Friday, September 18, 2026 - The brother of the late Princess Diana, Charles Spencer, has claimed in his forthcoming memoir that King Charles told him days after her death that “we’ll forget her soon enough,” according to an extract published on Wednesday by the Daily Mail.
Spencer claimed that Charles. then Prince of Wales, launched
into a “stream of anger” over the phone after he argued that his sister would
not have wanted William and Harry to take part in her funeral procession.
The late Princess of Wales died in August 1997 after
suffering internal injuries resulting from a high-speed car crash in Paris. Her
sons, ages 15 and 12 at the time, walked in the funeral procession days later.
Buckingham Palace pushed back against the claims by Spencer.
In an unusually strong statement that attributed a reaction directly to the
King, the palace suggested that Spencer’s judgment had been hampered by his
grief.
“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 color memory in ways others do not
recognize, even many years after such a loss,” a palace spokesperson said in a
statement.
A spokesperson for Penguin Random House confirmed to CNN that
the passages quoted from the book are accurate. The Daily Mail obtained
exclusive rights to publish excerpts as part of a series starting on Thursday,
according to the paper, which has described the book as “explosive.”
Princess Diana's sons, William and Harry, with their father
Charles and uncle Charles Spencer outside Westminster Abbey on the day of their
mother's funeral service, September 6, 1997.Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana
Archive/Hulton Royals Collection/Getty Images
Spencer wrote about the tense phone call in his book, which
publishes next week and is expected to include heavy criticism of the royal
family.
“Prince Charles continued his stream
of anger, without me interrupting. Then he stopped,” Spencer wrote. “I assumed
the pause signaled an effort to bring himself under control, but then he
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.”
“‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll
forget her soon enough!’” Spencer wrote. “‘I can’t believe you just said that,’
I said flatly, before hanging up.”
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