What is Tampongate? All About ‘The Crown’ Season 5’s Most Embarrassing Episode

The Crown Season 5 delves into many of the royal family’s most embarrassing moments, but maybe nothing is as lurid as “Tampongate.” Tampongate, or Camillagate, saw the transcription of private conversation between Prince Charles (Dominic West) and his then mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles (Olivia Williams) published in the tabloids. Soon everyone all over the world not only knew for certain that the Prince of Wales was cheating on wife Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) but that he knew what Tampax tampons were.

At the time, Tampongate torpedoed Prince Charles’s image as a picture perfect royal. It wasn’t just the admission of an affair, but the fact that the public was privy to a married royal engaging in some extremely silly pillow talk with a married woman. It hardly shows the current King Charles III and his Queen Consort Camilla in the most illustrious light. However The Crown flips the episode on its head, transforming Tampongate into a touching and (weirdly?) triumphant moment for Charles and Camilla.

Whether you’re debating diving into The Crown Season 5 or confused as to what Tampongate was, here’s your guide to the royal scandal formerly known as Camillagate…

Is Tampongate in The Crown Season 5 on Netflix?

Oh yes. Yes, Tampongate most certainly is depicted in The Crown Season 5 on Netflix.

Specifically speaking, The Crown Season 5 Episode 5 “The Way Ahead” deals with this uniquely mortifying chapter in Charles and Camilla’s romantic saga. Then again, as The Crown points out, it might not have been the scandal it seemed…

What Exactly is Tampongate, aka Camillagate?

Fans of The Crown and royal nerds alike will know that the love of King Charles III’s life is clearly his current wife Queen Camilla. However, as she was married when they met, the match was deemed impossible. His family instead pointed him in the direction of the extremely “marriageable” Lady Diana Spencer. Charles wed Diana in spite of his feelings for Camilla. Naturally this caused problems in Charles and Diana’s marriage, especially since Charles and Camilla kept in touch. In more ways than one.

While Charles and Camilla were pretty good at being discreet, in 1989, one of their private phone calls was bugged without their permission. The British press sat on the transcripts until after Charles and Diana officially separated. The conversation started off simply enough, then embraced double entendres before getting extremely explicit:

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

CAMILLA: (laughing) What are you going to turn into, a pair of knickers? (Both laugh). Oh, you’re going to come back as a pair of knickers.

CHARLES: Or, God forbid, a Tampax. Just my luck! (Laughs)

CAMILLA: You are a complete idiot! (Laughs) Oh, what a wonderful idea.

At the time, the British press called it Camillagate but it’s since been referred to Tampongate as the detail that sticks out is Charles III joking he might come back in a future life as a tampon so he could, er, be inside Camilla. It’s graphic in a puerile way that is incredibly at odds with the austere image the royals prefer to project. In an ironic twist, it’s also incredibly humanizing.

How Does The Crown Deal With Tampongate in Season 5?

The Crown Season 5 Episode 5 “The Way Ahead” opens in 1989. Prince Charles calls Camilla for advice on a speech he’s given the next day and the call is tapped by a random dude eavesdropping on radio lines. When he realizes who is talking, he hits record and attempts to sell it to The Daily Mirror. As in real life, the editors are tempted, but buy it to bury it as it’s too risky to publish.

Cut to 1992. After Diana and Charles officially separate, the tabloid decides to print the transcript as the Prince’s affair is now in the open. The Crown waits until this moment to reveal the entirety of Charles and Camilla’s conversation. We see various royals reading their scandalous exchanges, with Diana being the most devastated.

Princess Anne (Claudia Harrison) visits her brother and straight out says no one deserves this kind of treatment: to have private conversations with a lover made public. But she adds that after her initial revulsion, she was left with a surprising “residue.” She compares the conversation to “two teenagers of a certain age being so gloriously human and entirely in love.”

Charles rebounds by doing a TV interview and plunging himself into his work with The Prince’s Trust, a charity he started to help underprivileged youth. By the episode’s end, Anne is musing to her parents that Charles wasn’t felled by this scandal, proving he’s stronger than they thought. The episode ends spotlighting Charles’s successful work with The Prince’s Trust.

What are we to make of Tampongate in The Crown? Clearly Anne is meant to stand in for showrunner Peter Morgan. Yeah, it was embarrassing for Charles and “gynecological,” but it also weirdly humanized him. The Crown depicts Tampongate as a net positive for Charles.