Everything We Know About Princess Anne's Affair Drama

Much has been said about the historical accuracy of Netflix's royal family-centered drama series "The Crown." People were particularly upset over the show's fourth season, with at least one U.K. official even calling on Netflix to label the series as "fiction" on its service. However, while "The Crown" certainly stretches the truth in a lot of cases, one thing Season 4 apparently got pretty spot-on was its brief depiction of Princess Anne's alleged affair with police officer Sergeant Peter Cross, a married man who served as her bodyguard. But what exactly do we know about the Princess Royal's affair drama?

The fourth season of "The Crown," which primarily takes place during the 1980s, sees Princess Anne (played by Erin Doherty) all but confesses to Queen Elizabeth II (played by Olivia Colman) that she had an intimate relationship with Cross, despite being married to Mark Phillips at the time. By all accounts, this plot point is indeed based in reality. It was in the early '80s that Harry Arnold, a reporter for The Sun, first broke the story after being tipped off by a trusted source. To this day, Princess Anne herself has never publicly addressed the alleged affair. However, Cross came forward in 1984 to say it was all true, selling his story to The News of the World. According to Cross, the two began an extramarital relationship in 1980 — one year after he was first tasked with guarding the Princess Royal, and seven years into Anne's marriage to Phillips.

Apparently, Peter Cross also confirmed his affair with Princess Anne in a private conversation with reporter Harry Arnold two years after Arnold's original scoop. In a 2002 British TV documentary, Arnold claimed that Cross had told him, "When you wrote that story I was still married and I couldn't admit it, but yes, it was true" (via the Express). Arnold also claimed that Princess Anne ended her relationship with Cross once the story got out. Anne was reportedly devastated when the two parted ways, though she remained married to Mark Phillips for several years after the fact.

Princess Anne and Phillips eventually separated in 1989, around the time it was first reported that Anne had gotten involved with Timothy Laurence. Anne and Phillips formally divorced in 1992, and the Princess Royal married Laurence that same year in what would prove to be a rather taboo wedding between the two. Still, Anne and Laurence are apparently in it for the long haul. They celebrated their 32nd anniversary in December 2024.

As for Cross, he and his wife divorced in 1982, and he remarried in 1985. Recognizing the irreparable damage the scandal had done to his law enforcement career, he left the force and began selling insurance. By the time "The Crown" depicted the alleged affair in 2020, it was clear Cross was ready to leave all the drama behind him. "Yeah, I've watched it, but I've got no more to say," he told The Sun at the time.