The 9th Earl Spencer, Princess Diana’s brother, called a recent statement from the palace “astonishingly provocative and below the belt”
Credit: Amanda Edwards/WireImage
NEED TO KNOW
- Charles Spencer has accused King Charles of “gaslighting” him over claims he makes in his new memoir about the death of his sister, Princess Diana
- The earl’s response comes after the palace issued a rare statement suggesting grief may affect Spencer’s memory of events surrounding Diana’s death
- Spencer’s book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister — which is set to be published on Sept. 22 — includes personal stories and new revelations about the late princess
Charles Spencer says he was “gaslit by the King” following Buckingham Palace’s public response to claims he makes in his new memoir about his sister Princess Diana.
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, the 9th Earl Spencer, 62, addressed the palace’s rare response to claims in his new memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, about a heated conversation with the future King Charles following Diana’s 1997 death.
“It is not every day you wake up to find you’ve been gaslit by the King,” Spencer said. “It was astonishingly provocative and below the belt because it was essentially trying to say I’d lied without the King being able to deny what I’d said.”
“I also thought it was a rather poor imitation of the ‘recollections may vary’ quote, which was a much more elegant way of putting things, but in these circumstances entirely out of place,” he continued, referring to Queen Elizabeth’s response to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle after their 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Credit: Amanda Edwards/WireImage
Earlier this week, the Daily Mail published the first preview of Spencer’s book, in which he recounts a conversation he had with the future King Charles amid funeral arrangements for Diana after her 1997 death.
During the conversation, Spencer recalled Charles, 77, telling him, “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough!”
A palace spokesperson issued a rare statement shortly after the preview was shared: “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 color memory in ways others do not recognize, even many years after such a loss.”
Spencer doubled down on his recollections in a BBC interview published on Friday, Sept. 18. When asked about the palace’s comment, he replied, “I’m telling the truth.”
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After recounting the story, BBC host Laura Kuenssberg noted that Buckingham Palace denied the account, to which Spencer replied, “But they haven’t actually, Laura. They’ve sort of smudged that one, haven’t they? They’ve said that recollections may vary.”
He continued in part, “I’ve only ever had two calls on the line with Prince Charles at any stage of my life. I was hyper alert to what he was saying, and those are precisely the words that he said, and I promise that to you now. Genuinely, that is what he said. I don’t hear him saying he didn’t say that.”
Asked whether he had evidence to back up the claim, Spencer said he told family and friends “straight away,” “because it was so monstrous.”
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Spencer told the Mail on Sunday that his “motivation in this book has been to tell the truth about Diana and all she had to put up with in her public life through the eyes of the brother who grew up with her.” He denied that he wrote Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, because he was motivated by money.
“Along the way I’ve been able to deal with various myths that have grown up which needed to be dealt with once and for all,” he continued. “I’m in my sixties, neither of my parents made it to 70, and I wanted to do this while I could.”
“Money has never even been the remotest consideration in my choosing to write my tribute to Diana,” Spencer added. “Diana always had an expression which is don’t judge others by yourselves — and I think this applies to anyone who accuses me of something so ridiculous.”
Spencer’s book about his late sister was announced last month and is set to be released on Tuesday, Sept. 22. The book marks the first time he speaks “openly” and “at length” about Diana, and he said he was inspired to write it after being “inundated” with interview requests as the 30th anniversary of Diana’s death approaches next summer.
Some of the biggest revelations to come from early excerpts of the book include Spencer’s claim that the future King Charles sounded “giddily elated” when they spoke over the phone in the hours after Diana’s death, the heated exchange between Spencer and Charles over Prince William and Prince Harry walking in her funeral and Princess Diana’s claim that her husband was “in love with his valet.”
After recording the audiobook, Spencer recounted the experience in a Sept. 11 Instagram post, calling Swan Song the “most personal” book he’s ever written.
“At heart, this is a brother’s simple tribute to an extraordinary sister,” he wrote. “When I finished the recording, I thought: ‘That is exactly what I wanted and needed to say — and she would, I reckon, have approved of every word.’ ”
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