Earl Spencer Makes Fresh Claim About King Charles’ Reaction To Diana’s Death

Nearly three decades after Princess Diana died, her brother, Earl Spencer, has offered a deeply personal account of the telephone call he says he received from King Charles in the aftermath of the fatal Paris car crash.

In excerpts from his forthcoming memoir, ‘Swan Song: Diana, My Sister’, Spencer recalls being woken by a call from their sister Jane at his home in Cape Town on August 31, 1997.

He writes that the then-Prince Charles later telephoned him after learning that Diana had died.

According to Spencer’s recollection, Charles sounded strikingly different from the other people who contacted him that morning.

“Unlike my other callers, who were stunned, barely able to articulate their condolences and offers of help, he sounded giddily elated – like a lottery winner, I remember thinking at the time,” Spencer writes.

He also recounts Charles telling him that he had broken the news to Princes William and Harry in their bedrooms at Balmoral.

The account follows another controversial passage from the memoir in which Spencer alleges that Charles told him after Diana’s death, “We’ll forget her soon enough.”

Buckingham Palace has rejected the credibility of that recollection, saying the King is mindful that grief can affect memory and judgement many years after an event.

The memoir also revisits Diana’s marriage, her struggles in later life and Spencer’s belief that she experienced ADHD and rejection-sensitive dysphoria.

​‘Swan Song: Diana, My Sister’ is scheduled for publication on September 22.