She stormed out of a photo shoot, complaining when the person behind the camera asked her to take off her crown. It was a great story about how
Queen Elizabeth II stormed off in a temper tantrum while famed photographer
Annie Leibovitz asked her for one more take as part of her 80th birthday celebrations.
There's just one thing wrong with it. It wasn't true. Last July, we told you how the BBC had mixed up a sequence of events in a TV documentary that appeared to show the
Queen acting like a petulant child and storming out of the room in frustration. Now that error has cost the head of the famed network his job.
Controller Peter Fincham resigned after an independent inquiry into the incident found examples of "misjudgments, poor practice and ineffective systems" at the "Beeb" under his guidance. The man who made the film also handed in his papers.
The network apologized to the Queen in the summer, admitting the footage really showed the monarch entering the room - not leaving it. The shots created such an uprorar, they never made it to air but they were put in a trailer that was widely promoted.
The inquiry found Fincham tub-thumped the controversial scene and found out later in the day it wasn't true. But his failure to immediately correct it led to his downfall. "Throughout the morning on the day after the launch, BBC news was running with a story that two or three senior BBC staff had known since the previous evening was wrong," chair Will Wyatt writes in his report. "It took too long for anyone to address this and to ask 'How did this happen in the first place?"'
Those studying the error also say Buckingham Palace press agents compounded the problem by not correcting the facts sooner.
There's been no comment on the resignations from the palace and none are expected. The Royal Family almost never issues public statements on any controversy involving one of its members.
Photo credit: Scott Barbour/Getty Images