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Nearly 30 years after Princess Diana died in a Paris car crash in 1997, the tragedy remains closely tied to public perceptions of King Charles III. Now, a new claim from Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, has returned the monarch to the center of a painful royal controversy. In his forthcoming book, “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,” Spencer recounts a tense disagreement with Charles over Prince William and Prince Harry walking behind their mother’s coffin at her funeral. In an excerpt published by the Daily Mail, Spencer said he fiercely opposed involving the young princes in the procession. Charles, however, reportedly insisted, pointing to his own experience walking behind the coffin of his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, 18 years earlier.
Spencer wrote that he reminded Charles he had been an adult when Mountbatten died — a response that allegedly sparked an emotional outburst. “Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting. Then he stopped. I assumed the pause signaled an effort to bring himself under control,” Spencer recalled. “[B]ut 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.” According to Spencer, Charles then said, “‘Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough!'” The earl said the remark stunned him into silence before he responded, “‘I can’t believe you just said that,'” and ended the call.
Buckingham Palace pushed back on the account without directly addressing the book’s allegations. “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,” the palace said in a statement reported by People.
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Charles was reportedly very jealous of the People’s Princess
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The latest Princess Diana claims arrive amid long-running speculation that Charles struggled with the overwhelming attention his then-wife attracted. Diana herself addressed the issue publicly while discussing their turbulent marriage. During her explosive 1995 “Panorama” interview, she described the response she received during a royal tour of Australia. “We’d be going round Australia, for instance, and all you could hear was, oh, she’s on the other side,” Diana said, via PBS. “Now, if you’re a man, like my husband a proud man, you mind about that if you hear it every day for four weeks.” In personal recordings featured in 2017’s “Diana: In Her Own Words,” she was even more direct, claiming Charles “took it out on me — he was jealous,” according to the Express. “I understood the jealously, but I couldn’t explain that I didn’t ask for it.”
Even so, reports have maintained that the future king was deeply shaken by news of Diana’s death. Royal biographer Tina Brown said in the 2017 documentary “Diana: 7 Days That Shook the Windsors” that Charles was devastated by the crash, as reported by Town & Country magazine. Brown also said he immediately understood the fallout he would face, adding: “He knew, instantly, that this was going to be a terrible thing, that… he will be blamed, for the death of Diana.”
In light of Charles Spencer’s revelations, Diana’s fans are absolutely infuriated with Charles and they’re letting him have it on social media. “Too bad. [She] is posthumously [more] popular than him,” one user snarked on X. But not everybody was as quick to take the earl at face value. “I’ve never been a huge fan of Charles,” another penned on Reddit, referring to His Majesty. “But I have no doubt whatsoever that he did not say this.”