True story behind Charles and Camilla's 'tampongate' phone scandal on The Crown

When we woke up this morning we didn't think we'd be obsessed with a scandal called Tampongate, but here we are.

By now we're sure you're well and truly deep into your binge of The Crown, series five on Netflix, but just in case you haven't this article contains spoilers.

Check out the trailer for the newest series here:

In the latest instalment, we see Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki star as then Prince Charles and Princess Diana, portraying so much scandal we can't take our eyes off the screen.

And we're still reeling from the episode 'The Way Ahead' which will see the 'Tampongate' scandal unravel.

For those not familiar, Tampongate refers to the leaked 1989 flirty phone call between then Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles when both parties were still married.

Dom Slike / Alamy Stock Photo

The salacious conversation wasn't released until 1993, the year after the couple had officially announced their divorce.

Still, it sent shock waves around the world, with People magazine publishing a copy of the transcript in January of that year.

So, what exactly was said on the phone?

Well, it falls somewhere between flirting and an ad for Tampax - seriously, if someone pulled this chat on a first date we'd leave.

Camilla and Charles were talking about a speech that the then Prince was giving, when the conversation takes a turn, which you can see below:

Netflix

Camilla: "Mmmm, so do I. I need you all the week. All the time."

Charles: "Oh, God. I'll just live inside your trousers, or something. It would be much easier!"

Camilla: "What are you going to turn into, a pair of knickers? ...Oh, you're, you're going to come back as a pair of knickers!"

Charles: "Or, God forbid, a Tampax! Just my luck!"

Camilla: "You are a complete idiot! Oh, what a wonderful idea!"

Charles: "My luck to be chucked down the lavatory and go on and on, forever swirling round on the top, never going down."

Camilla: "Oh, darling!"

Charles: "Until the next one comes through."

Camilla: "Oh, perhaps you could come back as a box."

Charles: "What sort of box?"

Camilla: "A box of Tampax, so you could just keep going."

Charles: "That's true."

Yep, safe to say The Crown didn't need to do a lot to this conversation to add drama to the series.

Though, West said that, after reenacting the call, he realised how 'invasive' the media was, as per ETOnline: "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."

Topics: The Crown, TV And Film

Shola Lee

Shola is a Staff Writer for the LADbible Group and a contributing writer for Warner Brothers' Wizarding World Digital and the BAFTA Crew.

@SholaLee2