King Charles has broken the Palace’s usual silence over an explosive claim involving Princess Diana, after her brother alleged the future monarch made a cutting prediction about his former wife just days after her death.
Nearly 30 years after Diana was killed in a Paris car crash at 36, Charles Spencer is revisiting the chaotic days surrounding his sister’s death in a new memoir that promises to reveal what was happening behind palace doors as the world mourned.
“Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,” set for release on Sept. 22, is the first time the 9th Earl Spencer has written at length about his sister, including the week between her death on Aug. 31, 1997, and her funeral at Westminster Abbey.
Spencer, 62, said he decided to put his memories on paper with the 30th anniversary of Diana’s death approaching, marking the first time he “has spoken openly and at length about his sister.”
“The aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective, just as I attempted to do when speaking at her funeral,” Spencer said in a press release. “As with my eulogy, I want to speak on Diana’s behalf and do so in an openly positive way.”
According to the transcript shared by the BBC, Spencer’s eulogy ended with words reminding the world that the “extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana” would “never be extinguished from our minds.”
Now, those final words carry new weight as Spencer – a former correspondent with NBC News – reveals an explosive confrontation from the days after his sister’s death – one that has now prompted an unusually sharp response from Buckingham Palace.
Earl Spencer shares bombshell claim about Diana and Charles in new book
According to Spencer, tensions erupted over whether Diana’s sons, Prince William, then 15, and Prince Harry, 12, should walk behind their mother’s coffin during the funeral procession.
Spencer claims he strongly opposed the idea, arguing that Diana would never have wanted her grieving children placed in such an intensely public position.
The disagreement eventually led to a heated telephone call with then-Prince Charles, Spencer writes, during which the future King allegedly questioned the Spencer family’s sense of duty.
The decision has remained controversial for decades, although William and Harry have since stressed that it was made collectively by the royal family.
In the 2017 BBC documentary Diana, 7 Days, William said that “it wasn’t an easy decision, and it was a collective family decision to do that.”
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done…There was that balance between duty and family and that’s what we had to do,” William said of what he described as the “long and lonely walk.”
Harry later revealed in his memoir “Spare” that “several adults were aghast,” and that his uncle had been among those fiercely opposed to the plan.
“Mummy’s brother, Uncle Charles, raised hell. ‘You can’t make these boys walk behind their mother’s coffin! It’s barbaric,’” Harry wrote, per People.
“Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting”
Spencer’s new account now reveals what he claims happened during that battle.
He writes that Charles became increasingly angry during their phone conversation before suddenly falling silent.
“Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting. Then he stopped,” Spencer writes, according to an excerpt shared by the Daily Mail.
“I assumed the pause signaled an effort to bring himself under control, but then he unleashed down the phone what I have always taken to be his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death,” Spencer shared of his alleged chat with Charles, who had divorced his sister the year before her death.
“‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough!’” Charles reportedly told Spencer, leaving him “so stunned.”
“‘I can’t believe you just said that,’ I said flatly, before hanging up,” he writes.
King Charles fires back
Buckingham Palace, which rarely responds directly to claims made in royal books, issued an unusually pointed statement within hours of the allegation becoming public.
“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,” a Palace spokesperson said.
The carefully worded response stops short of simply saying the conversation never happened, instead challenging the reliability of Spencer’s memory of it.
Its tone has drawn comparisons with Queen Elizabeth II’s famous response following Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, when allegations of racism within the Royal Family prompted the late Queen to declare that “recollections may vary.”
Palace ‘bracing for more headlines’
Royal correspondent India McTaggart believes there could be a reason the Palace chose not to let this allegation pass unanswered.
“Earl Spencer’s book is expected to contain a number of incendiary claims, and perhaps this was the palace trying to get on the front foot and get ahead of some of the allegations we expect to see,” she told NBC News.
“The palace will certainly be bracing for more headlines,” McTaggart added.
What do you think of Charles Spencer’s claims about the King and his alleged behavior in the days after Princess Diana’s death? Please let us know your thoughts and pass this story along so we can hear from others!
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