Nearly three decades after Princess Diana’s death, one of the most painful chapters in modern royal history has been reopened — this time by her own brother.
Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, makes a series of striking allegations in his forthcoming memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, about what happened inside the royal family in the hours and days after Diana died in Paris on August 31, 1997.
Among the most dramatic is Spencer’s recollection that then-Prince Charles sounded “giddily elated” during a telephone conversation after Diana’s death — a description Spencer compared to the excitement of a lottery winner. (ABC News)
It is a startling allegation, but an important distinction has been lost in some viral headlines: there is no independent evidence establishing that Charles was actually happy about Diana’s death. The description reflects Spencer’s memory and interpretation of Charles’s tone during an intensely traumatic moment almost 30 years ago.
And now Buckingham Palace has responded.
The Claim Comes From Diana’s Brother
Spencer’s memoir, due to be published on September 22, revisits his relationship with his older sister and the extraordinary week following her death.
Diana was 36 when the car carrying her and Dodi Fayed crashed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris.
Her death triggered an enormous public outpouring of grief.
Spencer was in South Africa when he learned what had happened. In his account, he describes receiving calls from people struggling to comprehend the news.
Then came a conversation with Diana’s former husband.
Spencer says Charles sounded strikingly different from his other callers, describing him as “giddily elated.” (ABC News)
Again, that is Spencer’s characterization, not an established account of Charles’s actual feelings.
The King has not said that he was elated by Diana’s death.
Then Came an Even More Disturbing Alleged Remark
Another confrontation described by Spencer occurred while Diana’s funeral was being organized.
One of the most emotionally charged questions concerned Prince William and Prince Harry.
William was 15.
Harry was just 12.
Should two grieving boys be expected to walk publicly behind their mother’s coffin?
Spencer says he strongly opposed the idea.
According to his memoir, the argument with Charles became heated. During it, Spencer alleges that Charles made an extraordinary comment about Diana:
“Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.”
Buckingham Palace has challenged Spencer’s recollection rather than accepting the alleged quotation as accurate. (Reuters)
And that is where this decades-old private dispute suddenly became a very public one.
Buckingham Palace Broke Its Usual Silence
The royal household generally avoids responding line by line to books about the monarchy.
This time, it responded.
In a statement reported by Reuters, Buckingham Palace said the King was mindful that intense grief can affect reason, judgment and memory long after a loss. (Reuters)
The wording was extraordinary precisely because it did not simply say “no comment.”
It directly questioned the reliability of Spencer’s recollection.
That is the “unforeseen line” behind some of the viral headlines — although it is more accurate to say that Buckingham Palace issued the statement on the King’s behalf, rather than Charles personally making a spontaneous public remark.
Spencer Immediately Pushed Back
The Palace’s intervention did not end the controversy.
It intensified it.
Spencer subsequently told the BBC that he stood by his account.
“I’m telling the truth,” he said, insisting that the alleged words were precisely what he remembered Charles saying. (Sky News)
Spencer argued that he was especially alert during the conversation and that he discussed the remark with other people at the time because it had shocked him.
The Palace, meanwhile, has presented a very different view of the reliability of those memories.
That leaves a fundamental problem.
The conversation happened privately.
Nearly 30 years have passed.
And there is no recording publicly available that could independently resolve the disagreement.
Now Spencer Says He Has Been ‘Gaslit by the King’
By September 20, the disagreement had become even more personal.
Spencer accused the King of “gaslighting” him after reading Buckingham Palace’s response, describing the statement as “astonishingly provocative.”
He again insisted that his account was truthful. (People.com)
That language illustrates just how far the dispute has moved beyond a simple disagreement about a memoir.
The brother of the late Princess of Wales is publicly challenging the sitting King over what happened during perhaps the most traumatic week in both families’ modern history.
And Spencer’s accusations don’t stop with one telephone conversation.
The Funeral Procession Remains at the Center of the Story
One of the enduring images from September 6, 1997, is that of William and Harry walking behind Diana’s coffin.
Beside them were Prince Philip, then-Prince Charles and Charles Spencer.
The boys’ participation has been debated for decades.
Harry has spoken publicly about how extraordinary it was for a 12-year-old child to make that walk while millions watched.
Spencer now says he fought against the idea before the funeral.
According to his account, he believed forcing the boys to participate would place an unacceptable burden on them during profound grief. (People.com)
The disagreement over that decision is the context in which Spencer says Charles made the alleged “forget her” remark.
But there are competing recollections surrounding the funeral arrangements.
William has previously described the final decision to walk as a collective family choice. (People.com)
Charles Did Travel to Paris to Bring Diana Home
Whatever private arguments occurred afterward, the historical record also contains actions that complicate any simple picture of Charles’s response.
After Diana’s death, Charles traveled to Paris with Diana’s sisters to accompany her body back to Britain.
William and Harry were at Balmoral when their mother died.
Charles had the devastating responsibility of telling his sons what had happened.
He then walked beside them behind Diana’s coffin.
None of those facts reveal precisely what Charles felt privately.
But they are important context when considering an allegation based on the remembered tone of one telephone call.
A person’s emotional state cannot reliably be reconstructed nearly three decades later simply from someone else’s description of how their voice sounded.
Diana and Charles Had Been Divorced for Only a Year
The tragedy also occurred remarkably soon after the end of their marriage.
Charles and Diana married in 1981.
Prince William was born in 1982 and Prince Harry in 1984.
Their marriage deteriorated publicly, and the couple formally separated in 1992.
Their divorce was finalized in August 1996.
Diana died almost exactly one year later.
The breakdown of the marriage had been exceptionally public, with both eventually acknowledging infidelity.
By 1997, Charles’s long relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles was already widely known.
That complicated history forms the backdrop to Spencer’s interpretation of the telephone call.
But interpreting motive is precisely where caution is necessary.
Spencer can describe what he remembers hearing.
He cannot definitively establish what Charles was privately thinking.
Diana’s Death Changed Britain Overnight
Whatever tensions existed behind palace walls, the reaction outside them was unmistakable.
People gathered outside Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace.
Flowers accumulated in enormous quantities.
Television networks abandoned normal programming.
Public grief became so intense that the monarchy itself came under extraordinary pressure over its initial response.
Queen Elizabeth II eventually addressed the nation in a live television broadcast on September 5.
The following day, Diana’s funeral was watched by a vast global audience.
The scale of the response made one thing particularly clear: Diana was not about to be forgotten.
Nearly 30 Years Later, Diana Still Has Extraordinary Cultural Power
If anything, the timing of Spencer’s memoir demonstrates how enduring that fascination remains.
Diana died in 1997.
Yet stories about her relationships, clothes, children and final years continue to generate worldwide attention.
This month, another piece of Diana history returned to public view.
The famous black Christina Stambolian dress she wore in June 1994 — commonly called her “revenge dress” — has been displayed by Sotheby’s ahead of an auction.
Diana wore the off-the-shoulder dress on the same evening that Charles publicly acknowledged marital infidelity in a television interview.
Reuters reported that the dress is expected to tour internationally before being auctioned in December. (Reuters)
Almost 30 years after her death, an outfit can still reopen an entire chapter of royal history.
And now her brother’s book is doing the same thing on a much larger scale.
Spencer Says He Wants to Tell His Sister’s Story
The timing inevitably prompted questions about why Spencer chose to publish such painful allegations now.
He says the purpose is not simply to attack Charles.
Spencer has described Swan Song as an attempt to tell Diana’s story from the perspective of the brother who knew her long before she became one of the most famous women in the world.
He has also rejected suggestions that he is exploiting her memory.
According to Spencer, he wants to challenge what he considers myths and misunderstandings that have accumulated around his sister over the decades. (People.com)
Whether readers accept his recollections is another matter.
The Palace clearly disputes significant elements.
He Has Also Connected Diana’s Experience to Harry and Meghan
The controversy has now expanded into the current generation of the royal family.
In an interview published September 20, Spencer compared the intense media treatment Diana experienced with the scrutiny Prince Harry and Meghan have faced.
He argued that lessons should have been learned from what happened to his sister and described relentless negative press as potentially deeply damaging.
Reuters reported his comments while noting that Harry and Meghan have themselves spent years criticizing the British tabloid press. (Reuters)
That comparison is Spencer’s view, rather than an objective equivalence between the circumstances.
But it adds another layer to an already complicated moment for the monarchy.
Harry Is Back in Britain at the Same Time
The timing is remarkable.
While Diana’s brother is publicly disputing the King’s recollection of events surrounding her death, Diana’s younger son has recently returned to Britain with Meghan and their children.
Harry’s relationship with his father and especially with Prince William has been strained for years.
So a book revisiting the week of Diana’s funeral inevitably touches issues that remain deeply personal for both princes.
Harry was only 12 when he walked behind his mother’s coffin.
William was 15.
Neither chose the enormous public interest surrounding their mother’s death.
Nearly three decades later, the circumstances surrounding that day remain international news.
The Palace’s Response Is Perhaps the Most Unexpected Development
Royal memoirs containing damaging allegations are nothing new.
Normally, Buckingham Palace’s strategy is silence.
That is what makes this episode unusual.
The Palace decided Spencer’s allegation warranted a response.
And the language was pointed enough to communicate that the King does not share his former brother-in-law’s recollection.
The statement suggested grief can affect memory and judgment — essentially challenging the reliability of Spencer’s version without engaging in a detailed public argument about every alleged sentence. (Reuters)
Spencer understood the implication immediately.
And instead of retreating, he escalated.
So Was Charles Really ‘Elated’ When Diana Died?
That is the question the viral headline encourages readers to answer.
But the available evidence does not allow a definitive conclusion.
Charles Spencer says the then-Prince of Wales sounded “giddily elated” during their telephone conversation.
Buckingham Palace disputes the reliability of Spencer’s recollections, arguing that profound grief can affect memory and judgment.
There is no publicly available recording of the conversation.
There is no independent evidence establishing Charles’s emotional state at that moment.
And Spencer’s theory about why Charles might have sounded the way he remembers him sounding remains an interpretation rather than a verified explanation.
Reuters describes the allegation as Spencer’s claim, not an established fact. (Reuters)
That distinction matters.
One Family Tragedy, Two Very Different Memories
The story that emerges isn’t simply one of a king accused by his former brother-in-law.
It is also about memory.
Diana’s death was an extraordinary trauma for her sons, siblings, former husband and the people who loved her.
Charles Spencer remembers the days following her death one way.
The Palace says the King’s recollection is very different.
Almost 30 years later, there may never be a way to reconcile those accounts completely.
What is certain is that Diana’s death continues to occupy an extraordinary place in Britain’s cultural memory.
The flowers have long disappeared from outside Kensington Palace.
William and Harry are now middle-aged men.
Charles is King.
And Diana has been gone for nearly three decades.
Yet one alleged sentence from a private telephone conversation in 1997 has been enough to reopen the entire story.
This time, Buckingham Palace chose not to remain silent.
And Charles Spencer has made equally clear that he has no intention of withdrawing his version of what happened. (People.com)
For more royal family insights, explore what Prince Harry’s latest photos really show or see how Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas’ daughter Stella turns heads during a rare red carpet appearance. And if you’re curious about other stars, discover Maureen McCormick’s life after The Brady Bunch and the man who stayed by her side for 41 years.
