Did Prince Philip Really Have an Affair With Russian Ballerina?
If you’re watching The Crown like most of the world, you’re just as shocked as I was when it was depicted that Prince Phillip might have had an affair with a Russian Ballerina in the mid-1950s.
As reviewed by People, “Ahead of Philip’s five-month tour aboard the royal yacht Britannia, the Queen hides a gift in her husband’s briefcase and stumbles upon a photo of a beautiful ballerina — Galina Ulanova. At the time, she doesn’t confront Philip about the photograph, but later in the episode she attends a performance of Ulanova in Giselle, and the two women knowingly eye one another several times from across the stage.”
“People have often said, ‘He must have been unfaithful,’ but there is no solid evidence for that,” Robert Lacey, the show’s historical consultant, told the magazine. “When you’ve seen the episodes, you get the feeling why people make that supposition. But there is no evidence for it… The Queen is depicted as suspecting, or believing, that something is wrong without being able to prove it. And it provokes the worst period in their relationship, without transgressing the bounds of what is proven. The show reflects that they did something about it. You see how they created a new relationship, which leads to the second batch of children [Andrew and Edward].”