The Crown Reveals Princess Diana's Sweet & Quirky Nickname For Prince William

[Note: Spoilers ahead for Season 6 of The Crown on Netflix.]

The sixth and final season of The Crown dropped on Netflix on Thursday, and it’s already shaping up to be a fraught one. The first episode opens with a depiction of the horrible car crash in Paris in 1997 that took the lives of Princess Diana and her boyfriend at the time, Dodi Fayed. One of the worst moments in modern royal history, particularly for her two beloved sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, just 15 and 12 years old at the time. It is, in fact, the scenes with her sons that are the most poignant. Especially when Princess Diana is seen waking Prince William by calling him “Wombat,” which begs the question; was this an actual nickname she used for her son? Or is this just something The Crown has added for dramatic effect?

While it’s important to remember when watching The Crown that it is a dramatization of real events, the Wombat nickname is actually real. Prince William himself admitted it in a 2007 interview with NBC News to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of his mother. “It kind of stuck with me. I can’t get rid of it now,” he said at the time. “It began when I was 2. I’ve been rightfully told because I can’t remember back that far, but when we went to Australia with our parents, and the wombat, you know, that’s the local animal, so I just basically got called that, not because I look like a wombat, or maybe I do.”

The scene in The Crown where Princess Diana wakes Prince William by softly calling him “Wombat” is actually significant for another reason. This was based on the summer of 1997, when she brought both of her sons to spend time in the south of France with Harrods owner Mohammed Al-Fayed and his son Dodi Fayed. She would eventually start seeing Dodi Fayed romantically for several weeks before the two died during a car chase in Paris in August 1997.

Princess Diana’s use of a nickname is a bit of a longstanding tradition for the royal family. Queen Elizabeth had several nicknames, as we know, and Prince William has passed on the tradition with his own children, calling his son Prince George “Tips,” his daughter Princess Charlotte “Minionette,” and Prince Louis “Lou Lou.” How fitting.