The brother of Princess Diana has insisted he is not making a threat despite saying there are things about the King he ‘chose not to include’ in his bombshell new memoir
Earl Spencer appeared to make a veiled threat to King Charles by claiming he knows “lots of things about the King” but chose not to put them in his bombshell new memoir.
Princess Diana ’s brother is due to release his controversial book, called ‘ Swan Song: Diana, My Sister ‘ tomorrow, nearly 30 years after his sister was killed in a car crash.
The Earl has made a series of claims about the King in a new memoir, including the allegation that he said “we’ll forget her soon enough” in the days after Diana’s death. It prompted a response from Buckingham Palace, which said “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason”.
In an extraordinary interview with the BBC, the Earl was asked about his motivations for writing the book, saying it was his “duty… as an eyewitness to history”.
And he added: “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.”
When interviewer Laura Kuenssberg challenged him that it did sound like a threat, he added: “No, not at all a threat, it’s just the reality. If I was a salacious writer and wanted to write that sort of thing, I have plenty of other things I could have said.”
Meanwhile, in a separate interview with US network, Earl Spencer insisted he was not ‘bitter’ towards the royals – adding the book could have been “more bitter”.
He said: “I’m absolutely not bitter. I can tell you. If I was bitter, this book would be… more bitter. I’m not really in the business of resentment. I’m at the stage in my life where the past is the past, and some of it’s worth recording.
“But I don’t hold resentments, primarily because I don’t think it’s good for the person to do that themselves. I’ve let a lot go. I’m not a vengeful, resentful person. I’m just an eyewitness to history.”
It comes after Spencer accused the King of gaslighting him and called the palace’s response a “rather poor imitation of the ‘recollections may vary’ quote” – the late Queen’s response to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s allegations in their Oprah Winfrey interview, The Mail on Sunday reports.
He said: “It is not every day you wake up to find you’ve been gaslit by the King. 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.”
In response to the claims made in the memoir, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said on Wednesday: “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.”
He also dragged Diana’s sons Princes William and Harry into the row, suggesting they would not be “surprised” over the claims and contents in his soon-to-be released memoir.
He told the BBC: “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.”
Meanwhile, the Earl also said he considers Swan Song: Diana, My Sister to be his final take on the situation. He explained: “I’m not here to bang on about Diana; this is my final word, a celebration of her, and I will step off into the sunset now and not be available for comment.”
Asked if he supports this monarchy, he said: “I do”. Put to him that he has a funny way of showing it, he said: “Well, I’m not dealing with King Charles as monarch in this book. This is all 30-odd years ago, and what was said and done then.”
The earl then became emotional as he said he misses his sister “every day”, adding: “That’s the thing with sibling loss, you never get over it.”
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