"The Crown" has always excelled at revealing royal stories and scandals (opens in new tab) so little known that even the most diligent researchers of the Mountbatten-Windsor family stumble upon them. But the latest installment in the Netflix series to bring the love triangle of Princess Diana (opens in new tab), Prince Charles, and Camilla Parker-Bowles to the screen offers thrilling moments and juicy secrets (opens in new tab) that have long been buried in royal history In that respect, "The Crown" is a cut above the rest. Case in point: Diana's perfectly choreographed dance to Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl," as portrayed by Emma Colin in Season 4, Episode 9, "Avalanche."

This ah-ha moment really happened, completely surprising the entire British VIP audience at the Royal Opera House, and Prince Charles was offended by his wife's lack of decorum and attention-seeking behavior. Here is the full story, from how Princess Di's "uptown girl" moment came about to its impact on the already strained marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

It was all her doing. Diana and Charles were scheduled to attend a charity event for the Friends of Covent Garden on December 23, 1985. According to Tina Brown's "The Diana Chronicle" (opens in new tab), the annual event, held to raise funds for the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet, often included funny skits and surprise celebrity appearances.

A few weeks before the 1985 event, Diana came up with the idea of surprising her husband with a dance and chose Wayne Sleep, a senior principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, as her partner as a belated birthday surprise for his 37th birthday in November of that year Sleep is reported to have been a member of the Royal Ballet's dance troupe for the past two years. Sleep told The Guardian about his first rehearsal with Diana in 2017 (opens in new tab): "We met in a rehearsal studio in west London. She was in leg warmers and a leotard. My first thought was, 'She's too tall to dance with: I'm 5'8" and she's 5'9". But I soon realized she had a great sense of humor and could have fun despite the height difference. She had already decided on the music: 'Uptown Girl' by Billy Joel."

Sleep, played by dancer Jay Webb in The Crown, joined the Royal Ballet in 1966 and quickly rose to fame both for his immense talent and his status as the shortest male dancer ever to enter the prestigious Royal Ballet School in England. Because of his short stature, he was often not cast in traditional leading roles, but his talent led many choreographers and writers to create leading roles specifically for him. Indeed, Andrew Lloyd Webber created the entire second act of his 1982 production of Song & Dance for Sleep, and the year before that, Sleep played the role of Mistfillies in the West End premiere of Lloyd Webber's Cats. [In the early '80s, Sleep first met Princess Diana when she asked him for lessons in jazz, tap, and contemporary dance as an avid ballet dancer and fan. Later, after a high-profile performance at the Friends of Covent Garden event, Sleep told the magazine that the two had become close friends

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"She came to my London shows and always showed up backstage after the performances. And she often came to my apartment in South Kensington for dinner. She would take off her shoes and we would giggle and talk about this and that. I would cook and she would do the dishes. They were both lone wolves who had to make their own way (and because of their height, did not have the traditional leading roles)."

Sadly, no video of Diana's performance exists, as the dance took place before the days of camera phones and no one thought to film the VIP event for posterity. However, a photographer from the Royal Opera House took several photos at the event (which were mysteriously published by the tabloids a decade later), and in 2017, a slew blocked the dance on CBS's "48 Hours". Between these photos and the recreation of Diana's iconic onstage moment by "The Crown," one can perhaps build a fairly solid mental picture of what her actual performance was like.

To further describe the performance, Sleep described the dance in his own words to The Guardian: "When Diana appeared, the audience gasped. Jazz, ballet, and even a kick line. At one point I did a pirouette and she pushed me down. I remember thinking, 'Don't drop the future Queen of England.'"

"Self-consciously.

According to a biography of the princess by Tina Brown, the performance was met with a standing ovation and no less than eight curtain calls. Her husband, however, may have been the only one in the audience not thrilled with the dance: he may not have gone so far as to reprimand Diana for her "grotesque and shameful appearance" as he does in "The Crown," but he reportedly behaved "indifferently, even aloof" toward his wife during the reception following the event. Brown is reported to have behaved "coldly, even brusquely" toward his wife at the reception following the event. According to Brown, Prince Charles' reaction may have been "a cold disapproval of Diana's lack of royal etiquette," or, as Sleep described it to his biographer of the crown princess, sadness that the two had been left out of the limelight after their high-profile duet the previous year, Perhaps it was both.

Of course, the most important reaction was that of the Uptown Girl herself, Princess Diana, who was thrilled with her performance. As Sleep told The Guardian, "She loved the freedom the dance gave her. A few days later I got a letter. A few days later I got a letter ...