While in New York, she attends events in her honor, and is greeted everywhere by cheering crowds. She visits a settlement house in the Lower East Side, and stays in a luxury hotel.

On her last day in New York, she visits a hospital in Harlem, and meets a little boy, who is a patient with AIDS. The doctor tells Di, “because of the stigma, the fear of the disease,” the boy is unable to find a foster home. Diana then hugs the patient in front of the cameras. It’s a heartwarming moment. So, how much of this dramatization of Diana’s New York excursion was true?

For starters, the princess did visit the Harlem in upper Manhattan and did get lots of attention for the hugging the child in the hospital. During her visit, “she picked up a child and held them for a few minutes, let a baby hold her finger, stroked the dress of a young girl and countless other acts that made the world of difference to those children.”

At the time, Dr. Margaret Heagarty, pediatric director of the Harlem Hospital, told Diana: “Your presence here and in Great Britain has shown that folks with this disease can be hugged, can be cared for,” via The New York Times. It’s safe to assume that this display of affection made a huge difference to the patients at the hospital.

Diana worked tirelessly to end the stigma surrounding AIDS. She visited hospitals and opened the first HIV/AIDS unit in London in 1987.

“AIDS does not make people dangerous to know, so you can shake their hands and give them a hug,” she said at an AIDS conference in 1991. “Heaven knows they need it. What’s more, you can share their homes, their workplaces, their playgrounds and toys. We all need to be alert to the special needs of those to whom AIDS is the last straw in an already-heavy burden of discrimination and misfortune.”

The Crown depicts Charles reacting adversely to Diana’s sympathy towards AIDS patients. He takes aim, at what he calls, the “calculated vulgarity of the antics knowing full well the headlines they would get.” He rages: “Grandstanding like that… you think we couldn’t do that too? Theatrically hug the wretched and the dispossessed and cover ourselves in glory on the front pages?”

How the Prince of Wales actually reacted to Diana’s work remains unknown, but he did not take interest her work and contribution towards HIV and AIDS. Their sons, Princes William and Harry, have taken up campaigning on the issue in memory of their mother.

Although the show depicts this happening in 1990 around the same time Margaret Thatcher loses her power as Prime Minister, this New York visit actually happened in February 1989. Untapped Cities reported that Diana’s trip was “under immense scrutiny from the American press,” so the pressure put on her in The Crown reflected real life.

She flew into JFK Airport on February 1, 1989. During her visit, Diana visited Axa Equitable Center in Midtown for a cocktail party, the Henry Street Settlement in the Lower East Side (a nonprofit that provides social services and healthcare), along with FAO Schwarz. At the iconic toy store, there was a display set up to honor England, complete with a doll wearing a Diana wedding dress.

She also attended a royal gala at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), and visited the Harlem Hospital on her last day.