Earl Charles Spencer has backtracked on one of his most sensational claims featured in Swan Song: Diana, My Sister during a recent interview.
In the book, Princess Diana’s brother claimed that the then-Prince of Wales sounded “giddily elated” when he called to speak to him following his sister’s death and compared his reaction to that of a lottery winner.
“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,” he wrote.
However, the 62-year-old has walked back the bombshell allegation during an interview with Laura Kuenssberg for the BBC.
“I felt there was that sort of giddy tone… I cannot be sure,” he admitted.
“I’m saying that’s what I assume from the tone is a possibility, and that’s all that I can do.”
Several people have come forward to challenge Earl Spencer’s claim that the King was anything but grieving following the Princess of Wales’ passing.
Scotland Yard’s former head of Royal Protection, who was at Balmoral with members of the Royal Family in the week after Diana’s death, assured GB News that “the mood was sombre”.
“The information I came back [with] about King Charles, as he is now, was that he was grief-stricken, along with other members of the Royal Family, and they were looking after the children,” he said, referring to Prince William and Prince Harry.
Royal commentator Victoria Arbiter has also questioned the Earl’s explosive account, telling nine.com.au: “The King went against his own mother, the Queen, to insist he fly to Paris, and commandeered a royal plane… And [his] face! My gosh, the grief that was just etched on his face.”
It comes one week after Earl Spencer was forced to apologise to Piers Morgan after he incorrectly claimed that the broadcaster was responsible for publishing pictures of Diana wearing a leotard at the gym in the Sunday Mirror, four years before her death.
“It’s all bulls*** and very, very easy bulls*** for me to prove it,” Morgan raged.
“The photographs which he says that I published were printed by the Sunday Mirror on November 7, 1993. I joined the Daily Mirror in October in 1995.
“In fact, at the time of the gym pictures, I was doing a showbiz column on the Mirror’s arch-rival, The Sun. About as far removed from responsibility for the Mirror scoop as I could possibly have been.”
Despite Spencer’s public apology to Morgan, the journalist has made it clear that he is pressing ahead with legal action.
Elsewhere in the tome, Spencer claimed that Charles told him, “We’ll forget Diana soon enough,” in another bitter phone call.
Diana’s brother says the then Prince of Wales’ comments at the time reflected “his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death”.
Buckingham Palace has since issued a rare response to the claims, with a spokesperson writing: “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 colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss.”
Earl Spencer reflected on his decision to publish the deeply personal memoir, telling readers that he wanted to correct what he says are longstanding inaccuracies about his sister and her life.
“With the 30th anniversary of Diana’s tragic death on the skyline, I’ve been inundated yet again with requests for interviews about my sister,” he said.
“This has convinced me to write down my own thoughts and memories, once and for all, rather than having the discomfort of again reading the opinions of others, many of which are based on untruths that have become accepted over time.”
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