Earl Spencer is due to release his controversial memoir, called ‘Swan Song: Diana, My Sister’ next week – nearly 30 years after the Princess was killed in a car crash.
Princess Diana’s brother has hit out at the Royal Family with more claims against the King as he drags Prince William and Prince Harry into the explosive row.
Earl Spencer is due to release his controversial memoir, called ‘Swan Song: Diana, My Sister’ next week – nearly 30 years after the Princess was killed in a car crash.
The aristocrat has stirred up controversy with several TV interviews in which he made a series of claims against his former brother-in-law. Buckingham Palace responded to an explosive claim, from earlier this week, that King Charles said “we’ll forget her soon enough” after Diana’s death.
In response, the Palace said “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason”.
The Mirror reports that Earl Charles Spencer, in an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg released in full on Sunday, opened up about his sister’s death while also commenting on his nephews Prince William and Prince Harry. Here are several bombshell claims from Earl Spencer’s TV interview:
Charles had a ‘giddy tone’ after Diana died
Earl Spencer claimed the then-Prince Charles had a “giddy tone” and sounded like a “lottery winner”.
“He was telling me how he had told the boys, William and Harry, at Balmoral and broken the news to them. And, I felt, as I say in the book actually, I felt there was a sort of giddy tone. I had a lot of calls that day from people who cared, who were stunned like we all were and I just felt there was a lightness in his tone about Diana’s death that really jarred with me.”
When asked about claims in his book that the King was “giddily elated like a lottery winner”, the Earl said: “I’m reporting, every word of this book, I report exactly as I saw it and felt it at the time and I was surprised at the giddiness of his tone. That’s what I am recording there.”
Earl initially told crash was ‘not too serious’
The Earl said he had been living in Cape Town, South Africa, at the time and was called in the middle of the night by his sister Lady Jane Fellows and told Diana was in a crash.
He said: “I got a call in the middle of the night and it was my sister Jane and she said ‘don’t worry Diana’s been in a car crash but it’s not too serious’.”
Earl Spencer said he watched the news throughout the night and got more “distressing” calls from home until his sister’s husband, who worked as the late-Queen’s private secretary, revealed Diana had died. He said: “It started… as a little prang, and then it became a broken leg, perhaps a head injury, and then death.”
Book will ‘not be a surprise to William and Harry’
The Earl suggested Diana’s sons would not be “surprised” over the claims and contents in his soon-to-be released memoir.
Earl Spencer said: “I don’t like to talk about what I’ve been speaking about to William and Harry but this will not be a surprise to them I will tell you that. These words will not be a surprise to them.”
On the two Princes, the Earl also claimed Diana “wouldn’t have wanted” her young sons to walk behind her coffin at her funeral. Earl Spencer also claimed he argued with the then-Prince Charles over this decision over a phone call.
In the BBC interview, he claimed: “I said, ‘Well, of course not, sir, she wouldn’t want it’. And then he said, ‘Well, I walked behind Lord Mountbatten’s coffin.’ And I said, ‘Yes, but you were 30 and he wasn’t your mother’.”
Coverage of Harry & Meghan having ‘cancerous influence’
Earl Spencer claimed the treatment of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex bears “echoes” of what his sister experienced.
He said his sister was “really brought low” by “criticism” she received from the media. He added it was a “pity” to see “echoes of that” in the coverage of Harry and Meghan.
Earl Spencer added: “I’m not here to speak for Harry and Meghan, but for anyone who’s being destroyed in this way daily, it must be such a cancerous influence in their life.”
‘I know lots of things about Charles not in the book’
The Earl revealed his motivations behind writing this book nearly 30 years after Diana’s death and said he felt he had a “duty” and was an “eyewitness to history”.
“This was very much a spur for me to write this now. Both of my parents died in their 60s, I’m in my 60s. I’m aware of mortality and I wanted to just put things down once and for all which were true.”
Earl Spencer, adding it was not a threat, said: “I know lots of things about the King which I chose not to include in the book because they were not relevant.”
Earl hopes ‘William and Harry resolve now’
Earl Spencer said he did not take sides between his nephews and said: “I hope one day it’s resolved, but I don’t know all.
“I certainly don’t know what’s been done in the finer detail and so I would feel intrusive if I got more involved than to say of course a mother would want her two sons to be happy together and love each other.”
Buckingham Palace, on Wednesday, in response to the Earl’s earlier claims said: “While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss.”
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