Royal family live: Earl Spencer says Harry and Meghan’s ‘unpleasant’ press treatment echoes Diana’s as he calls for Sussexes’ security

Princess Diana told her brother Earl Spencer that Mohamed Al Fayed had “dropped a hand onto her buttocks and squeezed them”, early in her romance with Dodi Fayed, according to reports.

The earl has made a series of damning claims about the King in a new memoir chronicling the Princess of Wales’ life that prompted the palace to push back, saying “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason”.

Earl Spencer said Diana “disliked” Al Fayed, the Mail Online reports.

It comes after a documentary exposing allegations of rape and sexual abuse against Al Fayed aired on the BBC two years ago.

After a week dominating the headlines, the royal war of words was the subject of comedy show SNL UK’s first sketch of the night on Saturday.

The sketch saw the cast bring back Princess Diana as an AI assistant for King Charles, mocking the monarch allegedly saying that she would be forgotten “soon enough” while arguing with Earl Charles Spencer over her funeral arrangements in 1997.

Spencer made the bombshell claim in an extract his upcoming memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, with Buckingham Palace responding by saying that “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud, reason, affect judgement and colour memory in ways others do not recognise”.

You can read all about the sketch below:

Sir Ed Davey has said “often families have these quarrels, and often they go back to things that may or may not have been said decades ago”, in regards to Earl Spencer’s claims about the King.

On BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, the Liberal Democrats leader was asked if he would agree with Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch’s statement that she does not want to take a side but is “always on the side of His Majesty”.

Sir Ed said: “I’m a huge fan of His Majesty and of the royal family and that’s why I don’t really want to comment on what’s going on there.

“All I would say, I think people who will know from their own family experience, often families have these quarrels, and often they go back to things that may or may not have been said decades ago and it can be very painful.

“I just feel sorry for the royal family that this is being played out in public.”

Earl Spencer felt it was his “duty… as an eyewitness to history” to write a new memoir chronicling the life of his sister, which has included a series of damning claims about the King.

It comes after the earl accused the King of gaslighting him after Buckingham Palace pushed back against explosive claims that Charles said “we’ll forget her soon enough” after Diana, Princess of Wales, died.

The earl has made a series of claims about the King in a new memoir chronicling the life of his sister Diana that prompted the response from Buckingham Palace, which said “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason”.

On his motivations for writing the book, the earl told the BBC it was his “duty… as an eyewitness to history”.

He said: “I’m aware of mortality and I wanted to just put things down once and for all that were true.

“This is not a threat, it’s a fact, I know lots of things about the King which I chose not to include in the book because they were not relevant.”

Bridget Phillipson said it was “not for politicians to opine on the royal family” after Kemi Badenoch said she was “always on the side of His Majesty”.

Asked whether she agreed with the Tory leader following explosive claims made in the memoir of Earl Spencer, the women and equalities minister told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “My view is that the royal family don’t comment on politics, and I think it’s not for politicians to comment on what has or hasn’t happened within the royal family.

“Clearly, these are family matters, but actually, I don’t think as politicians we should be inserting ourselves into discussions about the royal family. They don’t do that to us, and I think we owe them that responsibility in return.”

Asked whether she agreed with Earl Spencer that there were echoes of how his sister was treated by the media in the way the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are, she said: “Again, sorry to repeat myself here, but I don’t think it’s the politicians to opine on the royal family, and I won’t be doing so.”

A British royal commentator has accused Earl Spencer of failing to protect his nephews or the memory of his sister.

“In his 6 September 1997 eulogy in Westminster Abbey, Earl Spencer vowed to protect William and Harry,” journalist and radio commentator Dickie Arbiter said on X.

“His current allegations are hardly protecting his nephews nor protecting the memory of his sister 29 years after her tragic death,” he added.

Earl Spencer has said that Prince Harry and Meghan should be given official security, as they are now treated by the media much in the same way as his late sister was in the years leading up to her death.

Diana died aged 36 in a 1997 Paris car crash as photographers pursued her on motorbikes, sparking an outpouring of grief and a reckoning over whether the media bore some responsibility after it splashed details of her life across front pages for years.

Harry and Meghan have returned to live in Britain six years after they quit royal duties and moved to the US.

“From a security aspect, as an uncle who’s seen his sister die in very, very preventable circumstances, I would veer towards protection,” Charles Spencer told the BBC, citing Harry’s position as fifth-in-line to the British throne and as a former soldier.

He said the tabloid treatment of both Diana, and Harry and Meghan, could be “really, really unpleasant”, that it was “beholden on people” to learn from that experience.

Earl Spencer is the late Princess of Wales’ younger brother, and a British peer, author, journalist and broadcaster who succeeded his father as Viscount Althorp in 1992, aged just 27.

He is releasing a memoir titled Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, detailing his relationship and grief following Princess Diana’s 1997 death.

The book has sent shockwaves through the royal family after Earl Spencer claimed King Charles said “we’ll forget her soon enough” during a row about Diana’s funeral arrangements.

The allegations prompted Buckingham Palace to release an unprecedented statement, in which King Charles said he is “mindful” that grief can cloud reason and memory.

The book will be released on Tuesday.