Palace issues rare rebuke after Diana's brother takes aim at King Charles - USA Today
In a rare statement, Buckingham Palace is pushing back against allegations Earl Charles Spencer levels against former brother-in-law King Charles in a forthcoming book about his late sister, Princess Diana.
Spencer writes in "Swan Song: Diana, My Sister," due for release Sept. 22, that days before his sister's funeral, Charles, then the Prince of Wales, hissed, "Rest assured, we'll forget her soon enough!" The excerpt was published by the Daily Mail on Sept. 16, with additional passages set to be serialized in the newspaper in the coming days.
In an unusually firm statement to the BBC, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: "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."
USA TODAY reached out to the Palace and Spencer's rep for comment.
According to the Daily Mail, Spencer says in his book that when a senior aide to Queen Elizabeth told him that Prince William, 15 at the time, and 12-year-old Prince Harry would take part in Princess Diana's funeral procession, he replied, "That's not going to happen."
He alleges that minutes later Charles called to discuss the matter, noting he had walked in the procession for his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten in 1979. When Spencer said Charles was 30 years old at the time, the prince allegedly "went nuts."
Charles, whose divorce with Diana was finalized in 1996, "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 wrote.
Spencer allegedly responded, "I can’t believe you just said that," and hung up.
Spencer was inspired "to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective" with August 2027 marking the 30th anniversary of her death, according to a news release shared by Penguin Press on Aug. 20.
"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," Spencer said. He added that in the book, he aims to "speak on Diana’s behalf and do so in an openly positive way."
In the early morning hours of Aug. 31, 1997, a car that Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Egyptian filmmaker Dodi Al-Fayed were traveling in with her bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, crashed into another vehicle and a pillar inside Paris' Pont de l'Alma tunnel.
Fayed and driver Henri Paul, who was found to be intoxicated at the time of the accident, died at the scene. The Princess of Wales, 36, died of her injuries several hours later in a hospital.
The book's release was recently beset by an apparent robbery, Penguin Random House confirmed to USA TODAY on Sept. 16. Four copies of "Swan Song" were allegedly "stolen from a parked truck in the Netherlands on the way from their printer to their warehouse," a spokesperson said in a statement.
