The man who broke into the Queen’s Buckingham Palace bedroom in 1982 has criticised Netflix for making him ‘too ugly’ in The Crown.
Michael Fagan, now 70, who came face-to-face with Her Majesty after climbing the railings of her London residence, also said Tom Brooke, the actor who played him has ‘no charisma’ and needed to be ‘better looking’.
Fagan, who lives in north London, appears in the fifth episode of The Crown, which documents his real-life 1982 Buckingham Palace break-in.
Michael Fagan (pictured left, aged 32), who came face-to-face with Her Majesty after climbing the railings of her London residence in 1982, said Tom Brooke (pictured right), the actor who played him in the fifth episode, has ‘no charisma’
The North Londoner (pictured in 2006) noted several incorrect moments which he said made the portrayal ‘complete fiction’ – including how the performer creeps around corridors
Speaking to The Sun, Fagan noted several incorrect moments which he said made the portrayal ‘complete fiction’ – including how the performer creeps around corridors.
‘I wasn’t avoiding anyone — I was looking for the Queen. If anyone had turned up, I would have just said I wanted to talk to her,’ Fagan recalled.
In the drama, Fagan accidentally smashes a valuable vase but he told the publication that the scene was ‘totally made up’ since he would’ve paid for anything if he’d broken it.
Tom Brooke’s Fagan is also seen downing an entire bottle of wine, but the real-life intruder says he only finished half of it in the office of Prince Charles’s private secretary.
On the show, the Queen is seen being woken up by Fagan, but the out-of-work painter and decorator said she was wide awake when he entered the room and questioned what he was doing there before going off to fetch someone.
Viewers also witness Fagan asking the monarch for a cigarette, but he said he would never have been so cheeky or disrespectful.
Fagan told the publication: ‘He’s much more ill-mannered and threatening than I was. I was a bit dumbstruck after walking in on her like that.
‘I wasn’t avoiding anyone — I was looking for the Queen. If anyone had turned up, I would have just said I wanted to talk to her,’ Fagan (pictured) recalled
In the drama, Fagan accidentally smashes a valuable vase but he told the publication that the scene was ‘totally made up’ since he would’ve paid for anything if he’d broken it. Pictured: Buckingham Palace
‘I was taken aback when I saw Brooke playing me. They could have surely found someone who looks a bit like me. I’m actually better looking and he seems totally charmless.’
Fagan said he was upset that no one from the drama contacted him before they made the televised version of the incident.
MailOnline has contacted Netflix for comment.
In July 1982, Fagan, then 32, scaled the palace’s 14ft parameter wall for the second time in two months, shinned up a drain pipe and climbed through an unlocked window, wandering in on the monarch.
It was one of the worst royal security blunders in modern history, which led the then-home secretary Willie Whitelaw to offer the Queen his resignation. She didn’t accept.
Fagan (pictured in 1987) said he was upset that no one from the drama contacted him before they made the televised version of the incident
Fagan was arrested but wasn’t charged with trespassing because it was a civil offence and would have compromised the Queen’s role as head of state if she had to appear in court to give evidence.
He was charged with burglary after quaffing a bottle of expensive red wine in the palace but was acquitted after a trial at the Old Bailey in September 1982. He was then sent to a psychiatric hospital for three months.
An out-of-work painter and decorator with convictions for heroin dealing and a number of petty crimes, Fagan was struggling after the breakdown of his marriage – his wife, Christine, had left him just weeks earlier.
In a 1993 radio interview Fagan told listeners: ‘The Queen, to me, represented all that was keeping me down and [my] lack of voice… I just wanted her to know what it feels like to just be an ordinary chap trying to make ends meet.’
Intruder: The fifth episode of series opens with global news reports of a break-in at Buckingham Palace: Michael Fagan had climbed over a fence and into the palace grounds, before scaling a drainpipe and entering the royal quarters
Civilised conversation: The pair discuss Fagan’s concerns surrounding class, employment and Thatcher, and the Queen gives him a listening ear. They are only interrupted when the maid brings in some tea and fetches a police officer
But unlike the dramatic scene shown in The Crown, there was no long conversation between Fagan and the Queen at her bedside, and no discussion of Margaret Thatcher’s policies.
In an interview with the Telegraph last week, he revealed: ‘I pulled back the curtain and she said, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘She talks like me and you, normal. Well, I sound a bit common so maybe not like that. But very normal.’
In a 2012 interview with The Independent, Fagan said: ‘She went past me and ran out of the room; her little bare feet running across the floor… Her nightie was one of those Liberty prints and it was down to her knees.’
The Queen attracted the attention of a maid, and together they ushered Fagan into the pantry on the pretext of supplying him with a cigarette.