Buckingham Palace has issued a strong rebuttal to allegations made by Earl Spencer, who claims King Charles sounded “giddily elated” upon learning of Princess Diana’s death in 1997. The accusations appear in Spencer’s upcoming memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which also asserts that the then-Prince Charles compared his late sister to a “lottery winner” on a telephone call from South Africa.
The palace spokesperson acknowledged the family’s grief but criticized the credibility of the book. “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,” the statement read, distancing the Crown from the publication’s contents.
According to excerpts published in the Daily Mail, Earl Spencer was in Cape Town when he received news of the Paris car crash from his sister Jane. He writes that while other callers were stunned, Charles sounded unusually cheerful. The memoir further alleges that Charles had informed Princes William and Harry of their mother’s death at Balmoral that morning.
Dickie Arbiter, who served as press secretary to Queen Elizabeth II during the tragedy, dismissed the claims as “hogwash.” Speaking to BBC Newsnight, he stated that Charles was “devastated” and that the allegations were contrary to his character. “There’s no way he could have ever said anything like that,” Arbiter said, adding that the King would likely be exasperated but would continue with his duties.
In addition to the claims about Charles’s reaction, the book touches on the former royal couple’s troubled marriage. Earl Spencer recounts a friend’s assertion that Charles told her before their 1981 wedding that he was happy to marry Diana but “not actually in love with her.” The memoir also suggests Diana suffered from ADHD and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, noting she contemplated suicide in her later years but was deterred by her love for her sons.
Representatives for Prince Harry declined to comment on the book. Meanwhile, the Duke of Sussex made his first public appearance since returning to the UK at the inaugural Invictus Spirit Awards in Greenwich. He was joined by members of the Irish Guards’ Band but not by his wife, Meghan Markle.
Did anyone else notice Harry avoiding comments on the book while making a public appearance? That silence is loud enough on its own.
Earl Spencer’s memoir seems like pure venting. Grief does cloud memory, as the Palace noted, but this reads more like bitterness than recollection.
I find it hard to believe Charles sounded giddy. The official timeline says he was devastated. Which narrative do we actually trust here?
Dickie Arbiter calling it hogwash is pretty strong language. Does that mean he’s personally offended or just factually correcting history?
This sounds absolutely horrifying. If true, it changes everything we thought we knew about Charles’s grief.