By Page Six | Created at 2026-09-16 20:58:09 | Updated at 2026-10-07 14:37:36
2 weeks ago
King Charles III issued a critical response to a forthcoming memoir by Princess Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, warning that grief can cloud judgment and memory.
Spencer, the 9th Earl Spencer, alleged in his bombshell book, “Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,” that the monarch vowed his ex-wife would be forgotten “soon enough” shortly after she died in a 1997 car crash at the age of 36.
The author described the alleged remark as the monarch’s “pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death,” per the Daily Mail.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson, however, warned that the loss of the Princess of Wales could have muddled Spencer’s memory.
“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 rep told Page Six.
Diana and Charles, now 77, tied the knot in 1981 and divorced in 1996, the year before she tragically died at the age of 36 in a car crash after being chased around Paris by paparazzi.
The late royal was with her driver, Henri Paul, and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, when the fatal crash occurred in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel.
Elsewhere in the book, Spencer reflected on Diana’s funeral at Westminster Abbey in London on Sept. 6, 1997.
He alleged that days before, he received a call from the now-late Queen Elizabeth II’s aide, saying that Diana and Charles’ sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, who were 15 and 12 at the time, respectively, would not be participating in the funeral procession.
“That’s not going to happen,” Spencer claimed he told the aide.
Ultimately, the boys participated in the procession with Spencer, Charles and the now-late Prince Philip.
In the book, Spencer detailed Charles and Diana’s relationship from their royal wedding at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London to the downfall of their marriage.
The exes’ marriage was plagued by extramarital affairs on both ends, with Charles’ being with his now-wife, Queen Camilla.
Camilla and Charles eventually married in 2005 following her divorce from Andrew Parker Bowles in 1995.
An insider told Page Six that Harry was aware of the allegations in Spencer’s book, and the claims “didn’t come as a shock.”
The Duke of Sussex spoke with his uncle about the book when the latter stopped by the Spencer ancestral estate, Althorp, in July, when Harry was visiting the UK with his wife, Meghan Markle, and their kids, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
Spencer’s book will be released on Sept. 22.
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