Earl Spencer, who releases his controversial memoir Swan Song: Diana, My Sister on Tuesday, insists he is “not in any way compromising” the privacy of his nephews Princes William and Harry
Princes William and Harry did not receive advance copies of their uncle Earl Spencer’s explosive book about their mother, Princess Diana and found out about its contents when excerpts were published, it has emerged.
It comes as Spencer insists he is “not in any way compromising their privacy” by releasing his controversial memoir called ‘Swan Song: Diana, My Sister ‘ tomorrow, nearly 30 years after Diana was killed in a car crash.
Extracts from the book have sparked a war of words between the Earl and Buckingham Palace after it emerged that it contains allegations that the King, then Prince Charles, said “we’ll forget her soon enough” in the days after Diana’s death.
Spencer defends explosive Diana book claims in new TV interview
It prompted an extraordinary response from Buckingham Palace, which said “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason”. Other excerpts from the Earl’s book claim the King was “giddily elated” after Diana’s death and that on the day of Diana’s funeral, he was concerned at “the lack of obvious care for Harry” and that the young prince was “allowed to spin out of control”.
In a new interview to promote the book with American breakfast TV show, Good Morning America, he told how neither William nor Harry had read the book as he “wanted the sole responsibility of his words to rest only on his shoulders.”
ABC correspondent Maggie Rulli, who interviewed Spencer at his Althorp estate, said it meant the two brothers only found out what the book contained “in the excerpts just like the rest of us”.
Earl Spencer says Harry was “completely fine” about Diana book
Meanwhile, in a new interview with US publication People magazine, Spencer claims he told William, Harry and his two sisters Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, that he would be releasing a book all at the same time – and that his nephew Harry “was completely fine about it”.
He said: “He said, I hope there’s nothing embarrassing about him in it. I said, ‘There isn’t.’ I think they were actually worried where I was going up to with the book. It pretty much ends in 1997 with Diana’s death, and there’s a tiny postscript by the grave. So I think there was this, ‘Gosh, what’s he written about?’
“And I think it’s natural that people so in the public eye are concerned how they will come across in the book. But I could reassure both of them that they’re of course in the book, but really as examples of two little boys who had the most exceptional mother, I’m not in any way compromising their privacy at all.”
He also told the magazine that he was concerned about how they would regard the portrayal of their father the King in the book.
‘I was really shocked’
But he added: “I mean, I don’t want this to sound loaded, but there was an awful lot I could have put in and I didn’t. If I wanted to write a scandalous book about Prince Charles or King Charles as he is now, it would really be a jaw-dropper, but I’m not here to do that.”
After the first excerpts from the book emerged last week, Buckingham Palace put out a statement, which read: “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.”
And in his new interview on American TV today, Spencer doubled down on his claims he was being “gaslit” by the King claiming the statement was “not only condescending, but not straight”.
He added: “I was really shocked, actually. And actually with a sort of PR hat on, I thought ‘that’s a strange move’. “But as a brother speaking the truth – it’s not my truth, it’s the truth – I was offended. And that’s why I will always stick by the truth, and I think it was a mistake for them to say that.”
Announcing the book last month, the Earl said: “With the 30th anniversary of Diana’s tragic death on the skyline, I’ve been inundated yet again with requests for interviews about my sister.
“This has convinced me to write down my own thoughts and memories, once and for all, rather than having the discomfort of again reading the opinions of others, many of which are based on untruths that have become accepted over time.”
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