacht Britannia to visit the different British commonwealths and open the 1956 Olympic games in Australia. Before he goes, Queen Elizabeth tries to hide a camera in his suitcase as a surprise gift - but in doing so, she finds a picture of Russian ballerina Galina Ulanova.
In that same episode, Queen Elizabeth attends a performance of the ballet Giselle, and Ulanova is the lead ballerina. While she watches, Elizabeth and the dancer make eye contact multiple times; the Queen looks impossibly sad the entire time. After the show, someone asks the Queen whether she wants to meet Ulanova, and she declines.
These scenes mark the beginning of the show's allusions to Prince Philip being unfaithful. Throughout the rest of his five-month trek, you're led to believe Philip has affairs with locals in the different commonwealths, but it's intentionally ambiguous.
But did Prince Philip have an affair with Ulanova IRL? (Or, indeed, other affairs.) “People have often said, ‘He must have been unfaithful,’ but there is no solid evidence” Robert Lacey, The Crown's royal consultant, told People; Lacey is a British historian known for writing about the monarchy. “When you’ve seen the episodes, you get the feeling why people make that supposition. But there is no evidence for it.”
Ulanova was performing in London at the same time the episode is set, but there's no proof that she and Prince Philip even met. It's unclear whether the Queen actually ever saw Ulanova perform either, but other members of the royal family did. The scenes seem to serve, more than anything, as a conversation starter for what is widely viewed as a darker time in the royal marriage.
“The Queen is depicted as suspecting, or believing, that something is wrong without being able to prove it,” Lacey said. “And it provokes the worst period in their relationship, without transgressing the bounds of what is proven.” You can get a little glimpse of this marital strife in the trailer for season two:
That isn't the only instance of Prince Philip allegedly being unfaithful, either. Years before the time The Crown depicts, Prince Philip is rumored to have had an affair with actress Pat Kirkwood. They allegedly met on seven different occasions, the first of which Prince Philip initiated when he went to her dressing room before a performance Starlight Roof- that same night, they supposedly had dinner together privately and then danced in a London club until morning. Then-Princess Elizabeth was eight months pregnant with Prince Charles at the time.
When gossip started swirling, Kirkwood denied the affair. Prince Philip never really did, though - and Kirkwood got angry when the Palace would not release a statement officially denying a relationship: “A lady is not normally expected to defend her honor,” Kirkwood told a journalist when asked about the alleged affair. “It is the gentleman who should do that. I would have had a happier and easier life if Prince Philip, instead of coming uninvited to my dressing room, had gone home to his pregnant wife on the night in question.”
Kirkwood did, however, receive letters from Prince Philip, which she left to writer Michael Thornton after her death. Her instructions were “to show them to no one except the Duke’s official biographer, when one is appointed after his death.”
Beyond the allegations swirling around Philip and Kirkwood, then (and The Crown's Ulanova storyline), the Prince has also been linked to many other women over the years, like writer Daphne du Maurier and the cabaret star Helene Cordet, to name a few. But no such dalliances have ever been confirmed.
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